How Elevating The Patient Experience Improves Your Bottom Line w/ Jessica Walker

Erik Sunset: [00:00:00] All right. Hello and welcome back. I’m Erik Sunset, your host of the DocBuddy Journal. Here at DocBuddy, we deliver healthcare solutions that take the pain and cost out of broken workflows, like with our Op Note solution, which gives ASCs the power of instantly generated operative reports that are approved from the point of care.

Erik Sunset: You can learn more about Op Note and all of our products at DocBuddy.com. And today we’re joined by Jessica Walker. Jessica is the founder and CEO of Care Sherpa. Her background is in hospitality, healthcare, and tech enabled services. And she has led Care Sherpa to boost new patient consults by 26 percent and increase consult to treatment conversion by 32%.

Erik Sunset: Her innovative approach has earned recognition, including being part of the Nashville Entrepreneur Center’s Next Awards in Healthcare. She’s been a finalist in the Nashville Business Journal’s Healthcare Innovation Awards. And she is also frequently a presenter on topics surrounding the consumerization of healthcare.

Erik Sunset: Jessica, thanks for joining us.

Jessica Walker: Thank you so much for the invitation. I’m [00:01:00] excited for our conversation today.

Erik Sunset: So my this is gonna be a good one. The consumerization of health care has been a long time coming. It’s, it’s here. It’s been here and you’re seeing that firsthand. And before we really dive into our show today, Jessica, is there anything else listeners should know about you?

Jessica Walker: Um, well, you know, definitely how I got here is that you let in with the intro, my background in hospitality. And I say that because for me, the entire time I started to learn about, um, healthcare, that’s what I always thought was missing, that service, that. You know, service heart that extended to patients as we see the trend of consumerization.

Jessica Walker: That’s what leads in so easily is that we know if we think about the patient with choice and openness, you know, then we can consider their experiences. So that’s what I get wired up and fired up. And I’m sure you’ll see that today in our conversation.

Erik Sunset: Absolutely. And the, the consumerization of healthcare really has an impact on, on two sides of this. There’s the patient side where, you know, we’re all consumers of healthcare to some degree to some level at some point. [00:02:00] Um, and everybody knows how the internet works now. You’re looking at reviews, you’re shopping, you want to get the best doctor for whatever it is that you need.

Erik Sunset: Sort of the lagging component here, the other side of the coin is on the practice or the healthcare organization side and your, your stat that we read in your intro, increasing consult to treatment conversion. I imagine that’s a stat that not a whole lot of healthcare organizations are tracking if they don’t have your

Erik Sunset: help.

Jessica Walker: Yeah, you’re spot on, Erik. It’s something, you know, going back to other sides of industries outside of health care. If you think about this as a funnel, right, and we think about this as a pipeline of patients from interest, right, we spend all this time and money to get them there from the marketing. They finally fill out the web form or they pick up the call.

Jessica Walker: And most practices are paying attention to how many new patient consults do we get or That is only half the battle. So I’ll give you a couple of quick stats we find in our research. We do mystery shopping for our clients into their [00:03:00] competition and also for new prospective clients. Well, the story is, it’s actually gotten worse since I started care Sherpa because now in our recent studies, 81 percent of leads never move forward, meaning they never get to the point of the consult.

Jessica Walker: So 81% Gone, right? You spend this hundreds of dollars to get them in the funnel, 81 percent never move forward. Well, people can understand that stat, but then the next shocking thing that we discover when it comes to like also revenue and fully actualizing the revenue that you have is that 52 percent on average, um, never move forward from the consult or evaluation.

Jessica Walker: I hear from providers all the time. Oh, just get me booked. Just get them on my calendar and I’ll close them. We find that. That doesn’t is not the case, right? There’s something that happens in that room where either the patient isn’t sold on the procedure or the provider, or frankly, we actually find fear is a big delay factor, right?

Jessica Walker: And that’s not being addressed. So 52 percent never move forward. And if we think [00:04:00] about this from our providers, highest and best use of their time, like, That’s a shocking loss of revenue and investment. So all that to say, when we think through it, you know, that is a stat that we help our client partners really pay attention to.

Jessica Walker: I can get them to you. And, but then all that is for not, if you can’t close them in the room.

Erik Sunset: No, and we, we talked a little bit about this before we started to record the amount of investment that it takes to even get Get enough attention and interest in your practice, your procedures or whatever it is. You know, I’m a lifelong marketing guy. I’m doing the math in my head. You know, cost per click, if you’re running paid ads or any sort of non organic approach, 30, 50, 100, 200 per click.

Erik Sunset: And then 81 percent of those folks never even get to see the provider. Oh,

Jessica Walker: And I’ll tell you why. So what we find, and just yesterday I did a mystery shop for a prospective client, and this is a really good story, but what we find is that if a [00:05:00] consumer, a patient as a consumer, you get them there, right? We get them to the click, we get them to the website, they fill out the web form, they pick up the call.

Jessica Walker: What happens is that our front desk team is not prepared to take that call in real time and, you know, help lead that consumer to the next step, right? And, and, It’s not their fault. They’re set up to fail because they’ve got someone in front of them. They’ve got, you know, Susie over here asking about checkout.

Jessica Walker: They’ve got a nurse asking questions to put chart notes. And so when the phone is ringing or when that web form comes in, that just gets deprioritized. And that’s our entire argument, which is that’s your lifeblood as a practice. And especially when you’re thinking about revenue, that’s dollars. Every time that phone rings, that’s a dollar ringing, right?

Jessica Walker: And we don’t treat it that way. But what we find is that if The practice calls them back. And I say this because many times when I mystery shop, we’d never get a call back. But if the callback happens, it happens within 72 hours on average. [00:06:00] So three days. I’m sorry. I’ve already moved on and called your competitor.

Jessica Walker: I’m thinking about somebody else that actually answered the phone. Right? And then it gets worse with web forms. Web forms on average take 6. 2 days. For someone to get back. So again, you think about as a consumer, I’m in the activation zone, right? I’ve got this pain. I’ve got this, you know, GERD that’s affecting me and now I’m ready to take action.

Jessica Walker: And you wait, make me wait six days. Well, the symptoms might go away. So now I deprioritize it or I’m busy with kids and life and I can’t, you know, And then I can only call you between eight and four and then wait on hold for five minutes. So the funny quick story is you talked about the clicks and the cost.

Jessica Walker: The mystery shop I did yesterday, um, one of my marketing partners asked me to mystery shop their partner for them and just show what the experience is because they were spending quite a bit on Facebook ads. Fantastic. When we clicked the Facebook ad and we got to the phone number to call, it was an 800 number.

Jessica Walker: Well, apparently nobody had called the number recently. So when I called it, it got [00:07:00] rerouted to India to a call center for a medical alert system. So every one of those Facebook ads just went to waste, right? And so we think about these areas that we’re not thinking about that consumer path.

Erik Sunset: that’s incredible. And for those of our listeners and in their clinics, in their ASCs and at other venues of care, you know, I’m, I’m hearing this for the first time. These numbers are absolutely shocking to me because there are entire products built and millions of dollars in investment money accepted, and then later used for development of these softwares and whole feces have been written around.

Erik Sunset: If somebody raises their hand, uh, to DocBuddy, I can speak to the vendor side, I lead our marketing and other endeavors here. If somebody raises their hand, you need to be in touch with them now. You cannot wait, make somebody wait that’s interested in what you do. Or like you just said, Jessica, they’re going to go down the road.

Erik Sunset: The next guy or gal that picks up the phone is who I’m going to talk to. That is, that would be [00:08:00] unacceptable. I wouldn’t have a job if that’s how I treated inbound

Erik Sunset: interest.

Jessica Walker: Oh, my gosh. And I often talk to my providers that are entrepreneurial. And I said, you know, when’s the last time you called your clinic directly from the number listed on Google Business Profile or on your website because, you know, they’re used to calling their team directly from the back phone. But like, when’s the last time you actually mystery shopped?

Jessica Walker: And so that’s, you know, a service that will offer to help them understand how far off they are. But that’s that’s where the dollars are made, right? When someone is in at in market, ready to go, and they’ve Finally taking the time to give you an opportunity to serve them and you drop the ball, you know, you might as well turn your ads off at that point then.

Erik Sunset: Yeah, you’re just giving the platform money. It’s a donation.

Erik Sunset: Can’t write it off

Jessica Walker: Google doesn’t need any more of your money. Yeah.

Erik Sunset: So we, earlier you said too that the front desk is essentially set up to fail and the front desk is a very, uh, fickle beast right now, you know, coming out of COVID it’s next to impossible to hire for this type of role among [00:09:00] many others. It’s really tough to retain here in this role. Reducing front desk turnover would be paramount.

Erik Sunset: And then obviously we’re talking about greasing the skids for your new patient acquisition process. What are you seeing on that

Erik Sunset: front?

Jessica Walker: Yeah, so that’s oftentimes when I’m brought in, they’ve had turnover after turnover, right? And they’re just, there’s a frustration of like, oh, they don’t stay or I can’t find good talent. And so my argument is, I often will look at the provider and say, you’re doing it wrong. You know, if you’re not treating this new patient journey as a sales experience and in the moment, and you’re asking someone at the front to do this in addition to all the other duties as assigned, then, you know, In my mind, and this is how Keir Sharpe views the world, and I’ll tell you, my partners would agree, that this role, this is a revenue generation role.

Jessica Walker: And it, you know, we document like what happens when you actually dedicate someone to this. And so my comment is often, if you’re going to spend the time and money [00:10:00] to do marketing, kind of turn on the spigot, you need to have someone that’s dedicated and trained to know how to sell you, how to sell the procedure, how to talk about your credentials.

Jessica Walker: And this is, you know, This is my favorite one. A mystery shop will call and like the greeting is doctor’s office. No. Hi. Who am I talking to? Or thank you for calling us today. And then if I get the next question, it’s like, what insurance do you have? Okay. Right. So we work often with cash pay or high consumer choice service lines.

Jessica Walker: And that’s one of the areas we talk about, which is insurance is irregardless. Honestly, one of the things that we’ve been able to do, and we demonstrate time and time again, is that we have folks who are out of network, but if we tell the patient why they choose you or why your provider, why your treatment is going to solve their problem, it doesn’t matter what insurance they have.

Jessica Walker: They’re going to choose you and pay out of pocket even because you’re solving a problem. But again, front desk isn’t set [00:11:00] up to have those kind of level of conversations. They got to churn and burn through the conversation quick and either get you on the books or tell you to call back on Monday.

Erik Sunset: You’re so right in the, this, this patient experience aspect for these elective type procedures at the ASC or you need a consult for an elective procedure. The power of choice is only getting more important on the, on the patient side. What you’re doing is empowering the physician’s offices, empowering the ASC to be able to help guide that journey, right?

Erik Sunset: Because that is a revenue

Erik Sunset: generator.

Jessica Walker: And I’ll throw one more at you too, Erik. Um, what we often find too, especially in the ASCE and world is such that, that we know that there’s a dependency on a provider or physician order before the patient can move forward, right? So what happens today, some of us use GERD as an example, someone is suffering and they’re finally ready to take action and they found you because you can treat this issue, you have a surgical approach or whatever the case may be.

Jessica Walker: So they pick up the call and they fi call to find out more. They’re greeted with what’s your [00:12:00] insurance, who’s your doctor, go to your doctor and get an order, call us back. That’s it. No tracking, no follow up. So we flip the script and look at this to say, Erik, thank you so much for calling us today. We talk about what your needs are, talk about your pain points, why you called.

Jessica Walker: So now I’ve got you excited, like we can actually solve your problem. Great. Erik, the next step is we need to get you a consultation. However, I need to make sure from your primary care provider that this is an appropriate, you Who’s your primary care provider? Can I help you get that order? Right? And take that concierge approach to go get that, make it easy, remove the friction for the patient to do business with you.

Jessica Walker: Right? The average front desk doesn’t have time for that. But this is that, you know, pipeline path. So for me, that’s consumerization of how do we make it very easy for you as a patient to do business with us, remove the friction points, and frankly, just do everything in our power to move you forward with us once you’ve given us that opportunity.

Jessica Walker: Judy.

Erik Sunset: One of the things I’m [00:13:00] curious about, Jessica, is that in my head, I’m playing out all the ways that you could configure Salesforce to manage all of this tracking and they’ve got a fantastic health cloud products. Uh, EHRs can do this to some extent. So to measure success, we let in with some of the metrics that, that, um, you’re, you know, really shine on CareSherpa.

Erik Sunset: Are you utilizing, uh, a practice or a facility’s EHR? Is there a CRM? Like, where does this data go? Like, how do you

Erik Sunset: measure it?

Jessica Walker: well, so we have a proprietary technology that does a map out. So I use the example, let’s say bariatric surgery. I know that if you have at none, I have blue cross and blue shield. Our path and journey is entirely different because of the different requirements for the payers, right? Or my client.

Jessica Walker: clinical condition. So my technology maps that to know if Jessica comes in as a lead in July, I should expect her to have a surgery by this date, you know, based on what payer and what her conditions are. And I would predict, you know, the timing for you. EMRs and the typical CRMs don’t do that. We do, [00:14:00] right?

Jessica Walker: However, I have client partners that will have a CRM that they’ve invested in. Hey, no problem. I can push that data from my system to yours so you can track, etc. But we have a unique view on the world in terms of understanding the gates and the phases and stages that a consumer has to go through. And then every time they pass through a gate, You know, we, we score or predict how likely are they to move forward so we can do some revenue prediction, right?

Jessica Walker: But all that to say we very much operate as an extension of the clinic team So we are in the emr and if we can’t integrate with the crm My team is in the client partner crm making sure that all the data is in sync And so that way whatever tools they have Whatever, however, I find our reporting is way more in depth.

Jessica Walker: Let’s use the example of, you know, we know that you came in from the Facebook ad with the picture of the kids. I came in from the Google keyword, you know, tied to this specific keyword. We track that all the way through the journey and go back to the marketing partners and say, Hey, that [00:15:00] Facebook ad with the kids outperformed the Google keyword six to one.

Jessica Walker: Should we spend more in that category? Right. Give you that hard data. So it’s that combination of, How we track it with our partners, where we feed it into, but for the providers, um, ultimately it’s making sure that it’s frictionless for them, that they’re operating in the systems they’re already used to.

Erik Sunset: That’s fantastic. That is really, really cool. That’s meaningful technology for practices and for facilities. There’s a lot of software that gets used and sometimes there’s not a lot of software that gets used in organizations. And yeah, I’d go back to early 2010s, late 2000s with Meaningful Use. Like, okay, The common refrain was there’s nothing meaningful about it.

Erik Sunset: It was meaningless use for my clients, my providers at the time. Uh, but that’s, that’s business transformative and we didn’t set, we didn’t talk about this beforehand. I’m, uh, I’m very interested to hear more about how the software, you know, helps drive outcomes for healthcare.

Erik Sunset: That’s really cool.

Jessica Walker: Well, I’d [00:16:00] say that Erik, it’s a combination of the software and also we help our client partners think differently about how they’re managing the patient journey. So I’ll give you an example. Um, so throughout the conversation, our SHRPAs get to know you. They know that, hey, you know, you’re a busy professional, you’ve got two kids, and this knee pain you’ve been suffering with, and now it’s getting in the way of you having, you know, your weekly basketball game, and then now you’re worried not being able to take the vacation with the kids next year, right?

Jessica Walker: So now you’re finally ready to address knee pain, right? Great. And then while we’re talking, we also find out more information about you. Like, why did you choose our provider? Who was the patient that referred you? What’s that word of mouth, et cetera, so forth. So when we get you to that appointment, what happens is our providers have a briefing sheet that they can scan about you before they walk in the room.

Jessica Walker: So they know, Hey, you know, Jessica told me, Erik, that you’ve got two kids and you got a trip coming up to Disneyland next year. That’s fantastic. So there is this personalization and familiarity, but that’s the part that we retrain [00:17:00] our providers to think about that conversation differently. Right? Where it’s not just what’s your medical history, how long you’ve been suffering, but like let’s kick off with the mindset of how do I align to you, and I use the words better close you in the room.

Jessica Walker: Because as a provider the highest and best use of my time is that I understand your needs, I understand your concerns, and then I can explicitly overcome those objections while we’re having the conversation. And again, that’s different than let me tell you clinically how I’m going to address your knee.

Erik Sunset: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you know, I don’t want anybody listening to think that we lost sight of the point of medicine, which is to

Erik Sunset: treat patients. But it has to be regarded in this view as well, especially when you’re talking about elective procedures, things somebody doesn’t have to do, let alone have to be with you as the provider.

Erik Sunset: Maybe, maybe I didn’t like your bedside manner. Maybe you didn’t tell me why I really needed it.

Jessica Walker: Yeah. And we, um, so another, I’ll throw another stat at you, Erik, too, that we track because this is important and relative to the velocity of the [00:18:00] pipeline. On average, we shrink a patient from consult to procedure table by 33 days. And we believe that a big part of that is helping their, You hit the nail on the head.

Jessica Walker: Patients delay if they don’t have to do it, right? And so they need a compelling reason, they need a motivation, and using an example of the person with knee pain, right, if it’s episodic and the pain goes away and then they’re afraid of surgery, if we haven’t addressed that ahead of time and tell them why they should do it proactively while they’re feeling better before it gets worse, right, those are the things that are those subtle parts of the way that you handle the consumer journey that helps folks who are clinically eligible.

Jessica Walker: We’re not selling people on procedures they don’t need, right. They’re clinically eligible. Let’s help them move forward and get the care that they want in a timely fashion.

Erik Sunset: Sure. Yeah. I mean, just we’re talking about essentially a sales process. You don’t, you don’t win them all. And if you, if it’s not a good timing for a procedure today, maybe it’ll be better timing in six months for whatever reason.

Jessica Walker: And [00:19:00] sometimes in health care, like the, the sales word, I’m glad you said that because I often try to be hesitant about it. You know, people like, Oh, it’s a dirty word in health care, you know, but it’s, it is, there’s no money. There’s no mission. Right. So if we can’t get the revenue in and stay profitable and stay open and grow the practice, we can’t support other patients as well.

Jessica Walker: And so I do unabashedly say this. This is a sales process. And if you’re not treating it that way, guess what your competitors are. And we’re seeing that not just your next door neighbor competitors. We’re seeing patients travel all over the country. I have a provider in Dallas. We get patients all over the country that come to him, right, through word of mouth, through great marketing, and we get them to get on a plane and come pay cash when they had a great provider right in their market, but it’s because of how we handle the sales process.

Erik Sunset: Yeah, I mean, sales has had kind of a not so positive connotation, uh, through time. I think of Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross, you know, coffee is for closers, you’re in the boiler room. There are still [00:20:00] those that operate, you know, in that framework today and they don’t have a lot of clients. They don’t have a lot of success.

Erik Sunset: Consumerization of all things. We’re talking about consumerization of healthcare, but the average consumer will not put up with that. We need to shed that connotation. That is not how the world operates anymore. You know, Miller Hyman and spin selling, which that even at face value spin selling sounds like it might be a really bad use of the word sales, but as an understanding of needs and how can I help you address your need?

Erik Sunset: Really empower your providers and your staffs that sales is not a bad word. Sales is what makes the world go around. Everybody’s in sales. Or you’re

Erik Sunset: in denial. And

Jessica Walker: And bringing it full circle to our conversation earlier around front desk being set up to fail, right? If you look at the average front desk job description, there is no component in there of sales. There’s no component in there about accountability for helping patients move forward, get on the books and, you know, that sort of a thing.

Jessica Walker: And then we’re shocked when they come in and then we expect them to be salespeople on [00:21:00] the phone with none of that verification that that’s the job they wanted. The average front desk person. You know, it has a service heart. They just want to help patients. So then to think about now, we want you to have a complex sales conversation and help persuade people to move forward.

Jessica Walker: Like that just doesn’t jive. So that’s where, again, you know, my, my stand on my rock or my soap boxes, you got to separate this as a very distinct, you know, first impression manager, let’s call it what it is, you know, get them on and get them interested and moving forward.

Erik Sunset: it’s funny you say that that service heart, some of the highest performers and sales I know have that service heart because they want to help. And it’s not a twisting of the arm and you got to do it today. What can we do to get you in this new car today? It’s not bad at all. It’s how can I help you? What, what can, what do I have that you

Erik Sunset: need?

Jessica Walker: right. And just like a great salesperson there also. So I’ll use my team as an example. We’re also we teach them to also understand who’s not a good fit for the practice. So we talked about that highest and best use of the [00:22:00] time for the provider in the room. If we can sort people out before they show up for a consult, meaning that they’re not.

Jessica Walker: Ready, right? Or they have no intent of having surgery. You know, they just want to like tire kickers information kickers. Well, let’s do that on the phone with them before we put them on the books, right? Or they, you know, are someone who has maybe not a good clinical fit because of they’re not, you know, financial fit.

Jessica Walker: If they don’t have the right, you know, payer, and they’re not ready to have this out of pocket portion, why would we put them on the books for our provider then versus nurturing them when they’re ready? So it’s just that whole combination of how do we sort folks? How do we motivate folks? And then how do we move them forward at the right time at the right person?

Erik Sunset: Everything that you’re saying to me, I’m kind of sorting it mentally. You’ve got this incredible software that helps you through this process, but there’s still very much a human element. There’s a patient psychology element that you’re, that you’re hitting on here. Um, how do you marry the two? Like, how do you make it work at the practice or [00:23:00] at the

Erik Sunset: facility level?

Jessica Walker: Yeah. Great question. So we do know that, you know, again, thinking about your typical brain and how much we can retain in our brain. So that’s where the AI component does come in. We don’t expect our agents to know everything about you all at once. Right? So the ability for them to be fed from the knowledge bank while they’re on the call with the patient to know, Oh, hey, the patient has a, I’ll use an example, a real example.

Jessica Walker: I have a provider who is an orthopedic surgeon, and we know women over the age of 52, um, when, um, We talked to them about his closing technique and his minimal scarring for a knee procedure. That becomes a major motivation factor, right? And so, you know, the listener is listening to the call, identifying that this person, that that’s maybe a value bomb or a value statement that’s important to them, and suggest that to the agent in order to say that.

Jessica Walker: And then over time, we study, you know, who moves forward. Who falls out? Who does the practice decline? And we use that back to our knowledge bank to understand, you know, how to better sell the provider for what [00:24:00] works. So when you think about this, my heart hospitality service, I believe will never take the human out of health care.

Jessica Walker: However, we can add components that automate the journey, but still keep it personal. I’m not a fan of chatbots, I’m not a fan of impersonal communication, but you can have a very efficient experience, but then give the patient an off ramp when they want to talk to a human, or they have a complex question that only a human can help engage, or only a situation.

Jessica Walker: And so that’s that combination. You think about, you know, people, personalization at scale, so having highly trained care consultants that know the procedure, know the provider, know how to talk about it, and then have the tools and the resources, how to provide, you know, appropriate education. I use the example, you know, we’re not clinicians.

Jessica Walker: We’re never going to talk to you about, Oh, you need this diagnosis or you need this procedure, you know, we’ve got that guardrails and then take them from there. So again, you know, the technology assists that the [00:25:00] training, how we select people. And then on the back end, the quality assurance of monitoring everyone’s, um, you know, are they actually following the guidelines?

Erik Sunset: What, so one of the things you said early on in that, in that passage, I want to give you a chance to shoot down an objection, uh, that you may get, you may get frequently that you get a patient on the phone, you have your careship, uh, sort of guiding the conversation. They’re using the software, AI, machine learning, and it’s giving them suggestions.

Erik Sunset: That’s not, and I’m not saying that I heard it this way, but some might. That’s not manipulative if you’re providing information to your SHERPA to say, Hey, you might be concerned about what the scar is going to look like when you’re done. Our surgeon, the surgeon takes that into account. He’ll be able to talk you through it.

Erik Sunset: It’s not a way to manipulate people through to the goal of getting them into

Erik Sunset: practice.

Jessica Walker: No, I wouldn’t call it manipulation at all. It’s more of helping like what’s important to you. So going back to the consumerization, each of us decides to buy through different criteria, right? [00:26:00] You could be a. There again, we see this persona kind of play out all the time. There are certain consumers that they want to know what’s the credentials.

Jessica Walker: How many surgeries do this provider do of this type every week? You know, heck, we’ve had somebody ask us if there’s, you know, mortality rate for one provider, you know, so like that’s the informed consumer buyer, right? You have the emotional buyer who is, hey, my next door neighbor, Sally, had this procedure.

Jessica Walker: She had a great outcome. She loved how friendly Dr. Jones was, you know, so how we talk to those two buyers is totally different. You know, the emotional buyer is not going to, it’s not going to resonate with them when I talk about, you know, their, you know, number of procedures and they want to know, is he going to be nice to me?

Jessica Walker: Is he going to listen to me? Is he going to answer my questions? Can I get a hold of someone when I need to? Right? So I would consider that more of understanding, like how, what’s important to you when you decide, and then making sure that we feed that to you in a way that is relevant and timely.

Erik Sunset: Yeah, I can’t help but [00:27:00] laugh a little bit about the mortality question. Like, that’s a good one to ask. This is a routine carpal tunnel procedure, like pretty low mortality on this one. Good question

Erik Sunset: though.

Jessica Walker: Yeah. But I mean, you know, or like revision rates, right? That’s a good example too. We had that come up, um, again, depending upon the procedure, you know, we talk about, you know, a bariatric weight loss surgery, different kind of level of investment and fears than yet to carpal tunnel or joint procedure.

Jessica Walker: However, What’s important to that patient as a consumer is important to them. And what we find is that if we can draw that out in the patient early in the conversation and address those fears or hit those, you know, kind of points for them, then when they’re in the room with the provider, that’s a much more efficient conversation because we’ve already addressed it, right?

Jessica Walker: And they’ve already gotten the answer. And they may, you know, want to reinforce it with the provider or we’ll put it in the briefing notes so the provider knows to bring it up again and make sure that, you know, they’re Their fears or concerns are addressed. That goes back to that. Like, let’s get these folks through [00:28:00] efficiently and address their concerns that they come in feeling trust and feeling confidence and therefore being ready to move forward.

Erik Sunset: Yeah, getting, getting patients what they need. And I would, I would imagine that as you’re talking to your physician owners, as you’re talking to administrators, as you’re talking to that front desk staff, this has got to be a totally new mindset. How, how has it received across those different

Erik Sunset: levels?

Jessica Walker: Yeah, so sometimes as I’ve talked to some partners, you know, they maybe have Sally at the front desk and she’s great, right? And they’re like, well, Sally just needs training. Hey, no problem. You know, we have a solution. We can help Sally learn some sales skills. And if you’d like ongoing quality assurance of Sally’s performance.

Jessica Walker: We can talk to you about that. We can offer that up as well, because we understand, you know, that maybe some providers aren’t ready for an outsourced partner, like a care Sherpa. So we offer these different things. But those who have, we talked to the earlier part of the show, they’ve had constant turnover.

Jessica Walker: They recognize that, hey, this really does need to be a specialty kind of role. And [00:29:00] I Really want the data and everything around it. You know, those are our partners that is a good fit for our full solution. And so for us, you know, we look for readiness. You know, do you, are you ready for it? A more innovative approach?

Jessica Walker: Are you ready to, like I said to earlier, the successes, not just how the phone call happens, but also what happens in the room. So is the provider ready to start thinking about, you know, having a different kind of conversation in the room? Um, yeah. And so we’ll, we’ll find, you know, what the right solution is to help them solve their revenue leakage problem.

Jessica Walker: Um, but for me, my core is like, we’re, you know, very much, we’re not here to be disruptive to your day to day operations. Your staff should feel relief because the phones are quieter. They should feel relief because, you know, they’re not having to feel like they’re failing by not getting to that web form in a timely fashion.

Jessica Walker: Um, so that’s, Usually what it feels like when you kind of hand over the keys and have us as a partner. Um, but you know, we’ll we’ll work with a partner and just even it could be baby steps like I mentioned helping them You know just think about better ways of [00:30:00] handling the calls or tracking the calls whatever that looks like

Erik Sunset: That’s that’s really interesting because across the board in health care, everybody needs to do more with less than they’ve ever had. And, you know, the classic health care fix is just throw money at it. Hire me another FTE, hire me three

Erik Sunset: more. You can’t get

Jessica Walker: technology solution. Let me just buy another silver bullet solution. That’s not going to really solve my problems

Erik Sunset: now. And it’s, you know, the main problem is I need, as the provider, as the surgeon, I need work. I need more patients to treat and more procedures scheduled so that I can help people. That’s the, what they exist to do at the day.

Jessica Walker: Yeah, and you know, we have always been a remote team, and that’s one of them that I like to say, like, let us handle everything remotely because then you’re on on site team members that are there can be present in the moment with the patient in front of them. And that’s what you want. That’s great customer service, right?

Jessica Walker: Um, it doesn’t feel good for the person in front of you to say, Wait a minute, hold on while I answer this call. And, you know, none of [00:31:00] that’s being served well. And so it’s like you can delineate and separate out this very important role, you know, keep it pristine, allow that to work, and then dedicate on just keeping the pipeline flowing.

Erik Sunset: Yeah, and it works the other end too for the patient on the phone. You hear, as you said earlier, doctor’s office, please hold. And then you hear the Muzak for 10 minutes. You’re like, I guess I’ll call back tomorrow.

Erik Sunset: I don’t know.

Jessica Walker: I’ll give you another quick fun fact in terms of, because again, I’m a data geek, I’m a data girl, we track everything to nuance. So, um, just by a quick guess, Erik, how long do you think is the average hold time when we do a mystery shop of, uh, elected medical practices? It is.

Erik Sunset: It’s gotta be at least seven

Erik Sunset: minutes.

Jessica Walker: Yeah, so it is around 8. 3 minutes. And so, Yeah. And so in that time, we keep the clock ticking, even if they answer and say, you know, Oh, who are you holding for? And they put you back on hold. You still haven’t served that, that patient. Right. And so, you know, we know from a consumer perspective that you [00:32:00] have about three minutes before you’ve lost me.

Jessica Walker: And so if you want a good tell, I’ll give your listeners a good tip, go look at your abandon rate of how many calls are unanswered and they just hang up. That’s a good indicator of how many dollars you’re losing every day because They don’t have time for that. Right. And I’ll tell you my other favorite thing that folks aren’t quite thinking about.

Jessica Walker: It’s very common for practices to say we’ve shut off our phones for lunchtime to allow our staff to have lunch. Right. When do you think your patients are calling to book their appointment?

Erik Sunset: I know. Lunchtime, of course.

Jessica Walker: Yes. And so we’re just used to getting this voicemail hell where people get stuck in voicemail, you know, playing the voicemail tag game.

Jessica Walker: And so, you know, that’s an example as well of just thinking about it from a consumer lens. The highest call volume time window across all of our clients across the entire United States is 11 a. m. to 1 p. m. [00:33:00] Lunchtime for everyone else, right? They finally got their morning out of the way. They got the kids to school.

Jessica Walker: They got their email cleared. Oh, gosh, I gotta get that appointment made. And if you’re not catching it in real time during that time, forget about it.

Erik Sunset: The other one that drives me crazy as a healthcare consumer myself is clinic opens at 7. 30. So we’re treating patients at 7. 30. Phones don’t start till 9. 00. Like, okay, well I was up early to talk to you and I guess I’ll wait till tomorrow or I’ll wait till this afternoon.

Erik Sunset: That’s crazy.

Jessica Walker: Yeah, exactly. I’ll give your listeners one other tip. If you do nothing else, take from this conversation. The best thing you can do is create a, get the kids to school. They got their email cleared. And it rings to, you know, three different team members phones. So they know this ringtone is a new patient. We’ve got three rings to answer it. You know, these are just subtle small things that still can make a difference. And if you do nothing else, just really think about the new patient journey as dollars ringing.

Jessica Walker: And if you don’t catch it in that moment, they’re gone.

Erik Sunset: Yeah, and to your whole point, you know, the patient experience is [00:34:00] paramount. The reticence around IVR is like, if you call a bank, that IVR probably stinks. If you call your insurance carrier, that one probably stinks too. But as a consumer, I’m sure you can think of examples where it’s like, press one for sales, press two for support.

Erik Sunset: That’s a great experience. I’m going to talk to the person I need to talk to, not 30 seconds of a menu being read to

Erik Sunset: you. That’s not good.

Jessica Walker: No, we know that we know the hack with a cable company, right? Like if you’re mad at your cable company, if you hit the new pay, if you make the new customer line, you get through, it’s the same thing here. Like, and again, I’d love to help you address your existing patient calls, but let’s make sure if you’re going to spend the money on marketing, especially, let’s make sure that that gets a super highway to the right person.

Erik Sunset: Super highway to the right person. That’s perfect. So Jessica, as we kind of wind down our show, you’re using AI in healthcare for your purposes. Do you have any thoughts around the broader applications, uh, maybe more around treatment or patient interactions from a stricter practice or facility side? What are you seeing?

Erik Sunset: What are you excited about?[00:35:00]

Jessica Walker: Yeah, and again, my mindset being the consumer, right? And so we are currently studying what are those right touch points along that post consult to procedure journey that helps the patient get more prepared, more educated, more, you know, ready to go. So subtle things such as. We know about 48 hours before, you know, verifying with the patient as a consumer.

Jessica Walker: Like, do you have your house ready? Do you have, you know, someone there to take care of your kids, walk your dog, like just having that prompt proactively, that subtle thing makes such a difference in their clinical outcome. Right. And then their recovery and whatnot. So we’re looking at that at each individual procedure type and, uh, and treatment type to look at where those right ways to support the consumer at the right time.

Jessica Walker: And then, you know, we can talk about the creepy feature of HR, AI, where people are doing like a voice augmentation to you don’t realize you’re talking to someone in India. I don’t want to go there because that’s just not where we stand. But, you know, you’re looking at ways to, [00:36:00] again, how do I, whether it’s the tone of the HR, Whether it’s the pace of their conversation, you know, how do you help someone?

Jessica Walker: Um, and I, I also don’t want to neglect, you know, we, you know, younger folks maybe are also used to self checkout in grocery stores and there are certain consumers that are like, this is my provider. I’m getting this treatment. I don’t need to talk to a human. So give me the superhighway to digitally engage.

Jessica Walker: And so helping, you know, we’re looking at how do we identify those consumers earlier and grease the skids for them. So In my mind, it is like, how do you address, you know, and elevate the experience, whatever that experience path may be. So that’s the future for, as we’re kind of, the purview that we’re thinking about.

Erik Sunset: Yeah. That’s, that’s really well put, really well thought out. What we’re seeing on the DocBuddy side is that there’s a lot of great uses for AI. And there’s even some things that you’re doing where you don’t need AI at all. You’ve got either a different digital workflow or some process that. You jam AI into it for what, you [00:37:00] know, let’s complicate this and make it a level of review that somebody before didn’t have and

Erik Sunset: now has to do.

Jessica Walker: risk,

Erik Sunset: like, yeah, risk. Exactly. That’s, uh, got our eyes on, on Washington there. We’ll see what

Erik Sunset: happens.

Jessica Walker: And I’ll tell you what, one thing that I’m working with another partner on, and I’ll throw one more stat at you before we close, um, we have seen consistently that, again, because this is the way we’ve always done business, a lot of practices always think, they don’t think about the person before the process.

Jessica Walker: So oftentimes when we start with a new client, we discover that they’re losing around 20 to 30 percent of their new patients. Again, Getting them to the consult because of the whole paperwork issue. So they’re putting the process of paperwork in front of the person. And so we work with our partners to alleviate that.

Jessica Walker: And when I, so we’re also looking at ways that, hey, in the conversation, I’ve already discovered some of your medical history. I’ve already discovered some of your details. Prefill out that paperwork and give the patient, it’s [00:38:00] easier for someone to edit something than it is for them to create, but give them a digital solution.

Jessica Walker: By all means, dear God, let’s eliminate clipboards, right? Of like, I got to fill it out every time. So, you know, these are the other things that how do we, because I look at it from the revenue loss. You know, now you’ve got 30 percent that you canceled their appointment because they didn’t fill out their paperwork in time.

Jessica Walker: No. So is it really necessary? How can we change that experience to help the patient have a better outcome as well as the provider maximize their revenue?

Erik Sunset: I can’t help myself. And if that patient that you cancel on, cause they didn’t do their paperwork, right, that one out of the 30%, and that’s a marketing derived acquisition of a new patient, that’s just money you’re throwing away. That’s

Erik Sunset: gone

Jessica Walker: All right. One more quick stat. Only 10 percent of those patients ever rebook. So that’s how drastic this is. So if you look at that, like even in, you know, that’s even if you nurture them and you try to recover them, 10 percent on average will rebook once they cancel. So again, you’ve just [00:39:00] put process in front of people in front of revenue.

Erik Sunset: So is this a, is this a sleeping giant? Uh, this is not an area of medicine that I was all that familiar with before speaking with you. Is this plaguing all practices and all facilities across the country? They don’t even know it. Like, is that how you

Jessica Walker: 100 I 100 percent do. And I can, I’m getting to the point where it’s like, again, if I mystery shop you and certain indicators are tells that I can probably predict without even going through your entire journey where you’re losing revenue. And I think that going back to our earlier partner conversation because we’re not tracking it.

Jessica Walker: No one’s looking at the EMRs don’t track that pre patient journey. And so it doesn’t tell me where we lose people. So I can’t learn from that. You know, I use the example paperwork. We look at this to say, okay, we fought hard to get that person here. And now you’re going to cancel an appointment and not get them in because of the paperwork.

Jessica Walker: Oh, forget that noise. So that’s my, of course, right. That’s my business. That’s why I’m passionate about it. But I do believe again, you know, I go [00:40:00] back to outside of industry expertise. That’s the part that we’re missing in healthcare is really thinking about those friction points and asking ourselves, is that necessary?

Jessica Walker: If we want to be competitive and if we want to offer a true consumer elevated experience that maximizes revenue, we’ve got to look at it differently. So I’ll continue to televangelize this, get on my soapbox and appreciate you, Erik, give me an opportunity to share it today because I do think that this is the next phase of how do we make health care smarter.

Erik Sunset: Yeah, stay on that soapbox. No need to step down. Definitely not on my account. That was fantastic. And as we wrap up here, Jessica, how can listeners connect with you? Can they find you on social media? What’s your website? Where can people

Erik Sunset: get to you?

Jessica Walker: Yeah, so by all means, check us out at CareSherpa. com. I’m rather active on LinkedIn. You can find me under Jessica Walker at CareSherpa on LinkedIn or, you know, definitely reach out to me directly if I can answer any questions or happy to share our benchmarks when it comes to if you [00:41:00] want to evaluate your performance of what we see.

Jessica Walker: My email is jessica at caresharpa. com.

Erik Sunset: Easy enough. And of course we will have all of those links in the show notes. Jessica, thanks so much for the time and energy. This was

Erik Sunset: great.

Jessica Walker: I appreciate it. It’s a great cup of coffee on a on the morning. Thanks so much, Erik.

Erik Sunset: My pleasure. And on behalf of the entire DocBuddy team, we want to thank you for listening. Be sure you’re subscribed on Apple pods, Spotify, and YouTube. So you always get the newest episodes of the show until next time. I’m your host, Erik. We’ll talk soon.