Bridging the Trust Gap: How Transparent Pricing Is Transforming Healthcare for Patients

Welcome to another episode of Patients Win, the podcast dedicated to making healthcare work for the people it serves - the patients. Today, we dive into the intersection of healthcare and technology with David Comiskey of HealthMe. With a unique background that spans national security, the pet care industry, and now healthcare innovation, David Comiskey brings a fresh perspective on how transparency and direct care models can rebuild trust and transform the patient experience.

Join Troy Reichert and Dr. Jonathan Bushman as they explore how legacy technology has disrupted the doctor-patient relationship, why pricing transparency is key to restoring trust, and how HealthMe’s platform is simplifying access, costs, and quality for both patients and providers. Hear real-life stories of patients saving thousands and getting the care they need faster, and discover why mission-driven innovation from outside traditional healthcare might just be what patients need to win.

Timestamps:

00:00 Starting in the Defense Department

03:33 Building a pet care tech company

06:52 Technology's role in healthcare change

11:13 Benefits of direct care models

14:14 Discussing a simplified service platform

18:28 Discussing trust in healthcare

20:02 Patients using AI in healthcare

24:22 Implementing prospective pricing in healthcare

28:50 Improving healthcare accessibility

32:36 Saving on surgery costs

35:20 Thanking Dave for his contributions

Show Website - https://thepatientswin.com/

Primed Healthcare - https://primedhealthcare.com/

Troy Reichert - Show Host - LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/troy-reichert-67606b5/

Dr. Jonathan Bushman - Show Host - LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-bushman-do-106821191

Media Partner - TopHealth - https://tophealth.care/

“Disclaimer: Informational only. Not medical advice. Consult your doctor for guidance.”

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Healthcare is arguably more of a national security threat than any other national security threat I took on my seven years in that world. There is a trust gap between the average patient and the average provider. I've seen the way that legacy technology has definitely destroyed that doctor-patient relationship because as a patient, well, they're just pushing buttons to build every single day. Multiple times a day, patients were either getting turned away or put on the back burner because they wanted to pay directly instead of use insurance. The best way to establish trust very quickly is to make costs transparent. And when you can go into a doctor's office knowing exactly what you're going to pay, well, then you can start to plan, budget, and actually get the care that you need instead of delay, delay, delay.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

We hear patient stories as we talk with leaders, doctors, innovators, and employers who are challenging the status quo and building something better. If you care about access, affordability, quality, and transparency, this is your place. Because at the end of the day, every healthcare decision should answer one simple question. Did the patient win?

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Well, today to help us answer that question, we are joined by our guest, David Komiskey from Health Me. David, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

It's uh great to be here with you both.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

David, it's pretty interesting. Now, Joth and I were just talking about today technology. And uh he showed me some stuff like what technology can do for us today is just it leverages everything, our time, our resources. And so we're excited to uh use that today as uh sort of our starting point for the intersection of healthcare and technology.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

It is terrifying, Troy. The the power of the technology today and the speed at which it's coming at us. It's kind of hard to keep up. I mean, it's actually impossible to keep up if you're not feeling behind every single day in terms of leveraging technology to support the work that you're doing, whatever that work is, like you're not paying enough attention.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Yeah, absolutely. Now, Dave, you've been in technology for a number of years, specifically over the last five or six years on the healthcare space. What was it about healthcare that grabbed your attention and said, man, I want to invest my time, energy, and efforts into that?

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Good question. I'll I'll back up a little bit um to sort of show and and share the story of how I found myself in the healthcare world. You know, it all begins actually with the very first job I had out of college. I was recruited to join the defense department, where I was intelligence analyst for a handful of years. Um, and, you know, really as a 21-year-old kid joining the DoD, working on Pentagon matters was super motivating. I felt like I was making a massive difference and, you know, uh and actually contributing to great causes that, you know, our servicemen and women were out tackling every single day as a civilian. And for the seven years that I was at the DOD, there wasn't a single day that I wasn't getting out of bed feeling motivated uh about the work that I was doing. And and I ended up leaving that world because technology did fascinate me. And I had just an itch to build technology and and sort of take ownership on something on my own. And a few friends and I ended up building a technology company in all places of the pet care industry. And during the years that we built that company, a full technology platform used by, you know, thousands of uh tens of thousands of people across the country, I realized the true power of technology. And building a company and a team and a culture for that team and helping people with their dogs and cats was was fun. But throughout that whole, that was about a five and a half year journey. Throughout those five and a half years, there was just something missing day in and day out for me. And and it was that sense of mission and ultimately like larger purpose. And don't get me wrong, like I love dogs and cats as much as everybody else, uh, maybe a little bit more than most people, in fact. But it didn't, it definitely didn't have the same, like didn't feel like it had the same impact as the work I was doing on national security matters. And when I finally met Dr. Havig, the CEO of Health Me and learned about his vision for the way healthcare needed to be and the direction it needed to go in order to be kind of a sustainable ecosystem for patients and providers. That's when I realized, okay, here's an opportunity for me to combine, you know, last half dozen years of technology building that I had from the pet care space with the same ability to make a large impact that I had in the in the defense space. And so it was at that realization where I was like, okay, this is this is it for me. Um, healthcare is arguably more of a national security threat than any other national security threat I took on in my seven years in that in that world. And uh and now I get out of bed every single day pretty motivated.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

That's an interesting background, and then and I appreciate you sharing that. I didn't didn't realize you started in the Department of Defense. Like that's that's that's incredible. And and what you just said about you know healthcare being potentially a greater risk of our our national security. You you hit on a point that I've I've heard something similar recently, and I thought, man, that is absolutely when healthcare becomes the crisis that we all think it is. It really becomes the crisis that it really is whenever it starts affecting our ability as a country to be strong, relevant, defensible, et cetera. So that is very interesting, that that concept. So what about take us through a little bit on on Health Me and what that technology platform has been created to do and and sort of where you've brought that mission alignment together in a tech tech platform? Because let's be fair, I mean, our our show, we talk on all spectrums of healthcare from the patient basis and physicians and brokers. And, you know, we've we've heard a lot, but we haven't heard a lot in the tech space. So to hear somebody that's behind a computer screen that's mission aligned is kind of interesting. I'm really curious about that. What does that mean to you?

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Yeah, it's it's certainly different, you know, not necessarily front lines like you are with your patients every single day and and clients that Health Me has and the patients that they're serving as well. But really, I think the power of technology is what has the the opportunity of ushering in the change that we all want to see in the healthcare system. If you think about the legacy healthcare models, the BUCA models, you know, one of the things that they've nailed is the easy button for those who are paying for care, those who are providing care, and those who are ultimately receiving care. Unfortunately, that easy button includes a massive siphon out to middlemen who are profiting and extracting an absolute ton of value from the key stakeholders of that. And I see it, and as I've learned about this space, I've really seen it as an information gap where those key stakeholders, providers, patients, employers, are disadvantaged with information compared to the insurance carriers. And as a result, particularly with the lack of technology and tech prowess to overcome that information gap, they've been, as the key stakeholders of healthcare, have been losing their voice incrementally but constantly for the last number of years. And with HealthMe, you know, at our core, yes, technology platform that we kind of see as the operating system for this new healthcare model of direct care. Direct care meaning empower those caretakers, the physicians, the providers to do what they went to school all those years mastering and provide compassionate and quality care to their patients. And as patients, and in fact, their employers, if they're getting employer-sponsored care, have the understanding and the information about what kind of care they're receiving, the quality and cost of that care, particularly. And so Health Me is trying to layer in all of the infrastructure, the plumbing, if you will, to this whole brand new model that is slowly but surely becoming a a a larger piece of our overall health care spend in the country.

SPEAKER_02 9:13

Yeah. No, it's very helpful. And I like how you how you framed that. And, you know, we even on the clinical side, what what I've grown to realize and know is that tech in many ways has come in and disrupted the relationship that we've had with our patients. It's it's kind of, you know, you'll hear patients' experiences or they talk about their experiences in a whether it's primary care or any other office, and it's like, I mean, you know, they hardly looked at me. They were on their computer the whole time. In a sense, there's on the side of the core of healthcare, which is that doctor-patient relationship and the experience that that that relationship and conversation, where does tech play a part in that? Now, granted, I understand health me is kind of on the, you know, more on the procurement and and pain and contract and that sort of direct, but it's still what does tech represent to us and how does it either augment the relationship that we have with our patients or distract from it?

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Well, yeah, I mean, I think those are great points. And, you know, I'm a patient. I've seen the way that the legacy technology has definitely destroyed that doctor-patient relationship because you kind of feel like, you know, I as a patient, well, they're just pushing buttons to bill, just pushing buttons to bill. And as a pro the providers that I've talked to that are, you know, helping these customers, it's just this fatigue of coding for dollars and and all these things. And and again, that's all because of the the the current model for how healthcare is bought, sold, and delivered. And that's what we're trying to change. Um, really at HealthMe.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Yeah, that's a really important point because you know, we hear stories of, you know, they're really horror stories about, you know, patients waiting to see a doctor, delayed care, all those kinds of things. And you know, technology can either help that or they can hurt it. And again, the legacy systems are not helping uh solve that. How is Health Me trying to solve that issue of easy access to providers?

SPEAKER_01 11:13

It's kind of funny and it's pretty obvious in hindsight, but when providers realize that they can get paid and promptly through direct care models, access sure speeds up, right? If you think about it, the provider offices that we're working with, you know, typically specialty groups, extremely busy, vertically integrated, and there's pillars of their community, really, in terms of caring for everyone in their community, but there's only so much capacity, right? And if there's the ability for them to eliminate prior authorizations, the pre-certifications, the hoops and hurdles that they need to go through for these legacy models and just streamline the appropriate care for those patients, knowing that they're going to get paid, knowing that they're going to get paid first, period, full stop. And then knowing that they're going to get paid fairly. We see, and it's kind of remarkable with the employers that we work with, like the time to appointment for groups that I know. If you called yourself, you'd have a month, two, three-month-long wait. They're in the door in seven days. And that matters a lot for someone who's in pain or who has a you know a serious health issue that needs to be cared for. And it matters for the the employers as well, because it's not the most productive workforce if if you have a workforce who's who's suffering. You can get me on that soapbox all day long, Troy.

SPEAKER_02 12:41

I'll talk about it So what's funny about this is I'm kind of thinking about how you started this out, Dave. And you were talking about the the pet care company. And I understand you didn't go into detail about that that company, but my my mind still is thinking here. Like, did you have in your five and a half years of experience in a pet care tech company a much easier time arranging care for a dog or a cat than you have for human beings? Yeah, definitely. And why? Because the prices were just there and it was just simple? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Now, I mean, I won't get into that company too much, but you were, you know, uh supporting service providers in the healthcare space, but but your low-skill service providers, you know, sitters, walkers, those sorts of pet care providers, and yeah, essentially allow them to set the prices of the services that they provide in their community, right? And make easy, easily scheduling, easy pay, improve that relationship, and then build technology that lays over that to make sure that they can delight their customers demonstrating the great service that they're providing. It's true. When I met Dr. Havig, I was like, I never thought I was gonna have, I never thought I would learn as much as I did from the pet care space that could apply to other industries. And then I found Health Me. I was like, well, this one, this one kind of works. I told my co-founders who both now work with us at Health Me, my co-founders of the pet care business, I was like, guys, like this healthcare company kind of looks and feels a lot like our our pet care company. They thought I was crazy. I probably am a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

But no, I I don't think you're crazy because here I am listening to your story and it makes all the sense in the world to me. It's like you you just came out of an industry that was very simple. You have customers, you have needs, you have providers, you have a payment model, and then you have a platform for people to find it when they need it. I'm like, that's what you do, right? You've created a platform that you have a list of services, people who provide them, hey, bring your people who need them to the platform, go find your care, get it done. It should be that simple. And why it's not that simple is because everything you referenced previously, which is the typical BUCAs who've created all these layers and the insurance layers that have complicated that process. And I really do like that in the context of when we think of what direct care, whether it's specialty care, primary care, anything, that that is the foundation of it is let's make this a simple relational service versus a complicated process that takes the enjoyment out of it for everyone. And then people start avoiding it when they really need it.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Couldn't agree more. And I think some of the what I've found the best and most innovative technology companies that I've talked to and had the opportunity to learn from over the the time that I've been with Health Me so far have been other entrepreneurs and founders who also didn't come from healthcare. Right. Like I think that the people who are building technology in the healthcare world today, you'll find a lot of bolt-on platforms, bolt-on tech to the existing incumbent legacy system that don't add any. And I'm not going to pick on anyone specifically or or any space specifically, but the example is AI handling denials, AI handling pushing of the denials, right? It's just like a back and forth AI war between payers and providers right now, and like what a waste of what a waste of compute, first off, and a waste of everyone's time uh as well. But then you find the entrepreneurs who are patients or providers and clinicians, and they're the ones that are, I think, building and bringing technology that fundamentally can shift the direction of healthcare. And that that's certainly, I think, the category that, you know, I feel like Health Me is in, and hopefully we stay that way. And those are the type of companies that really excite me about, yeah, there being a a better and and and a better system and and a system that is actually attainable in in the future as well. It's already solved. Dave Chase, I think, says it best from Health Reset, healthcare is already solved, we just need to scale it. And I think that's what technology can do.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

It's amazing. Well, Dave, you said something a minute ago. You said delight their customers. And I think that's one of the challenges with healthcare is that we've forgotten who the customer is. And you know, you look at retail, you look at Walmart, you know, Walmart used to be a great service organization. Now you have people, you know, scanning and bagging their own purchases. They don't have, you know, the friendly readers at the front anymore, and it's become a commodity. Do you see, do you think that in some respects healthcare has become a commodity and we don't care about the customer, the ultimate patient?

SPEAKER_01 17:25

No, I think that every clinician, every provider I've ever talked to does truly care about their patients and wishes that they had more time to spend with those patients. I think it's less a matter of caring and more a matter of not being given the opportunity to express that care. And I think that does get amplified a little bit, and it's on the topic of technology with there's like more so than ever, the healthcare consumer is becoming smarter, more empowered, and increasingly skeptical of their healthcare providers. And technology is fueling that to an extent. Like the consumerization of everything that we can do with our own health is remarkable. Um, and I think if the right approach of being able to couple that with, you know, physician expertise, that's going to be the ultimate unlock. But there is a trust gap, I think, between the average patient and the average. I don't know if you see that, Jonathan, but I would have to imagine and I would hope I don't see it between me and my patients.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

No, no, we don't have a trust gap. And that's that's the foundation of our of our of our care and our relationship with our patients is the trust. Not that this is new, but like we looked back a few years ago to to COVID and that created a lot of distrust that was already kind of brewing, but it created it on another level. I mean, truly on another level. I would say today AI is a very interesting um dynamic for patients because you've got some who are scared of it because it all the things it can do that they can't understand. And I use AI in my practice a lot in various different forms. I ask them if they get scared of a calculator, and usually the answer is no. Well, that's a very rudimentary form of artificial intelligence. And granted, we've come a long ways, but you wouldn't be scared of that, but you don't understand it. You you you understand long math, but we're not gonna do long math. We don't do that anymore, right? Um so talking to patients about AI, but then I've got those who won't touch it. It's very scary. I've got those who've adopted it and actually send me emails with what you know, chat or Claude has told them about their condition. And hey, Doc, should I be concerned about this? And I embrace that. I actually love that. Two things that that tells you when a patient does that. Number one, they're investing time and digging into their own health. I will always applaud them for that. So, like, I I know there's kind of the cliche, oh, you, you know, Dr. Google, I looked it up and whatever. I think I have this. It's not, it's not so much sad. It's it's patients questioning things. You know, I don't feel well, I don't feel right, something's a problem. And they're not doing this unbeknownst to me. They're actually giving it to me and saying, I trust you. I trust you to help me use this additional information that I didn't have to help me think through this to come to a shared decision. I think it's I think it's a compliment that they send that stuff to me. And quite frankly, it actually makes my job easier in some ways because now I know where they've spent time thinking. I know what things they're already concerned about. I'm actually to able to address their concerns more distinctly than I was before. Because otherwise, it would take me a lot of questions to get to number one, what I'm thinking, number two, what they're thinking, and then to come to that shared decision. So yeah, we see all spectrums of it, but I'm I'm actually really excited. Funny enough, my the population of my patients that use uses AI for their healthcare, more than anyone else, 70 plus. I would have would have never guessed that. But I've got quite a few individuals, 70 plus, who are putting some of their stuff in. And, you know, granted, you know, they're later stages in life and they're trying to, if they're open to technology, they're kind of going, hey, I wonder what this would say about, you know, XYZ symptoms or problems. And and it is, it's pretty remarkable. And then I use that. I'll actually take their stuff right off the email, and I may even add to it and kind of give myself some extra things to consider or think about. But yeah, it's a very good conversation starter or continuer that goes back to what you just said, which is that relationship of trust. That's that's the fundamental thing that never changes in that whole equation, regardless of technology or no technology.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

And I wonder, Dave, if it's not so much the not the doctor that they don't trust, but it's the system, the healthcare system that they don't trust, or it's health insurance they don't trust.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

I mean, I think we all know the actual answer to that. You're right. Of levels of trust, there are a couple that you trust the least. And there are others that you're willing to trust a a little bit. A little bit more as well. And again, I think that's an element that to think back on like the plumbing and the infrastructure of a direct care model for healthcare, right? Like the best way to establish trust very quickly is to make costs transparent. Right. If you can do that, then at least everybody's coming in knowing the field on which they're playing. Um the the the lack of transparency is and knowing that there's middlemen sitting there, you know, that's I think the whole system is what is causing a lack of trust in us patients. And and I think that's you know, that's that needs to fundamentally change. And technology can can and and should do that, which can solve a lot of a lot of the world's problems.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

For sure. Well, Dave, that's really important because you know, take us back to why was Health Me started? Because I think honestly, this whole bit about trust, transparency, access is at the heart of Health Me. But why did Health Me start?

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Like many great innovations in in healthcare with physician frustration, our CEO, I think you both you both know him, Dr. Havig, orthopedic surgeon, became increasingly frustrated with the fact that his office was whether knowingly or unknowingly, and whether uh intentionally or inadvertently, was turning away patients who were wanting to circumvent or you know not go through the traditional insurance rails and just pay for their care directly. And for multiple reasons, you know, millions of Americans are doing that every single day, and that number just keeps on growing. And and one of the biggest reasons probably is a matter of trust, and the other is a matter of economics, where it's like, wait a second, I can get the same care or better care even at a cost that makes more sense for me without me using my insurance than using my insurance. And so he realized it was happening and and not happening just a few times, but happening every single day, multiple times a day, patients were either getting turned away or put on the back burner because they wanted to pay directly instead of use insurance. And his staff didn't has it have an easy way. They didn't have the technology and infrastructure to accommodate those those patients. And so he started HealthMe to solve that. And and as he looked at what he was doing, and as he looked at other industries, he realized, well, of course, we're not doing a very good job accommodating direct pay. We don't have a product that we're selling to them. Like the product is my services, but everything in healthcare for my services, at least today, is retrospectively priced based on what I do to a patient once they come in my doors. How can I give them a prospective price before they come in for my services? And so that's what he did. He put prospective prices on everything, everything that he could possibly do for patients, and told his staff who were interacting with patients the next time somebody wants to pay us directly, let's not put them on the back burner, let's not turn them away, let's show them our menu effectively, and and help them make the right choice for the care that they need. That very simple concept, that concept that exists in almost every other industry, changed his practice, changed the way that he interacts with his patients, and has grown into this like this technology-powered platform with thousands of physicians using it the same way that his his group did, you know, back in in 2018, where patients can find and see upfront the costs of care for whatever it is that they need and just transact it. No questions, no middlemen, nothing.

SPEAKER_02 25:45

So that's so interesting. And it takes me back to a question I had a uh business consultant ask one time. And granted, whether it's direct specialty or direct primary care, we're we're talking about the same concept of simplifying a price and being transparent about it. But this business consultant asked me, you know, how did you come up with such an innovative model of care, an innovative business model? I'm like, hang on a second. We put a price on our professional services and we provide them in exchange for US dollars. Everybody else just calls that business. I don't understand the innovation side of it. We took away all the complexity and really just went back to like, this is really simple business. It doesn't have to be complicated business. And and here we are, you know, having podcasts and talking about this in depth. And it's really, really interesting because of the things that we're doing to make something so simple work. But yet the rest of the economy in every other form of business has been doing this and has continued to do this and won't allow the complexity that healthcare has allowed itself to become. It's very, very interesting. So it is interesting. We we call it innovation. We are tech innovators, and what we've done is we've extracted all the things that were unnecessary.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

It's back to the future, Jonathan. It's back to establishing, you know, when a doctor shows up at your house, does a house call, sees you, takes care of you, and and and and goes on with their day, right? Like it's just and I love it.

SPEAKER_02 27:07

And and I and what I really love is when you get that incredulous look from somebody going, I don't get it.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

You know, I don't get this. We still get it plenty where it's like, wait, you mean I can just like buy whatever I need? You don't have to ask for my insurance or anything. It's like, no, no, you don't. And and if you're an employer, even better. Your patients, you can start waiving patient costs from the care that your patients receive. Because guess what? When there's a transparent price and there is an admin overhead and and 19 middlemen between the ultimate payer and the person receiving care. Well, gosh, you can actually reduce prices by a real lot where it still works for everybody who's who's involved. And and those savings can get passed back. They can get passed back all the way back to the folks who are working in that company and their premiums year over year. And that's a pretty cool, you know, patience first, right? That's I love the name of the podcast. Like, that's a pretty cool position to be in where you can see premiums going down year over year. Like find find a fully insured company that's how premiums go down year over year.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

So, Dave, with your technology and health be, you've talked about how it uh certainly helps to practice. Sounds like you know, you brought technology to the practice to help the practice. You've talked about how you know patients have access to care. If they're with an employer, they got lower costs in some s uh form or fashion. In terms of again, leveraging that technology for the whole ecosystem, for the patients, the providers, the health plans, how do you see that you what's the next step or what's the next stage of that in terms of uh the future for the actual stakeholders as you've described them?

SPEAKER_01 28:50

It really is just a matter of continuing to make the care that the providers on Health Me offer discoverable, accessible, and easily integrated into the world for self-insured employers, certainly, and for patients who are are paying directly. And I think this is the power of AI and and what we're doing, where we see dramatic leaps and bounds, growth opportunities in doing, accomplishing those things. But it's doubling down on that accessibility piece, empowering the stakeholders who are helping patients get from point A to point B. Whether that's the clinician, whether that's a care navigation company, or just the health plan itself, building into the health plan intuitive, smart technology that can say, hey, you're going down this path, patient. And before you go too far down, you know, we just want to make you aware that you have a benefit through your employer plan that can get you this care at no cost to you. Do you want to take that path? You don't have to. You can use your insurance card if you want, but just know that this is an option for you. And I think that's the kind of space where I see help me moving further in the future with technology is being there at the right times, because that's the hardest part, particularly for this employer business, being there at the right times for those patients to make them aware of the benefits that their employers are going out of their way. And the employers who are doing this today are going out of their way to make this services and platforms like Health Me part of their plan. And and they're doing that because they want their employee populations to benefit from what they see as a significant benefit. Cost savings, high quality, faster, accessible care. That's where I see it going. Just before this call, literally just before this call, my VP of engineering pushed me a Slack notification. It was like, by the way, we just launched a an AI product for care navigators. Take a look at it. I haven't seen it yet, and I can't wait to go see. But it's step by step and it's incremental for sure. You you can't can't change it overnight.

SPEAKER_02 31:02

I'm glad that I'm glad that from defense to pets to healthcare, that you've you've joined the you've joined the cohort of people looking to fix healthcare. Love it.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

Once you're in, you can't get out, too. I'm learning this. Like people thought that was the case with the defense department, but but no, I think healthcare sucks you and even more.

SPEAKER_02 31:22

Well, I I think you're right, but I think it's the mission-aligned work that when when you're seeing that your work is translating into experiences where people are truly benefiting from your work and you see it and you feel it and you hear the stories about it, it's invigorating. Um, you just you don't want to stop. And and that is what's different in this sort of, as I mentioned, the cohort of of those fixing healthcare. Like that's where we that's where we find our passion and continue to find our passion. So I'm glad you're a part of it. And I love that in whatever piece someone's playing in this ecosystem that we're in, whether it comes from tech, whether it comes from, you know, you're the employer, the physician, the staff member, everybody is playing a role and they're seeing the bigger picture and like we actually are moving the needle in the way that healthcare is delivered in the U.S.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

Hey, Dave, we always like to, you know, have a couple of stories, you know, examples to give people hope and encouragement because there's a lot of great stuff happening out there in this space that we're working in. And uh Health Be is a great part of that. So, what are a couple of your best stories or your favorite stories that you like to encourage people with and give them hope that, hey, this is real and this is uh really helping patients or doctors?

SPEAKER_01 32:36

I don't have to look very far back to find, I think, like stories of of people's lives, you know, changing because of what we're enabling through through these direct care models. You know, we work with an employer in uh the Pacific Northwest who has, you know, about a thousand members on their health plan and geographically diverse, et cetera. But just you know, just recently one of their members was able to get a surgery, complex ankle reconstruction, where they were scheduled at a hospital system and scheduled for an overnight stay, ankle reconstruction, no known costs, all through their, you know, their traditional insurance. It would have been easily an 80,000, probably more sort of episode of care. And that patient's that member's family out of pocket, I think was 12,500, 12,500. That's a huge hit to anybody. We were able to, you know, back to getting in in touch and in front of these scenarios, you know, at the right time, we were able to get in touch and and had a provider in the same market who was contracted with Health Me, who had price transparent services, who operated at a surgery center, who did all these things, who was able to actually get the surgery scheduled before it was already scheduled at the hospital, mind you. They were able to get the patient in for an eval and then surgery before the surgery was going to happen at the hospital at a cost that was like under 20,000, I think. I can't remember exactly. And the patient had the patient had absolutely no out of pocket whatsoever. That is certainly a a big impact um to save 12,500 for for a patient. And it's happening every single day. That one just surfaced because it was such a great redirection. But you know, at this point, I know for a fact that there are hundreds of thousands of patients a year who are knowing, going into their care, their costs up front in full. And when it's through Health Me. And when you can go into a doctor's office knowing exactly what you're going to pay, well, then you can start to plan, budget, and actually get the care that you need instead of delay, delay, delay. And I think just getting, just accomplishing that is changing lives. I th I hope anyway.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

Um for sure. Well, you think about that patient, they got the surgery faster. You think about that patient's family, they have more money in their bank account because they didn't have to dole out twelve thousand dollars and co-pay deductibles of co-insurance. Think about the plan. The plan saved a whole bunch of money and they've got a happy employee. So agreed to work.

SPEAKER_01 35:12

Who's back to work already, right?

SPEAKER_00 35:14

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 35:15

That's the kind of stuff that uh who needs the cup of coffee in front of being like that's energizing enough.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

That's right. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 35:22

Well, Dave, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for your continued excellence and work in this space. And and um, and like I say, regardless of background, regardless of you know, the skills that you bring to the table in fixing healthcare, we're proud to have you as part of of of this group. And and I hope that we can continue to recruit people like you who take what seems to be completely unrelated skills, bring them to the healthcare table, and help change lives at the end of the day. And that's why we that's why we talk about patients winning and and you're you are doing your part to make sure that patients win at the end of the day. And thank you for that.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

I appreciate that. And this was a ton of fun. It's always, always great chatting with you guys, and I love the podcast. Thanks for having me on it.

SPEAKER_02 36:06

Absolutely.