Strategies To Prepare Your Organization for AI w/ Kyle Swarts

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

Erik Sunset: You can learn more about that and all of our solutions at DocBuddy.com. And today we’ve got a very special guest who’s not only a guest, but also a partner of DocBuddy. Uh, we’ll get to that in a minute, but we’re joined by Kyle Swarts. Kyle is the president of AI Health, where he oversees operations, client success, business development, marketing, and strategic partnerships.

Erik Sunset: Part of the reason we’re together today. He’s got more than 15 years of experience serving in a variety of leadership roles within healthcare consulting, revenue cycle management, value based care, and information technology companies. Kyle, thanks for joining us today.

Kyle Swarts: having me excited to be here.

Erik Sunset: It is our pleasure. Before we dive into our show, what else should listeners know about you? What

Erik Sunset: didn’t I cover in your intro?

Kyle Swarts: Well, I think most importantly I’m a dad of two Swifty [00:01:00] fans So by default, I’m a Swifty dad I’m the father of a two year old crazy German short hair pointer and I live just outside of Charlotte, North Carolina So if that’s not enough to kind of rattle your brain, I don’t know what else is but there’s a lot of energy And passion packed into into that scenario.

Kyle Swarts: So but thanks for thanks again for having us today. We appreciate it

Erik Sunset: Oh, you bet. Because you invoked Taylor Swift, I’m the father of, uh, two little girls as well. Do you have a

Erik Sunset: favorite song?

Kyle Swarts: Um, uh, bad blood. Um, uh, it’s a very expensive, um, habit for my girls. In fact, we went to Lisbon this year to see Taylor Swift in Lisbon. Um, and it was an amazing experience. Uh, lots of memories. Uh, not a cheap endeavor, but certainly a memorable one that will carry with us for the rest of our lives. Um, so, but other than that, I can probably sing a few, but I don’t know [00:02:00] the names.

Kyle Swarts: There’s too many albums. Um, I know she’s stating, um, uh, Kelsey, Travis Kelsey, that’s about it. But other than that, I just support their habit.

Erik Sunset: Oh, how cool. I, I didn’t know that, uh, you got to do that trip. I kind of default to the office space answer when Michael Bolton is asked about his favorite Michael Bolton song. And it’s just, they’re all just so good. I, I couldn’t pick one. But to bring, to bring us back to our core of the show here today, we referenced it very early on in the read in that DocBuddy and AI Health are officially partnered.

Erik Sunset: And you can see all about that announcement on our site, docbuddy. com slash blog. I know on the DocBuddy side, we’re really, um, really excited about this partnership and all the value that DocBuddy and AI Health can bring together, both for facilities, um, as well as the clinics that feed those facilities procedures.

Erik Sunset: So on our side, and I’ll get out of your way here in a second, Kyle, on our side. Obviously the power of instantly generated and approved operative reports with images is [00:03:00] replacing this antiquated workflow that hasn’t changed in a hundred years that is transcription, um, bringing everybody into the digital age that is a part of that operative report supply chain.

Kyle Swarts: And then AI Health is doing the same thing, uh, when it comes to

Kyle Swarts: coding.

Kyle Swarts: Yeah, I mean, we’re, we’re equally as excited. I mean, you know, we started AI health a little over two years ago, you know, with the goal to help organizations reimagine broken and outdated workflows, help kind of challenge the status quo and bring real AI and machine learning capabilities to the market.

Kyle Swarts: And the lineup between AI health customer base, as well as DocBuddy’s customer base and the market demands of being able to take. An operative report or an office visit note and create a medical code that’s autonomously generated, leveraging AI and sending that direct to bill is extremely powerful.

Kyle Swarts: There’s not a conversation I have, uh, at the executive level on a [00:04:00] daily or weekly basis where that vision is a reality. It’s not a pipe dream, and we’re trying to figure out how we get there. So this partnership You know, really shows the innovative nature of, you know, taking two really strong organizations, uh, and bringing their technologies together to solve a market, uh, market need.

Kyle Swarts: And so, you know, we’re excited to get this off the ground and, um, you know, we’re, we’re positive that the clients will enjoy it. But again, I think part of what we’re learning about AI in general, is there’s this academic curiosity, but it’s now starting to move into practical implementation. And so trying to get organizations to break down those barriers and silos, um, and kind of old thought processes is a challenge.

Kyle Swarts: But I do, you know, anticipate that this collaboration will continue to bear the fruit, uh, to be able to improve provider satisfaction and documentation timing, but also, you know, Allowing providers and clinicians to be doctors, not [00:05:00] medical coders. Uh, and that’s where we come into play.

Erik Sunset: Yeah, and it’s, uh, one more point on, on the topic here where, believe it or not, we’re not recording an infomercial. We’re not gonna, you know, flash a 1 800 number and, but wait, there’s more. But there is an important point to be made here for our friends at the facility that you have never had to do more with less.

Erik Sunset: You’re unable to hire, you’re unable to retain staff, and that’s just, uh, industry wide. There’s a huge staffing crunch. Uh, so being able to remove some of the manual processes from your workflow, whether that’s in the direct operative port supply chain or the coding thereafter, we’d love to talk to you.

Erik Sunset: We’ll have links in the show notes that you can get in touch with either or both of us. Um, and then what you just said about AI, you know, as a general rule, as long as I don’t have a guest working at an AI, uh, company, I’ll ask them, what are your thoughts about AI and healthcare and leave it really open end.

Erik Sunset: And I get a lot of answers, uh, from watch out, Skynet from Terminator is headed down the pike to, I don’t really know, it can mean so much to so many [00:06:00] people. And that’s true. There’s a broad range of applications for AI and

Erik Sunset: healthcare

Kyle Swarts: I mean, the, the, the AI market, you know, it’s dominating the headlines, the adoption, if you’re not opening up his talk or some type of news article, it could be non healthcare AI is all over the place. Um, it is the new blockchain. It’s the, the new shiny object. And I think, you know, organizations specifically in the healthcare space that we, we mutually serve.

Kyle Swarts: Um, it’s a multi-billion dollar vendor landscape solving a multitude of problems and challenges that, uh, A CEO or a health system executive or a provider group executive is saying, where do I start? Uh, and there’s a lot of paralysis. We’ve got a front end issue with prior auth. We’ve got a coding shortage issue.

Kyle Swarts: We’ve got a physician burnout challenge, and, and the list goes on and on. And so. You know, part of, of, of that, um, you know, we’re seeing across the board is [00:07:00] leaders saying, where do we start and what are some of the areas that we should focus in? And, you know, I immediately go back to, to the data and the research and, and ask, um, you know, organizations like Medscape that creates a, an AI report.

Kyle Swarts: And they’re basically saying, listen, medical practices are using it in the areas of administrative tasks, scheduling. And so again, that’s great. But where do you start? If you have a set number of resources or limited resources to deploy, where do you go? And so it’s been an interesting conversation where it’s, it’s a, it’s an ongoing challenge.

Kyle Swarts: And I can only imagine today being in the executive role inside of a physician organization or hospital or surgery center. Trying to figure out, uh, how do we do more, uh, with less, uh, and with reimbursement challenges and staffing shortages, you’ve got to get, uh, really creative, but you know, the reality is, is AI is [00:08:00] here.

Kyle Swarts: It’s here to stay. Um, and it’s going to have to be adopted within, within your practice or, or some of those organizations are going to be left, uh, left in the dust. And I, I will, you know, caveat that it’s a big market. There’s a lot of organizations that do a lot of things. I think it’s very important to go through the appropriate due diligence process to understand some of the differences between large language models and generative AI and chat GPT and Bert and all of these.

Kyle Swarts: Really exciting letters and names, uh, and algorithms to really discern whether or not it’s something that is really AI or just a rules based capability with an AI flag on it. But again, the market’s shifting, you know, uh, and, and overall, we’re seeing a lot of organizations be really excited about it. In fact, just recently I presented to the American Academy of, of, of professional coders, their Minnesota chapter.

Kyle Swarts: [00:09:00] And there’s nothing more terrifying than talking about autonomous coding to a room of 75 coders,

Kyle Swarts: um,

Kyle Swarts: and trying to demystify that AI is taking over the world. And I think when you share that AI can be deployed as a helpful co worker,

Kyle Swarts: uh,

Kyle Swarts: and that it’s not necessarily a threat,

Kyle Swarts: uh,

Kyle Swarts: and a robot’s going to come in and take their jobs,

Kyle Swarts: it’s certainly,

Kyle Swarts: That certainly helps.

Kyle Swarts: But you mentioned labor shortages, right? I mean, they’re real. Uh, and a lot of organizations are, are shifting, uh, to outsourcing again, to, to offshore resources. And. You know, that comes with challenges, concerns and, you know, security risk. And so, again, I think, you know, overall it’s here. Um, it’s here to stay and organizations just need to be, uh, need to be prepared.

Erik Sunset: well, you hit on some key points there too, around the, that’s like the helpful coworker, the market, the buying side of the market for these AI solutions has matured pretty quickly. And I’m relatively [00:10:00] impressed that from January to present. You know, a lot of the talk tracks that I was hearing from guests on the show where the AI will just do it all maybe someday.

Erik Sunset: Um, but there’s still a level of intervention needed for, um, a legitimate human with expertise to say this output isn’t correct and either go in and address the root cause or fix that output so that it is correct. Uh, this is not an outright replacement yet. You know, maybe with quantum computing and big enough data sets and, you know, 10 years down the line, you could have something that you push a button and it’s perfect.

Erik Sunset: But then again, I don’t think that the lawyers at any level would be okay without any human

Erik Sunset: oversight of these systems.

Kyle Swarts: Correct. Yeah. I mean, I think the reality is, is, you know,

Kyle Swarts: There needs to be this demystification of the use of AI and healthcare. There’s a lot of confusion around what it is and where it can help. But once you get past that point, um, you know, the question you need to ask yourself, is the organization actually ready to embrace and deploy AI because it does [00:11:00] require executive buy in, change management, cultural transformations, difficult conversations, um, and by the way, capital investments, because You can’t just set it and forget it.

Kyle Swarts: It’s a continuous improvement exercise, uh, that requires human intervention. And so there, there is a need to definitely kind of care and feed for this, but this isn’t just identify the problem and let’s go. It does require some type of a campaign, a capitalization, uh, of, of expenditure.

Kyle Swarts: And. a willingness to fail candidly.

Kyle Swarts: I mean, some of these, you know, uh, solutions may or may not, you know, hit the mark. They may or may not be mature enough, so on and so forth, but you’ve got to get some early wins. Uh, and you know, for, for any of us that are in the AI space, identifying early partners, development partners, expanding your, your capabilities, really the innovation is happening between the vendor and the client partner at [00:12:00] times to really.

Kyle Swarts: Uh, put it to use and challenge what we’re doing and, and we challenge back and forth, which is great, but I, I would be short sighted to, to not discuss the fact that policy and ethics, um, and the reality about, you know, regulatory scrutiny, whether it’s an administrative AI functions or clinical AI functions or billing and coding functions.

Kyle Swarts: I mean, there’s a lot of regulatory bodies that are around this, uh, and it’ll be interesting to see what happens coming out of this election year. But regardless, CMS, HHS, food and drug, ONC, I mean, they’re all looking at this, um, and, and wanting to make sure that for all the right reasons, um, that we’re, we’re using AI to the highest and upward regard and standard.

Kyle Swarts: Uh, consistency across the, across the board.

Erik Sunset: Well, that’s a really good way to lay out the ways to sort of ID your strategies and prepare and engage the organization for, uh, [00:13:00] certain AI softwares and certain AI tools. And I think a lot of the buzz too, as you mentioned, uh, rules based procedures or rules based workflows. There’s not always a clear cut case that AI can do something better.

Erik Sunset: And we’re seeing that in healthcare. There’s so many sort of fly by nights and, uh, flash in the pan type vendors touting AI. Maybe your particular workflow doesn’t require AI, but where it does, the excitement is because AI is so much more powerful than something that’s rules based or requires Twice the human input that an AI model or that an AI software can deliver.

Erik Sunset: I

Erik Sunset: mean, am I looking at it the right way?

Kyle Swarts: Yeah. Again, it’s, it really depends. I mean, what, what is the problem you’re, you’re trying to solve and evaluate the market? I mean, when I, when I, when I talk to organizations, again, I do a lot of speaking and, um, on this and whether it’s HFMA or AOE or, you know, You know, other kind of, uh, leadership, healthcare leadership, um, uh, discussions, you know, what are the key successes [00:14:00] for adoption of AI, right?

Kyle Swarts: One, you got to keep an open mind. If you think that robots are taken over the world, um, I would, I would challenge, challenge you on that. Candidly. Um, it does seem, you know, like there’s these foreign aliens coming in and taking over the world, but that’s not necessarily the case. There is a, uh, a lack of true understanding.

Kyle Swarts: Uh, and knowledge around the what’s AI, what’s machine learning, what’s robotic process automation, what are these LLMs, what is generative AI, what is predictive AI, what’s rules based, what’s computer assisted, what’s the level of service calculator. So you got to do your research. Whether you do it internally or you, you know, work with a consulting firm that can lean into that.

Kyle Swarts: Um, but if you don’t necessarily know what you’re trying to solve for and you don’t have executive buy in, you’re going to be on this six to 12 months, you know, treadmill of despair and frustration trying to solve a problem. Um, and you just don’t get out of your own way. And so you got to vet your partners.

Kyle Swarts: [00:15:00] You got to be ready for continuous improvement. And a lot of organizations think if you deploy AI, it’s going to solve all of your problems. You’ve got to think big and start small and then slowly but surely start to, you know, either increase the pace in which you deploy, increase the pace at which you deploy and then start something new because you’ve proven an ROI to track record.

Kyle Swarts: Um, there’s a lot of different ways to look at it, but you know, I think there’s, there’s a lot of indicators that, you know, a CEO come to me, CFO, um, COO, rev cycle leader and say like, okay, we know where we want to start, but how do we have and document success indicators? The board is asking for us to document this after.

Kyle Swarts: They’ve given us, you know, this capital injection to be able to go solve this problem. How do I show them? And what are the metrics and indicators that we need to drive by? And, you know, it’s value delivered. It’s ROI. It’s, is it [00:16:00] easily integrated inside the workflow? You know, what were the performance metrics before?

Kyle Swarts: What are they now? Are they actually tangible metrics? Is the change management component? Uh, well received. I mean, you could put tech in anywhere, but if you don’t have adoption, you’re in trouble, right? I mean, let’s call, let’s call it out. Um, and did if you were to go to an end user, whether it’s a clinician or administrative resource, you know what they say?

Kyle Swarts: If you ask them without the executive team around that it reduced some of their work, um, and that they’re, you know, getting some joy out of it, right? Whether they were, you know, challenged with the deployment six months ago. Are they actually seeing the effective use? Are they improving their efficiency?

Kyle Swarts: Are the docs getting home earlier? Like all of those things. And then if you have gone through those, you know, first five or six indicators, Then are you willing to optimize and [00:17:00] continue your ongoing, uh, ongoing processes? Because again, it’s not just set it, uh, and forget it. And there may be some things that you learned and you can tweak along the way.

Kyle Swarts: So, you know, that’s typically the top, you know, five or six lists that, that I give to executives to say, listen, this is where you can start. Um, I don’t have, uh, the magic bullet. There’s a lot of genies left in the bottle here, but I do want to make sure that you have some type of. Metric that actually other organizations have used in track before. Who are some of the trendsetters, uh, uh, and innovators in the space. So, you know, again, I think it often, um, uh, is received well, doesn’t fall on deaf ears. And now you’re starting again to see the executives engaged and where the practical implementation of AI can be deployed.

Erik Sunset: Well, everything you just said, those, those five or six markers that you lay out and say, here’s where to start. And here’s how you know how it’s going. I think what’s exciting in the space is that people are no longer. Just outright willing to do what they’ve always done and get what [00:18:00] they’ve always gotten.

Erik Sunset: Something has to give. And in this post COVID landscape around staffing, around reimbursement, about all the headwinds that are facing healthcare, and especially the ASC, sort of the shining star of healthcare in the U. S., where you have that alignment between the payer, the provider, and the patient that our listeners will know.

Erik Sunset: Uh, so much about that folks are willing to, uh, embrace something completely new, uh, I think is a really good sign of the times. You know, I can go back to the early days of meaningful use where it’s more software, you know, expensive client server deployment software, and it’s going to be just a bunch more human inputs into this machine and then you get exactly out of it what you put in.

Erik Sunset: And that’s not necessarily the case with AI. You end up getting more out of it than you put

Erik Sunset: in, hopefully.

Kyle Swarts: And I, and I, it’s, what’s interesting too, is, I mean, we’re, we’re talking, you know, largely the areas of focus where AI is deployed is inside of, you know, 10 or 15 different functions, right. For example, in. You know, you also have to [00:19:00] take a look at two other key pieces of the puzzle. One is the, the clinician, right?

Kyle Swarts: The provider who is taking care of the patient, what is their attitude towards AI, what was it and where is it today? And you’re actually seeing there’s data that shows that you’re seeing them be more in tune and receptive to the use of AI. Um, most of them are somewhat concerned. Um, and some of them are, are saying.

Kyle Swarts: We’re absolutely apprehensive, and I don’t know what exactly those use cases are. Is it diagnosing a really complex acute illness? Okay, I would also be super concerned, right? But is it where it’s been deployed today and having a kind of a helpful coworker watchful eye for radiology, right? And some of these other, you know, clinical areas, which is where, you know, some of the early clinical AI was was deployed.

Kyle Swarts: Um, and so you’ve got to worry about the physicians, you know, is it is AI [00:20:00] deriving at a diagnosis? And I have to sign off on that. What is the practicality, the clinical relevance, the compliance component related to that? And at the end of the day, it’s, it’s, it’s my MPI number, right? It’s my medical license that I’ve worked so hard for so many years to get and maintain.

Kyle Swarts: Um, and you know, I think that’s, that’s important. Now what I would, what I would argue, and I’m not a clinician, but a clinician, but I have friends that are that if it, if it allows a clinician to have more time with patients, that’s going to be valuable because then it leads into the third piece of this is.

Kyle Swarts: As a patient and a consumer, how comfortable would you be? If you went into a clinic, you were addressed by a robot powered and trained by millions and millions of records to diagnose you with strep throat, diagnose you with a COVID, diagnose you with a broken arm, [00:21:00] right? And I’m not saying that that’s happening or won’t happen, but as a consumer, how are you perceiving the use and deployment of artificial intelligence as a patient?

Kyle Swarts: We’re so used to having, you know, uh, a doctor, a physician, a clinician in front of us, pulling that chair, the white coat, the pen, you know, and having a conversation with us. Most of the time they’re staring at a computer, not even looking at us, but that’s a different, that’s a different problem to solve with AI and documentation tools, but the point is, is that 60 to 70 percent of the patients.

Kyle Swarts: Or consumers are concerned that the output of the AI algorithms may not be correct. So where, where are we in this evolution? Right. And, and I think over time, listen, the deployment with inside of administrative tasks is going to continue to rise. You’re already seeing it. Clinicians over [00:22:00] time, I think are going to be more comfortable with certain use cases of.

Kyle Swarts: of A. I. And obviously i other specialties where t We’ve got to figure that how are the patients goin My parents are in their l encounter, uh, a machine where it’s asking them questions and there’s no Q and on the other side of that, it would blow their brains up. Um, and they would be skeptical of the response again, our generation or younger generations.

Kyle Swarts: Mary may say, that’s cool. This is easy. I’m in and out in five minutes. Here’s my script. But I think we need to adapt a little bit to kind of the human, um, acceptance and tolerance of it. Um, which we have to think about the entire healthcare ecosystem. It’s not just, you know, the administrative staff and the [00:23:00] clinicians, it’s the actual consumers who are, they’re going to listen or not listen to.

Kyle Swarts: And that’s a kind of a separate conversation on whether or not they’re going to follow the, the clinical protocols, but. You know, I’m excited about it. I’m excited about where it’s going. Um, I think you’re going to see an uptick over the next couple of years. Uh, and like I said, there’s a lot of genies left in the bottle.

Kyle Swarts: There’s a lot of cool, innovative companies trying to do stuff. I hope they survive. Uh, I hope they’re, you know, I, uh, their use cases are, are widely deployed and adopted, but this is, you know, this is, this is hard terrain, you know, to navigate, uh, and to see a complexity.

Erik Sunset: It sure is. That was really well said around the clinician and the patient acceptance of AI in that, you know, in that workflow. Um, the other end of this, like you’re, you’re treating patients as a doctor because you want to help people. That’s what you went to medical school for. But, you know, you got to pay bills and keep the legs in the practice, the facility on some way.

Erik Sunset: So on the, to turn our [00:24:00] attention to the revenue cycle side of the house or the billing side of the house, you know, I know you’re seeing, uh, leaders in RCM space across facilities, across clinics, across groups, they’re increasingly using AI to enhance their workflow. What are some of the key

Erik Sunset: takeaways there?

Kyle Swarts: Well, listen, I mean, they, they’re the, um, the, the headwinds that many of the revenue cycle leaders face is, is labor shortages or just, uh, the, the lack of interest of, you know, younger professionals wanted to move into medical coding. Um, I mean, AHIMA reports a 30 percent shortage of coding. That’s kind of the flagship organization.

Kyle Swarts: Um, you know, we’re, we’re seeing the average age of a medical coder 10 years ago was 55, so there’s a looming retirement. either upon us or here. Um, and they’ve got increased volumes, uh, um, whether it’s across the board in office visits or surgical cases. And so again, how do you [00:25:00] do more with less? How do you, you know, use, uh, technology to be able to support that?

Kyle Swarts: And so, you know, a lot of the organizations, obviously we work with or peers that are in other areas is, you Is definitely in that middle revenue cycle. A lot of organizations are touching a hundred percent of the surgical notes, a hundred percent of the E and M’s. And there’s just not enough human resource time, uh, and experience to be able to get through that.

Kyle Swarts: And our goal and the goal of any AI vendor is to drive efficiency, uh, across the board. So a lot of groups are, are reshifting and repurposing staff into various areas to support revenue cycles. So it goes to the, the mantra of, you know, reimagine, you know, medical coding or reimagine front end scheduling.

Kyle Swarts: I mean, you can reimagine a lot of these, um, a lot of these capabilities, but the goal is really to. To take that team that’s already, you know, day in and day out trying to manage a growing [00:26:00] work queue. And they actually have them leave for the day and feel like they’ve chipped away, uh, at a large portion, uh, of it and, and actually focusing, uh, their experience, um, on the more complex cases, uh, which, you know, certainly is, is good from a revenue perspective, from a clinical documentation perspective, but also they want to be challenged.

Kyle Swarts: I mean, day in and day out, you know, there’s a lot of repetitive nature that, uh, That’s a, I can take out of the, out of the equation. So it’s a growing trend, but again, you’re seeing it on the denial front, on the AR front, and it just goes back to, you know, our, And a mid talk conversation around what’s the use case, what problem are you trying to solve, uh, and, and where’s the most acute, um, need at this current juncture.

Kyle Swarts: And so, again, we’re seeing it in rev cycle because it’s first do no harm. And because of those headwinds related to labor shortages, we’re seeing it also in, uh, in not only us based operations, but offshore as well. just given some of the [00:27:00] dynamics in India, whether it’s the inflation rate going up or just the competitive nature of medical coding staff and even some of their challenges with retention across the board.

Kyle Swarts: So it’s not just here in the States. It’s a global problem. Um, and organizations are, are looking to outsource their problem. Then it becomes someone else’s problem, right? Um, so that has been kind of an interesting piece. And every organization I speak to is. Deploying AI across the enterprise because of these exact reasons.

Kyle Swarts: It is not a nice to have. It’s a gotta have, uh, and it’s a requirement for their business to maintain its competitive edge. Or to maintain kind of competitive pricing, um, or to just try to level up, you know, antiquated tech that they’ve been working on for a number of years.

Erik Sunset: Well, everything you just said points to the stark reality that healthcare and healthcare organizations are in a lot of trouble. You’re seeing the early indicators with the lack of anesthesiologists. You have [00:28:00] states. Changing their laws that CRNAs can practice without supervision. Certain states are doing that.

Erik Sunset: But we’re on the precipice of a cataclysm of an outright provider shortage. And prior to these post COVID staffing issue years, A lot of the gripes revolved around bad technology. It’s not that doctors and clinicians of other designations don’t want to use tech. They don’t want to use bad tech, and that’s preaching to the choir to you.

Erik Sunset: But it’s driving providers and nurses, for that matter, out of the industry, out of the profession. And you see the issues with staffing. Same, same, but different that there’s a lot of burnout in that, uh, part of the practice or facility as well. So this is a long walk for a short drink of water. Kyle, can AI help save healthcare as a

Erik Sunset: profession?

Kyle Swarts: Oh, for sure. I mean, but again, it’s not going to take the, the, um, the precision, the experience, the human element away. Um, you know, specialists are going to be needed. [00:29:00] Um, across the board. Clearly primary care is, you know, we’re at a shortage, you know, nationally with that. And we’ve got to think about how we think through those items, but it’s definitely going to help and it’s definitely going to close the gap.

Kyle Swarts: But for my kind of humble opinion. Is I still want to see a doc. I still want to engage at times with human interaction, whether it’s for a complex case that I have, whether it’s a followup visit for a broken bone, there’s still some level of me that, um, maybe yearns or needs, uh, need some, some human interaction, maybe because it’s all this remote work that we have.

Kyle Swarts: But regardless, there has to be a delicate balance between the two. And I think we’re starting to see. The upward tick of acceptance and adoption moving us in the right direction. So that we can have providers focus on what they’re trained to do, [00:30:00] what they want to do and what we need them to do, which is to treat and take care of patients for whatever special and across whatever place of service, hospital, acute surgery center, office lab, path occur, you know, urgent care.

Kyle Swarts: It doesn’t matter. We’ve got to be able to allow them to, to, to do more in the short period of time that they have.

Erik Sunset: And to be clear, I’m certainly not calling for, uh, the great human providers to be replaced by the machine. I don’t know about you, but you know, before a round of golf, I’m guilty of getting an egg McMuffin, a value meal, and if you’re at a McDonald’s early enough, you have to order off of the touchscreen without any human help.

Erik Sunset: And that’s, uh, that’s frustrating. I don’t think society’s ready for medical diagnoses to come off of the Jetsons robot, you know,

Kyle Swarts: Yeah, we have, again, a lot of genies left in the bottle, a lot more, you know, ground to lay here. But again, excited about the deployment and the [00:31:00] adoption of, of, of AI across a variety of use cases. And I think you’re, you’re starting to see, you know, investments made in those areas, I think you’re starting to see aggregation of.

Kyle Swarts: Vendors that are doing cool stuff that compliment each other, um, to be able to provide a more robust service offering and, and, and actually ease the integration burdens and ease some of the adoption challenges, if it’s too intrusive to their current and existing workflows, it is going to be a challenge, um, cause again, technical resources or investment that’s required to make that.

Kyle Swarts: So it’s on us as, as the vendors to figure out, you know, creatively how we ease the burden of deployment. Uh, and just, you know, increase the speed to deployment as well as, you know, just get getting rid of, um, a lot of the inertia around adoption and use. And I think that that is done typically over time with good positive use cases and and a strong [00:32:00] ROI model.

Erik Sunset: a hundred percent. That’s a, that’s a really good forward looking, uh, take on what we can expect AI and healthcare to look like over the next handful of years. Here’s hoping we can ease a ton of these symptoms of burnout. We can ease the staffing crunch with the right AI solution or even the right non AI solution.

Erik Sunset: The, the lack of digitization in healthcare. You know, I think we’re finally seeing the light as an industry that good software can actually solve problems. It’s not just software for software sake. Or even AI for AI’s sake, um, is there anything else that you’re looking for in particular, you know, as we get closer to

Erik Sunset: 2030?

Kyle Swarts: Oh, I mean, again, I just think that you’ve got to give it a you’ve got to give it a try. I mean, I think that’s part of the big issue is. What if we fail? It’s okay. Um, what if we don’t pick the right use case? But if you go in immediately judging yourself on, you know, [00:33:00] innovation, there needs to be an innovation fund and there needs to be the freedom to fail.

Kyle Swarts: But at the same time, again, I would be very interested to see what the AI market looks like in 2030. Um, I am bullish on it, not just because, you know, I run AI health. Um, but at the same time for my colleagues that are out in the operations of healthcare on a daily basis that are on the front lines of healthcare, dealing with the shortages, the, you know, margin decreases, the reimbursement challenges.

Kyle Swarts: We’ve got to figure this out if we’re going to sustain this kind of level and pace of growth in healthcare, which it’s not going to stop. We’ve got to be able to figure out how to leverage certain pieces of technology to do that. Um, and I’m confident that we’ll be able to do it. Listen, it’s the United States.

Kyle Swarts: We’ve got to figure this out. You know, we, we should be able to take all of these really smart individuals from across the [00:34:00] country and, and collaborate and figure out how to do this. We just need to be able to, to find the, the right use cases and get ’em deployed, uh, in the market and track ’em right, and track and see how they do and, and what are those metrics and, and then hopefully they can take off.

Erik Sunset: Love that, and we’d be curious for your take on, on AI Health’s, uh, solution as well. When we get DocBuddy into the hands of a provider, obviously, uh, for our partnership, AI Health is, uh, fulfilling some of that revenue cycle and that coding. Um, aspects of things, a little bit different consumer, but when somebody uses DocBuddy, op note to do their operative report versus the old school, send off a voice file, it comes back transcribed, you got to edit it.

Erik Sunset: Maybe it’s approved. Maybe the administrator is chasing this provider down for a signature over the course of weeks before it can even enter the revenue cycle versus DocBuddy, you use your phone for an end speech. Sign it, off it goes to the billing department, or your [00:35:00] revenue cycle partner, or to AI Health, even better, to be coded.

Erik Sunset: Goes back to the clinic, all loops are closed with Op Note, and it’s almost like an addiction. Nobody can go back once they’ve seen the new way. Uh, what’s your experience with clients using AI health, you know, their first week, and then six

Erik Sunset: months down the road.

Kyle Swarts: You know, we’ve been humbled by the adoption of, of AI health. I mean, we focus on the ambulatory market surgery, um, both surgeries as well as as office visits. And, you know, listen, we, we’ve got a couple early adopters that have had great success. I mean, they’ve seen reduction in charge lag cause we’re grabbing the note real time.

Kyle Swarts: So by the time that provider is out of the surgery center, it’s literally coded and out into the payer’s hands. I mean, that is, that’s where, you know, you’re going to see some efficiencies. Um, we’re seeing productivity increases again, that helpful coworker where organizations are, are seeing a 50 to 60 percent increase in their coder [00:36:00] productivity.

Kyle Swarts: And the CFOs like it because, you know, with the labor shortage, they’re not having to outsource. Um, and so there’s a cost savings component to allow their team to, to really drive efficiencies. But, you know, listen to the biggest proof of, of how you’re doing is growth and referenceable clients. Right. Uh, and, and we’ve been able to, we’ve been able to do that, but we get served a piece of humble pie on a regular basis.

Kyle Swarts: And, you know, our goal is to, is to continue to drive the ball forward. We’ve really only been in the market two years. Uh, and we continue to see the value, but we want to make sure that our clients are referenceable and effusively happy and are seeing a strong ROI. And so again, it’s, it’s been fun. Um, it’s been a good run and they’re pushing, pushing the envelope on what we’re doing.

Kyle Swarts: And, you know, I’d be, I’d be a short sighted to say it does take a team of individuals. And so. Not only the clients, you know, providing their expertise, but our really talented, amazing staff at AI [00:37:00] Health that’s doing the AI ml, uh, implementations and model training and research and data science and product and implementation.

Kyle Swarts: Uh, you’re only as good as the, as the team around you. So that combination of our team with clients team is actually quite. Uh, and, uh, we, we, we do try to have fun and make sure that, uh, you know, it’s not all work all the time.

Erik Sunset: I love that. And Kyle, I know you’re a prolific speaker across the, uh, the different conferences, whether they’re state associations, national associations, where are you speaking next? Uh,

Erik Sunset: where can people find you in person?

Kyle Swarts: Well, tomorrow I’ll be participating in the American Association of Orthopedic Executives, um, AI virtual summit, uh, along a very similar topic, right? Uh, what are the practical use cases? Where do we start? Where do we go? Um, and then I’ll be at OSET, which is, uh, an orthopedic specialty group. Uh, and, uh, that’ll be in person in Las Vegas.

Kyle Swarts: Um, uh, which is one of my favorite, but least favorite cities. So I’ll be in, uh, for no more than [00:38:00] 48 hours. Uh, but I have, uh, I’m on a panel, uh, with, um, with a couple vendors and a couple clinicians to talk about, uh, AI and its practical use case. So. That’s all I’ve been signed up for now. Um, so we got to get, uh, our marketing lead Luke to work here to kind of find some additional speaking opportunities, but you know, it’s something we’re passionate about, something that, uh, is really important for, for us to be kind of the forefront of what’s going on in the space and.

Kyle Swarts: Again, humbled that organizations look to us to be able to provide market insights and research, uh, and content, uh, to share with their constituents. So again, appreciate the opportunity to, to, to be on this podcast. Appreciate the, the partnership with you guys. I know we’re onto big things this year and into 20 and into 25, wow.

Kyle Swarts: 2025

Erik Sunset: We’re at the doorstep. And before you go, um, get prepared for your, your virtual speech tomorrow. And then your, your Vegas in person speech, where can people

Erik Sunset: find you online.

Kyle Swarts: online. Let’s see where I’m on LinkedIn. Um, so Kyle Swarts, you just [00:39:00] type it in. You’ll, you’ll see this face. Um, you can friend request me or send me a message. Um, And two, you can check us out at, at, uh, AI health. And if you just Google AI health, uh, you can do that. It’s, um, it’s pretty easy to find, but listen, we’re, we’re here.

Kyle Swarts: If you’re interested in learning more about what we’re doing or have questions about any things that I brought up or approaches or strategies to take, um, I’m recovering consultant. And so anything I can do to help solution and strategize, uh, brings me great joy. So again, thanks for the opportunity. I appreciate you having me today.

Erik Sunset: Oh, we’re so glad you joined us. And we’ll of course have links to all of those things Kyle mentioned in the show notes. And on behalf of the entire DocBuddy and AI Health team, I want to thank you for listening. Be sure you’re subscribed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube, so you always get the newest episodes of the show.

Erik Sunset: And until next time, I’m

Erik Sunset: your host, Erik. Thanks for listening.

Kyle Swarts: Thank you.