Hello, and welcome to our Blue Margin Expert Insights Series. Glad you joined us. This series is for private equity and mid market executives who want to increase enterprise value with a data first approach. I'm Blue Margin's, Director of consulting Kate Eberle. And today I'm hosting SimonMed's VP of Financial Planning and Analysis Patria, founded in 2003. SimonMed is one of the largest outpatient medical imaging and physician radiology practices in the United States. With over 200 subspecialty trained radiologists, that company operates across 11 states with over 160 facilities. Before SimonMed, Pedro was the VP of FP&A, at Frontier Communications, the Senior Director of FP & A financial services company early warning finance controller at Amazon and finance director at American Airlines and US Airways. Pedro, it's so good to have you here. Welcome.
Pedro Renteria:Yeah, happy to be here, Kate.
Kate Eberle:Awesome. Well, I wonder maybe just to get us going, if you might share a little bit more about how you got to SimonMed, a little bit about your career and what brought you to where you are today?
Pedro Renteria:Sure. So you know, I've spent most of my career in finance from what I would call FP&A to operational finance, right. So I work primarily for public companies. So I started my career in finance with the airlines. So I was with a company called America West, and then went through a couple of mergers, US Airways, and then American, and sort of, you know, grew my career from there. And then I left the airlines in 2015, after that second merger and joined a company called Early Warning, nobody really knows, except when I tell them that we were the ones who created Zelle, then I think everyone sort of perks up. So I was with him for about four years, and then moved on to Frontier Communications as their VP of FP&A. And, you know, that was during the pandemic. And I got a call two years after I joined Frontier to, you know, take a look at something that was private equity backed, and I had never really done that. Right. Again, as I mentioned, primarily public companies, large companies, it was interesting to me, it was, it was one of those things where I felt like I could really sort of put my fingers on something small enough where I could play a big role, but big enough, where I could also play a role in helping the company sort of take on that growth strategy that they wanted to do. And so American securities was a firm that purchased SimonMed back in April of 2021. And so, you know, after good conversations I decided to join in, and one of my first sort of goals was to build up an FP&A team, and part of that was also our analytics, right? So our optics into the company into our performance. And so I thought, you know, this is just a great hands on opportunity. And that's how I ended up in SimonMed. It wasn't I haven't had any experience in the healthcare industry. And I think, you know, when I think about my career, and FPGA, I really don't think you necessarily need a lot of industry experience at times. Because for the most part, the analytics, I think, become once you get the foundation fairly similar, you're sort of thinking about the business very similar than other businesses.
Kate Eberle:Yeah, certainly in the M&A seat where you're really, I mean, digging into the financial numbers, first and foremost, but you have to have the connection to the operations.
Pedro Renteria:That's right. That's it right. You can't I mean, you're basically tied to the hip with operations. And and even here at Simon, man, I think the way we think about it is, you know, John who's our CEO, him and I are, are sort of, you know, tied together because, you know, and he texts me, I think, probably a few times a week with ideas on hey, can we look at this? Can we look at that. And so, I think that's the great sort of marriage in a company, right? Is the FPN, a leader being really tied to that CEO role, with the CFO being much more leveraged for corporate matters, right, rather than operational?
Kate Eberle:Yeah, that makes sense. So just curious if you might take us through a little bit of kind of the journey SimonMed's been on in terms of developing BI, getting reports in place, and where you landed today.
Pedro Renteria:Yeah, so I, you know, I do have to give credit to the company as it as it's grown, it had in mind, right, a sort of a BI phase of its lifecycle, right. So the company had started to build a data warehouse had built a data warehouse was containing data in there. There were operational reports that were being sort of, you know, automatically generated and sent out to the organization. I think the problem though, was that that initiative was never, never really He organized, right? So it sort of became one of these things where anytime anybody wanted any kind of data, well, let's throw it into the data warehouse, right, and let's just create a report that auto generates, right. And so what you had is you just had hundreds and hundreds of reports that were out there, that nobody really knew the origin of nobody really knew, or was tracking the use of them. And so it became a little bit sort of unclean, right, the overall data warehouse was now sort of tainted with all sorts of data that nobody really knew how to best use it, right. And so the Endeavor really, to clean it up and do the work to sort of use what you had was going to be just so much of a bigger lift than if we just said, Hey, let's start over. Right. And I think when when American securities purchase the the firm, that was one of the key things that was part of their portfolios, right is essentially building out that bi that analytics layer so that, you know, people have action items, right. And so when I came in, right, the data warehouse had already sort of started to form itself, the new data warehouse, working with with the blue margin team. And really, I think the the goal was to, to be much more specific about the metrics and the data that we put in there and really take it slow, right. And the way that happened was, like you said, there, there had to be alignment on what are the key metrics and the key data that as a company, we can align on, right. And one really easy one is obviously patient volume, right? Because that's what drives our business. And so everyone could get around that and say, We need to know what our patient volume is, we need to know it by certain dimensions, we need to know it on an X frequency, daily basis, that will tell us how how well we're performing. That's one very high level, right, very easy that everyone could get around. Second one was conversion, which essentially is, you know, of all the orders or patients that we get referred to us, how many do we actually convert into an actual procedure? And again, those are these are very high level at a company level, everyone can get around and say, you know, can kind of come together and say, Yes, that's important. And so we started with those first, and then we started to build past that, right. And we then identified the focus areas, so sales was a focus area where they needed access to data because we have no, you know, we have no system for them, like a anything that would track, you know, customer data in a way that could give them insight into what are our declining referring providers? What are the ones that are growing, right? And so again, very, very focused around the key metrics that I think as a company, we could align, right? It wasn't, you know, I've seen this happen, where the initiatives become one of these where you just ask everyone, you know, what would you like to see? And again, then you get in trouble, right. And so we've had to be very, very sort of methodical about, you know, we're only going to do these, and the next one will be x and setting our priorities in terms of what we wanted to see. And even when you look at our overall BI reporting, I think you some might say, Well, why don't you don't have that much data. And that may be true, but we have the key important metrics, right. And so I'd rather have three or four metrics that we're tracking consistently. And that can drive action in the business than having, you know, 30 metrics that we are overwhelmed with, and not quite sure you know, how to take action on any one of them. Because, in reality, a lot of times they're all interrelated. And so it's not like you can just tackle one without having to tackle others, right. And so if you can start from sort of, like we did with that very top one that everyone can get around, I think, then everyone feels good about it and can try to, within their own sort of scope of responsibility influence that one metric. And that makes it a whole lot easier for us, right. And so, you know, the dissemination of the data also became really important, because it's not just important to just auto generate and send out a report to people, right, we want to make sure that people are going to a central location for all of their data. And so again, Power BI was just great, right? Because we're, we're tying everything that we're doing and every new metric or dashboard that we build is going to be centralized and available to a subset of key people that need to have Access, right? The whole aspect of auto generating, I don't think we're at that level yet, right? We, we need to mature a little bit more in in where we're going to then be able to create that type of reporting, that becomes much more day to day, if you if you want to sort of call that.
Kate Eberle:Yeah, but definitely I can imagine contrasting to where you were at the start of the effort, hundreds of reports, which you get one filter slightly off, or you get one dimension that's pulling in differently, all of a sudden, you don't really know what the truth is. So now you've got through Power BI through the data warehouse, for those Gosh, three key areas, you know, how the company is performing with a couple of clicks, and you can start taking action?
Pedro Renteria:Yeah, and that's actually a really good point in terms of the single source of truth. Because when we came in, you could have multiple reports, showing our patient volume with different numbers. Yeah. And and let me let me tell you, it's not that the reports were wrong. It's just again, you know, different filters, different things, different data being included. And so you really had to go we had to go through the process of determining what is it that we truly define as a patient, right? And that becomes so important, because then everyone once again, gets on board with that, and we're speaking the same language, right? We don't have, we now don't have any issues of saying, hey, someone's saying we did 10 patients, and you know, someone else to say we did 20? Well, no, that's gone, right? Because we have a single source of truth and bi, where everyone can come and look and see on a daily basis, what those numbers are. Right. So and that's extremely critical. So I'm glad you brought that up, for sure.
Kate Eberle:Yeah. And I think you're it sounds so good conceptually, like it makes so much sense. But I'm wondering if you can share any maybe concrete examples of ways that it's empowered the team to drive the company forward, maybe in sales, or even the tech productivity side?
Pedro Renteria:Yeah. So I'll give you two examples, right? So so even the most simple things like our our patient volume, and you can see this in our our site now, right? Everyone at our sites has access to it. And everyone is taking pride in those goals, right, because we're not only presenting actuals, but we're also presenting things like budget or forecasts. And so folks know where they're at, right? Where they're sitting at at any given point in time during the month, and that, that sort of empowers them with the ability to make changes at the site. Right, be flexible about, okay, well, I'm that meeting my numbers, what do I need to do? And it's not solely focused on necessarily, you know, hitting your numbers, but it's also focused on giving the site a sense of sort of ownership over their operations. Right. And I think you said, you know, we just had a board meeting, and John, our CEO showed pictures of how sites now have, you know, boards, where they're also similarly tracking sort of performance, right? And they're putting it out in front of everyone, the whole team, right, so that everyone knows where we're sitting? And what can be done, right? And can we make, you know, if we had some people cancel, could we make some calls and call other patients that might want to come in that same day, right, so that it just leads to much more ownership and action around it? Right? And, and that, it's as simple as saying, hey, let's give you your patient volume, right, you wouldn't think it would have that kind of impact, but it really does write data does really give people a sense of, of belonging, and ownership, right, such that they know what's at stake, versus just simply going through the motions of, you know, seeing patients and having them go through our machines, right. The sales team, same thing, I would say, you know, the sales team, like I mentioned, they didn't really have access to, to data in a way that could tell them how to target right. And so, you know, with the help of your team, you know, we built a report that would give them a sense of declining referring providers, those that are growing, you know, changes in terms of, of different modalities, or if someone left the practice, right, that data is now visible to them. Right. And so, you know, wow, I think at the lower level at the sales rep level, it's really impactful, I think, to be honest, where the biggest value is in my mind is at the director level, right? Because they, while they may not be on out on the you know, call it so called floor or out in gauging with the referring providers. They have to be able to manage and mentor and sort of guide the sales reps, right. And without that level of information. I don't know how they would do it right. They would have to write along with every single sales rep. to figure things out, now, they can have really pointed discussions around some of our referring providers, and the activities that each sales rep is doing to get, you know, to get the business to refer more physicians, or to highlight key services that we offer so that we can get more referrals. Right. In my mind, I think I see the benefit more at the sort of like the director level, but again, you know, look, you know, sales is about hitting numbers. And so, you know, as a sales rep, knowing where you stand is also super important, right, and knowing where that target is, and how you might be able to beat it, because there's variable comp associated with it. So that to me is more about giving them a sense of where they are, where they're standing, and what they need to do. But for the directors, I think it just gave them a lot more ability to mentor and manage the team. Right. Which, which I think is extremely important, right? Because the we expect our regional directors to be the ones to sort of guide the team in terms of the overall corporate directive and goals. Right. And and I think without any of that data, they were sort of flying blind.
Kate Eberle:Yeah. And, you know, in general, they probably got to where they were, because their guts are pretty reliable, good sense on where they need to coach someone. But man, you back that up with data and and almost eliminates any of the Well, I disagree. Like, you don't have to have that back and forth. It's like, these are the facts. You're not hitting numbers. Yes. makes it so much easier to cut through. Yes, absolutely. I'm curious, is there anything with the reports that we've developed that surprised you? Or in the change management process? Was there a period of friction? Or did people once they saw the data attached to the value pretty quickly?
Pedro Renteria:It depends, right. So again, like the volume one, I think we were we were fairly was fairly easy transition. I think the ones that that are, that were a little bit harder to transition were maybe our conversion reporting. And more lately, our tech productivity reporting. And the reason for that is I think those those carry a lot more sensitivity in terms of, you know, identifying an issue, and sort of what you don't want to do is point the finger, right? That's not what these reports are meant to do. But in a sense, they do point you to where the problem is. And, and at times, that can be very difficult, because then, you know, what will happen is folks will want to argue around the logic and say, well, there's something wrong with the logic, because it's not a problem here. Right. And I think with, you know, with conversion, which affects not only our site, but it affects our call center, right, it affects our sales teams efficiency, you know, you sort of have these, these three groups that are very obviously focused on doing well in their own scope. Right, that they feel that they're doing everything they can. And so these have a little bit more, you know, skin in the game, right? Where you're trying to point out, well, this isn't working. And I think folks have a harder time with accepting ones that really sort of point to a problem, right? Because, you know, look, I think human nature knows everyone wants to do their best, and nobody wants to necessarily be put on the spot for for any kind of, you know, deficit or failure, right. And that's not how and you know, as we think about these, this is not how we, how we envisioned these these reports to be used. And this is how we communicate to everyone where we say this is not to identify who is the person who's not doing the right thing. This is in general, to help us identify process changes that we need to make right or insight into why we may not be converting someone, because only then can we then change, right our process or our approach to make sure that we are converting patients or that we are getting to our patients first. So those I think, you know, and then when we talk about productivity, obviously, productivity in itself has a very, it's very sensitive sort of word, right? Where saying someone is not productive, obviously raises a you know, can raise their temperature a little bit. And so we just need to, those are the type of reports that we spend a lot of time working with business partners, to iterate and iterate and iterate. And what I mean by iterate is not necessarily that we change the reporting, but that we iterate talking about it right so that we, you know, every month or every quarter, we have a conversation about it right so that we can make sure that people are not necessarily you know, that they're one they're looking at it too. They're bringing up issues that they're seeing in the reporting because again, it is very sensitive right when you're talking about productivity. And three, right that they have a mechanism to voice those those concerns, right? And we always want to give them that because if we don't, then I think what'll happen is they'll just believe the data is wrong, not say a word, not use it. And you know, six months later, you find out, nobody's even looked at something, or actually uses it for making decisions. Which, you know, I'm glad to say we actually use all of our reports for decision making, right? So our productivity reports, our conversion, all of those are really actionable. And they lead to the specific groups doing something about it, right? We even use it to, you know, look at ROI, right. So especially with productivity, when we need when someone says, Oh, I think I need another Tech. Well, let's go look at the productivity around the site. Right. And let's see if that makes sense. Oftentimes, you know, that is that is what's what's needed, right? We we've already maxed out productivity with our current tax, and so, but again, back to your point around, like, that's factual, right? And someone can point to it and can say, see, I'm telling you, it is not one of these where someone tells us a site is productive, we have no way of measuring it right. And this just makes it so easy to have conversations about hiring new for new positions, or, or potentially even hard conversations about, you know, whether we're not productive, and we need to make some reduction in hours. It's factual, right, it's very hard for someone to then say, I don't believe it, because it's essentially there. And everyone after time has has bought into it and aligned to it. Right. So I think, you know, the tough ones are the ones that are much more around actually impacting groups or potentially finding failure points, those become really sensitive to, for people to make sure that they understand and get get behind, right?
Kate Eberle:Well, I think one of the things that I love that you shared is the going back to that feedback loop. So it's not just these are the reports that we're mandating down upon you. And like it or not, this is how we're judging, but actually getting that buy in saying, Look, you know, your job and the day to day better than anybody. So if there's something that's in this report that is not tracking to what you see, you now have a concrete way of talking about it like, No, you were counting something in the denominator, we shouldn't be. And I want to raise that to my leadership team. So I'm getting better measurement of my productivity versus you're wrong. Your assessment, I my performance is wrong and having no common language to talk about that without data in a shared report.
Pedro Renteria:Yes, yes, absolutely. I think there always has to be communication from the beginning to the very end, right? Reports can be to a certain degree static, right? They cannot. And I think that's where, you know, the, as I mentioned, you know, when I first got here, where the company was, I think a lot of these reports had become just basically static, right? Things that just went out it. Yeah. And so, you know, that doesn't drive good one confidence around the data. It also doesn't drive good alignment around the company. And so, again, having those communication point, and, you know, I say having those communication points, because I'm the main person, right on the on the finance side that essentially takes on that communication loop with John and his team. And, and the good thing is, I think everyone feels comfortable to voice right. There their opinion, which is also I think what good data creates, right, yeah, it that's a strong culture, strong engagement. Right. And because without that, I think people would feel, you know, whether they're fearful or not confident to speak up right. Now they can, right, because they have they have the tools available for them to actually be resourceful and determine whether or not something's wrong. And that I think that's very empowering for an organization.
Kate Eberle:Yeah. Well, we're coming kind of up to the close of our time together. Couple of questions. As we start to wrap up. You mentioned ROI, you if you had to look at the impact that reporting has made on Simon med. Any key takeaways that you could share in terms of just what, like this visibility into handful of targeted reports is getting you
Pedro Renteria:Yeah, so look, I will say ROI around BI reporting can be difficult, and a lot of it is because it's it's oftentimes very, very difficult to quantify to really say, you know, this is what I'm gonna get out of this report. There's a lot of obviously, really good Non quantifiable information, right? And sort of anecdotal information around having good information. So I think it's, I think you can't look at every report and say, well go tell me what the ROI is for that. Right? Because it's just not going to be possible. It's just impossible in my mind, I think what you have to think about first is, do we as a company value, a data driven decision making process? And do we ultimately believe that that leads to value for the organization? And that's the first key question, I think you have to ask yourself? If the answer is yes, then you are on your way to creating value for the organization. And the reason I say that is because you know, most people are going to be able to know the metrics that they want to see. Right. And then as you collaborate with others, you'll start to bring together metrics with others that will give you more insight. Right. And that, to me already is value in itself. I can't quantify. So let me let me say it a different way. We implemented the sales reporting, we know that sales reporting, in essence is a good thing, and that people should have data, right? Can I necessarily point to Hey, because we did that report, you know, we're now driving 10 More patients? Not necessarily, but do I look at the health of the company and know that I took steps that I believe were going to be the right steps? And is the health of the company better? Yes. Right. That is absolutely at a high level? Yes. And so all of these things, as we think about right, our overall strategy, we know that there's value in data and decision making around data. And so as long as we can be purposeful around the metrics we measure, then I think the value is ultimately their long run, again, cannot think of this as a short run situation, right? This is a very long run. And so that allows you to see the health of a company and the culture of a company at point A to long term, what was it a point B, and having been here almost two years. And I can tell you that what we've done, and where we were, at point A two years ago, we are steps ahead of where we were then. And it feels it even just feels better. And even, you know, performance wise, the company's doing better. Right. And so there are key large indicators that are telling us we're doing the right thing, right. And again, we're purposeful about what we invest in, right? So you know, we're not running in grabbing 30 metrics and building dashboards, we're saying, We've got five metrics. Let's focus. And then if one more comes up, let's talk about it and see how that relates. Right. So again, methodical and purposeful. Right. And I think as long as you believe that overall, data driven decisions are important, then I think you're on the right path. Right. And, and I say that thinking that everyone believes that, but I've been in I've been in companies where that is not the case, right? Where intuition and hunch is valued more than data, which which in this case, I would disagree with, right. I think data driven decisions, make for good decisions.
Kate Eberle:Yeah, yeah, protects everyone's sanity means that at the end of the day, you can go back and actually see if it was the right decision. You have your hypothesis, and you're going and looking at the data later. Yeah, I mean, you're speaking our language, I have to agree with you there. And I think it is such a good point. You know, I feel like in some ways, I'm always hoping I can find that that client who says, Man, this saved me a million bucks. You know, that's, that's the dream, because I think everybody would love to save X. And you can do so many more reports. But at the end of the day, you're talking about some of the intangibles, you're seeing culture benefits, you're seeing probably better alignment with your executive team, more clarity on where you need to focus your strategic initiatives. And just from a sanity perspective, like that's a huge game changer, because you all can now lead better and do your jobs versus mucking around in the data.
Pedro Renteria:Yes, yes. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And to me, that's value, right. Yeah, absolutely. can't necessarily point to the million dollars in savings, but I can certainly point to where we were two years ago, and where we are now in the health of the company. And it's it's day and night. Yeah.
Kate Eberle:Awesome. Well, one last question. Any advice that you would give either to yourself from two years ago before as you were starting at SimonMed, or you may be other folks who are just starting the journey with data?
Pedro Renteria:You know, maybe it's not, maybe it's not, you know, advice that I would I'd give myself but I think what I wish I would have had was a little bit more time, right with to to fully get a grasp of where the company was. Because look, to be honest, I came in and everything was very fast moving, right, so we were moving, right and, and I wish I had had a little bit more time to digest. Because I think that could have given us an opportunity to potentially identify a few other key related metrics, right? That would have gone really well with our our patient volume with ourselves sort of reporting with our conversion. And that would have been a great benefit, because we would have had those things earlier, we've sort of developed them posts, right, like we've added a little bit, we've enhanced our conversion, right, we build tech productivity. But I think if I had had a little bit more time to digest, and the team would have had a little bit, we would have had these tools earlier, which would have had a greater benefit earlier on. Right. So, you know, it's a little bit of a little bit of wanting to be where we are now a little bit faster. Right. But, but look, we we've had great success, right? With all of the reporting that we we've done great, great engagement from the team, it's hard to say that we could have done better, right, we just we've made a really a true impact. And I think while I want it to be better, it's it's always in hindsight, right? 20.
Kate Eberle:I think it's probably, maybe not unique to the PE environment. But there's always that tension between man, let's go and just see what we can get in terms of an MVP. And should we slow down to speed up eventually. And I think that's, you know, such a tension, you've got a short time horizon, you're trying to make as much of an impact as possible. You can get the cut through great. But maybe spending that extra week or two with the whole ELT in a room, getting some roadmap would then allow you to just churn through things even faster. So it's an interesting tension.
Pedro Renteria:Yeah, that's right. That's right. agree fully.
Kate Eberle:Awesome. Wow. All right. Well, it's been great to talk today. Pedro, just wondering anything else on the horizon for you and Simon from a bi perspective, or just staying the course and ticking off more metrics?
Pedro Renteria:I think there's I think there's a few things that are that are coming up. Right. So I think we've been a little bit we've we've we've not stagnate, but we've wanted to use the tools we've built to make sure we had the engagement and the value out of them. I think, again, this is where having that time you start to think about other other things that could that could come into play. Right. So you know, I think our financials could be something that are also a good candidate for bringing into Power BI, again, back to sort of a central location. Information informational around our RCM right, which is our revenue cycle management, that type of those type of optics we currently don't have, at least from my side from from the finance side. We don't have good optics into it, despite the fact that we have a good, a good RCM team. But I think those would allow us to essentially tap into so many more opportunities, right around the revenue cycle side and around and sort of untapping some of the revenue potential that that we have, I think we've been so focused on making sure the operations is running well, and that the sales team is you know, sort of clicking the now I think we have a real opportunity to start untapping some of that revenue potential that is not necessarily sales or operations related. Right. It's more payer related in our in our business, right insurance reimbursement. So yeah, yeah, a lot. A lot of cool things to come.
Kate Eberle:Yeah, yeah. Well, again, it's been great to chat with you today. I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge we're alumni of the same university University of Puget Sound never find loggers Yeah, go loggers. Tough to find find other ones in the wild. So always good to talk, Pedro. Great rest of the summer.
Pedro Renteria:Thank you, Kate. Good talking to you.