Podcasts about blue cross blue shield

Today's guest is Ylan Kazi, Chief Data Officer at Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota. Ylan returns to the program in conversation with Emerj Senior Editor Matthew DeMello to discuss how AI is changing the intimacy and accuracy of diagnostics in ways that revolutionize how healthcare leaders look at the patient experience. In comparing relevant use cases from large language models and the potential of new platforms like ChatGPT, Ylan focuses on where emerging healthcare AI capabilities are finding serious ROI. If you're interested in unlocking our AI best practice guides, frameworks for AI ROI, and specific resources for AI professionals, visit emerj.com/p1.  

Have you heard of the Rockefellers? If you have, then you probably know he made his money in the oil industry.  But did you know he used another strategy to grow and preserve his wealth for generations?  Today, the Rockefeller family is worth $360 million. The strategy they've used to build fortunes is known as infinite banking. And we've got Sarry Ibraham, a financial specialist, here today to talk about what infinite banking is and how you can use it to level up your approach to real estate investing.  Sarry Ibrahim is a financial specialist, private money lender, real estate investor and member of the Bank On Yourself Organization. He helps business owners, real estate investors, and full time employees grow safe and predictable wealth regardless of market conditions using a financial strategy that has been around for over 160 years. Sarry started this journey when he was in grad school completing his MBA. He worked for companies like Allstate, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna Healthspring, and Humana before founding Financial Asset Protection, a financial services firm that focuses on one sole concept; the Bank On Yourself ® concept. Are you ready?  In this episode, Sarry discusses:

Jen Kem is an ultra-quotable entrepreneur. She is full of incredible wisdom based on her rich experiences in business - learning how to live her values, maintain her confidence, and empower others. Jennifer "Jen" Kem is a San Francisco Bay area-based brand building and leadership expert who gets entrepreneurs seen, heard, and paid for being themselves. She's the creator of the Master Brand Method: a framework to develop powerful brands that win customers' hearts, which she uses in strategic consulting for emerging entrepreneurs, celebrity brands like the Oprah Winfrey Network and Steve Harvey, and other major corporations including Verizon, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Bank of Hawaii. She is a successful owner of three multimillion-dollar businesses and the proud mother of three children. The seeds of entrepreneurship were planted early Jen Kem had no intention of building a business, much less multiple successful businesses. But a long and winding path led her here.  At a young age, Jen was in search of one thing: Knowledge. Growing up in Hawaii, she went to her local library in search of information and a world outside her small island community. After devouring the entire children's section, she worked her way through the adult books - and wished for more.  Sitting on her Grandmother's shaggy 1970's carpet, she was handed the business section of the newspaper and her eyes lit up. She began to realize that the world was impacted by business decisions.  Even in school, when asked what she wanted to become, she answered precociously that she wanted to become the General Counsel of Coca-Cola International. The adults in her life were stunned.  Jen never became a lawyer, but what she became is incredibly powerful - a high-level Business Strategist and creator of The Master Brand Method. Passed up for a promotion inspired her Jen was working in the corporate world before she became an entrepreneur. She was happy there - until a white male coworker got a promotion over her.  Regardless of her respect for him, she realized that her qualifications would never be enough in her industry. It was time for her to pave her own path and create the kind of world she wanted to live in.  She left behind her corner office and charted a new path - a path of trying new things, rediscovering herself again and again, and using her values as a path to the life she wanted. Doing what works, quitting what doesn't Jen has owned multiple businesses, and they didn't all work out. In fact, she uses her story as a teachable moment to us entrepreneurs - to show us that sometimes, a failure is actually an important lesson.  Before there was Doordash, there was Webvan, and Jen Kem was on the launch team. It was a great idea back in the late 1990's! But the market wasn't ready - and the idea flopped.  Jen watched the Founder of Webvan recover and go on to do great things. When Doordash became popular, she laughed at the timing: Sometimes an idea is great, but the market just isn't ready.  Before she founded The Master Brand Institute, Jen launched an underwear store in Hawaii. It was a great idea, since there weren't any others like it at the time! Women on the Hawaiian islands were traveling back to the mainland and shopping at Victoria's Secret for their options in underwear, because they didn't have any local options. But when the recession hit, her store went under - and she subsequently lost her house, her marriage, and her confidence. Jen fell into a deep depression.  It would have been easy for Jen to tell herself negative stories about her “failures.” She could have decided that she was bad at business, and that she shouldn't try again. Instead, her ten-year-old daughter gave her a big pep talk. Jen began seeing a therapist and gaining back her mental and emotional health. It inspired one of her best pieces of advice for us: Focus on what you're great at.  When Jen asked herself the hard questions, she realized that she didn't actually love retail! Was it really a failure if she wasn't passionate about it long-term? Retail was limiting, and one of Jen's key principles is autonomy - and her business wasn't in alignment with that value. This realization made Jen realize that it was time to create a company that was, and she bounced back.  Values are a verb Jen's core values are autonomy, justice, generosity, leadership of self, and legacy. Now, her business clearly reflects those values.  While businesses frequently feature their values as words on a wall, Jen reminds us that values are how we live, not what we preach.  Your values can help you make important business decisions. For example, Jen's biggest goal is to be autonomous; To be in charge of herself and in control of her life. Now, when presented with a choice, she filters it through her values before coming to a conclusion. Does this option give her more autonomy, or take it away? Does it require so much of her time that she loses too much freedom in order to participate? Does this serve the legacy she is trying to create?  Jen's work to live her values inspires us to do the same. What are your personal values, and how do you actively use them in your business? Quotes “I am obsessed with learning. Reading is my favorite thing to do. Every morning my grandmother would drink her Lipton tea and I would sit on her shaggy 70's carpet. She would give me the business section of the newspaper, so I started reading about business. I started to understand that that was what made the world move.” “As a visionary, we do see the future. Sometimes the ideas aren't ready. Sometimes the market is not ready, but that doesn't mean the idea isn't good.” “The system wasn't set up to support people like me - women of color, women ingenral. The system was set up to support people who played golf with our boss.” “I made the big scary decision to leave my corporate job. I took 9 months to create an exit plan. I had to, because I had two young kids. I spent the entire 9 months putting away half my paycheck. I had no reason to leave, I was making $400,000 a year in a corner office with a disco ball in it. I had the trophies and triumphs.” “Entrepreneurs are the reason we solve problems in the world.” “I wanted to help others like me get rich, respected and recognized for the fact they could see the future.” “I'm committed, not attached. Not every business I build is my dream home. We get so attached to our dream home. But a real estate investor never gets attached! So I look at my business like a real estate investor. I put all the elements inside it to make it work, but if it's not working and I've tried everything, I can elegantly shut it down.” “Courage is a muscle. It's something you have to keep training. People ask me if I lose confidence. I am still scared to do things! But what I can trust is what I know. I would rather fail fast than fail slow. It doesn't mean I'm not scared.” “Values aren't what you wish for. They are who you are and how you're behaving right now.” “Legacy isn't about the future - legacy is what you're doing right now to create the world you want to live in. Every decision I make runs through that filter.” “Maybe is a place we use as an excuse. It slows us down. I only say a clean yes or a clean no. When I filter things through ym values, I don't have regrets. You start to feel like yourself.” Links mentioned in this episode: Visit Jen Kem's website at www.JenniferKem.com    Connect with Jen Kem on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferkem  Follow Jen on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/JenniferKemComm  Follow Jen on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/jennifer.kem/?hl=en  Follow Jen on Twitter at https://twitter.com/_JenniferKem_

Remember all those articles about microplastics in human milk last year? Well your friends at the Milk Minute are finally tackling the topic.Why is this happening? Can we do anything to change it? Should we be worried?Tune in this week to hear all that and more as Heather and Maureen pick apart the tricky topic of microplastic contamination in the human body.Work With Us!Book a Lactation Consult with Heather! Click HERE for the deets.Book a Lactation Consult with Maureen! Click HERE to get started.THANK YOU TO OUR PATRON, Anna from Maine!THANK YOU TO THIS EPISODE'S SPONSORSGet your breastfeeding journey BACK ON TRACK with a Lactation Consult with Heather! Telehealth available and some insurance accepted. Click HERE for the deets. If you have Blue Cross Blue Shield, Anthem, Cigna PPO or Provider Network of America– you can fill out a short form to get pre-approval to get your visits with Heather 100% approved! Click HERE to access the form.Ceres Chill - Grab your Ceres Chiller or Milkstache HERE and enter promo code MILKMINUTE15 for 15% off!Click HERE to save 25% off and free shipping on all Liquid IV products with the code MILK_MINUTEListener Question: My exclusively breastfed almost 4-month-old is suddenly refusing her pacifier. Any tips to get her to use it when she's upset but not hungry? It seems that lately nothing will calm her down other than the boob.Sources:Plastic Debris in the Marine Environment: History and Future Challenges - PMC (nih.gov)Raman Microspectroscopy Detection and Characterisation of Microplastics in Human Breastmilk - PMC (nih.gov)Microplastics found in human breast milk for the first time | Plastics | The GuardianPlastic production worldwide 2021 | StatistaMicroplastics in infant milk powder - PubMed (nih.gov)Read the episode transcript HEREGet 20% off your Mother's Day Gourmet Brownies from the Brownie House by entering code MILKMINUTE20 and ordering from this link: https://shop.yesbrownies.com/discount/MILKMINUTE20Support the showCheck out Milk Minute Podcast's website here!Become a VIP Click here to get exclusive access and more!Send us an e-mail! MilkMinutePodcast@gmail.comFacebook | Instagram | TikTok

In this episode of The Dietitian Success Podcast, I'm joined by Registered Dietitian, Sophie Dolan. Through her practice, Sophie Dolan Nutrition, she works with children, adolescents and adults with GI issues - including Crohns, Ulcerative Colitis, IBS, Celiac Disease, food allergies, intolerances and other digestive concerns. She also has a second niche working with individuals with weight concerns. Sophie works with clients 1:1 both virtually and in-person. As a US-based dietitian, she is currently credentialed with Blue Cross Blue Shield, and most of her clientele are insurance based.  Today, Sophie and I talk about her journey in building her practice, what made her decide to launch a practice after being an RD for 10 years in pediatric GI, what it looks like to accept insurance, and how she plans to grow and scale in the future. Links: Follow Sophie on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/sophiedolan.rd/ Check out Sophie's website here: http://sophiedolannutrition.com/ Check out the episode with Kristen Carli here: https://dietitiansuccesscenter.com/podcasts/128-running-a-business-as-a-new-mom-growing-your-dietitian-team-with-kristen-carli-rd/ Check out the Dietitian Success Center business membership if you're interested in starting your own private practice: https://dietitiansuccesscenter.com/membership/ 

Today on the Leadership Podcast, Sarry Ibrahim joins us to discuss how you can Bank On Yourself. Sarry Ibrahim is financial planner and member of the Bank On Yourself Organization. He helps real estate investors, business owners, and full time employees grow safe and predictable wealth regardless of market conditions using a financial strategy that has been around for over 160 years. Sarry started this journey when he was in grad school completing his MBA. He worked for companies like Allstate, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna Healthspring, and Humana before founding Financial Asset Protection, a financial services firm that focuses on one sole concept; the Bank On Yourself Concept, also known as the Infinite Banking Concept. Learn more about this when you visit www.thinkinglikeabank.com Pre-Register To Join Our Exclusive Leadership Podcast Community! You get FULL access to all the benefits of the community...early! Ad-free, easy listening, access to the live podcast recordings with guests in real time, monthly Q&As with experts, and more. Get on the list here: https://info.club.capital/community Thanks to our sponsors: Club Capital offers monthly accounting, tax, and CFO services for insurance agency owners. Learn more at www.club.capital. Coach P found great success as an insurance agent and agency owner. He leads a a large, stable team of professionals who are at the top of their game year after year. Now he shares the systems, processes, delegation, and specialization he developed along the way. Gain access to weekly training calls and mentoring at www.coachpconsulting.com. Be sure to mention the Club Capital Podcast when you get in touch. Autopilot Recruiting is a continuous recruiting service where you'll be assigned a recruiter that has been trained to recruit on your behalf every business day. Listeners of the Club Capital Leadership Podcast go to https://www.autopilotrecruiting.com and use the code ClubCapital to get started.

This week on Vegas Realty  Check  we will be interviewing Sarry Ibrahim .Sarry Ibrahim is a financial specialist, private money lender, realestate investor and member of the Bank On YourselfOrganization. He helps business owners, real estate investors,and full time employees grow safe and predictable wealthregardless of market conditions using a financial strategy thathas been around for over 160 years.Sarry started this journey when he was in grad schoolcompleting his MBA. He worked for companies like Allstate, BlueCross Blue Shield, Cigna Healthspring, and Humana beforefounding Financial Asset Protection, a financial services firmthat focuses on one sole concept; the Bank On Yourself ® concept.check Sarry out on on these platforms:LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarry-ibrahim-mba-ltcp-bank-on-you/ Website- https://thinkinglikeabank.com/ Website- https://finassetprotection.com/ YouTube- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwasIgJYLJwnyANE1iWN3XQBio: Sarry Ibrahim is a financial specialist, private money lender, real estate investor and member of the Bank On Yourself Organization. He helps business owners, real estate investors, and full time employees grow safe and predictable wealth regardless of market conditions using a financial strategy that has been around for over 160 years. Sarry started this journey when he was in grad school completing his MBA. He worked for companies like Allstate, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna Healthspring, and Humana before founding Financial Asset Protection, a financial services firm that focuses on one sole concept; the Bank On Yourself ® concept. Don't miss out on the fun!  New episodes drop every Thursday!  Stay in the know about Las Vegas real estate with insights straight from the pros . Get the scoop on local housing and community happenings . Thanks for watching, listening, and sharing! Disclaimer:The information provided on this podcast channel is for general informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice. The content provided is current as of the date of publication, but laws and regula Don't miss out on the fun! New episodes drop every Thursday! Stay in the know about Las Vegas real estate with insights straight from the pros . Get the scoop on local housing and community happenings . Thanks for watching, listening, and sharing! Send Listener Questions to : VegasRealtyCheck@gmail.comAccess All Episodes at RealtyCheck.VegasWatch Live on Facebook Thursdays @9:30am PST https://www.facebook.com/VegasRealtyCheckHost Info:Trish Williams Keller Williams The Marketplace

Raise your hand if you remember having to search through a catalog to source your suppliers. For those with their hands down, do you know just how much else has changed in supply chain management since? Today's guest can catch you up to speed. Joining Alex and Michelle is Siobhan Hunter, President of Blind Dog Supply Chain Risk Consulting, and former VP of Global Supply Chain at Ember Technologies. Siobhan has been excelling in logistics since 1997 when she got her start at Celestica, and since has held senior roles with organizations such as Jabil, Blackberry, and BlueCross BlueShield North Carolina. Today, you'll hear how Siobhan has decided to transition away from her latest role with Ember in order to pursue consulting full-time with Blind Dog Risk. She'll discuss her time with the design-led temperature control brand as well as how they're looking towards the future with “Cold Chain Management.”Alex and Michelle also dive into how operations relationships have evolved over the years, and why this evolution has benefitted us all. And if you're just starting out in the industry or are interested in finding out how to switch, Siobhan offers up her advice for breaking into supply chain management. —Guest BioSiobhan Hunter is a highly accomplished supply chain executive with over 25 years of experience leading supply chains in diverse industries such as telecom, consumer products, health insurance and electronics manufacturing. She is a driven and detail-oriented professional, who has made significant contributions to the field through her leadership, strategic planning, and operational expertise, and was the recipient of a national innovation award for her work forging collaborations within third party risk management.Starting her career back at NCR Microelectronics, an ASIC semiconductor manufacturer, Siobhan has held senior roles at Celestica, Jabil, and Blackberry, before she took her skills to Blue Cross Blue Shield. Most recently, she was with Ember Technologies, serving as VP of Global Supply Chain. Now you can find her charting her own path with her very own company, Blind Dog Supply Chain Risk Consulting. If you wanted to reach out to her she loves email – siobhan@blinddogrisk.comWhen she's not driving operational excellence, Siobhan enjoys yoga, quality bourbon, and traveling. —Guest Quote“The competitive landscape has completely changed, right? It's allowed more entrants into the marketplace. I definitely have seen the relationship between a supplier and the buyer change and become much more of a partnership.” - Siobhan Hunter—Time Stamps *(2:00) A problem with an unstable Bill of Materials*(8:57) All about Ember*(11:06) Ember's new “Cold Chain Management”*(13:51) How Siobhan has seen the industry change*(17:38) The modern supplier / buyer relationship*(21:21) Solving more problems with BCBS*(26:38) What is Blind Dog Risk Consulting?*(28:39) Siobhan's career advice*(30:55) Speed round—SponsorThis podcast is powered by the team at Stord. Turn your supply chain into a competitive advantage. Go to Stord.com to learn more. —LinksConnect with Siobhan Hunter on LinkedInConnect with Alex Kent on LinkedInConnect with Michelle McNamara on LinkedInCheck out the Stord WebsiteLearn more about Ember TechnologiesLearn more about Blind Dog Supply Chain Risk Consulting

Whistleblower Report - Sheila Holm, a former HR executive with Blue Cross Blue Shield, fought a 12-year legal battle to hold those responsible accountable on racketeering and economic fraud charges. She ultimately led to some of the criminals going to prison and one corrupt judge being removed from the bench. Learn about her journey and how she survived a bioweapon...

Have you ever received a diagnosis of Insufficient Glandular Tissue? Maybe it was suggested after you weren't able to produce a full milk supply with your last baby. Or the term was tossed out casually when a provider looked at your breasts prenatally.IGT can be a scary and confusing thing to hear, particularly when you have the goal of exclusive breastfeeding! Today on the Milk Minute Heather and Maureen chat about what IGT is and what it might mean for you.How much milk can you actually make with IGT? What can you expect? Do you need to breastfeed differently if you suspect you have IGT?Join the Milk Minute to get the answers to these questions and more today on any podcast platform.Work With Us!Book a Lactation Consult with Heather! Click HERE for the deets.Book a Lactation Consult with Maureen! Click HERE to get started.Thank you to our newest patron, Annaleigh!THANK YOU TO THIS EPISODE'S SPONSORSGet your breastfeeding journey BACK ON TRACK with a Lactation Consult with Heather! Telehealth available and some insurance accepted. Click HERE for the deets. If you have Blue Cross Blue Shield, Anthem, Cigna PPO or Provider Network of America– you can fill out a short form to get pre-approval to get your visits with Heather 100% approved! Click HERE to access the form.Ceres Chill - Grab your Ceres Chiller or Milkstache HERE and enter promo code MILKMINUTE15 for 15% off!Click HERE to get HappiTummi and enter code MILKMINUTE10 for 10% off your order!Click HERE to save 25% off and free shipping on all Liquid IV products with the code MILK_MINUTEListener Question: I have a question about flange sizes: I had been using at 24mm flange and the people at the hospital told me that size was fine. Then I measured myself and was 17mm. I got 21mm inserts and now when I pump my nipples are tender. I'm due for replacement parts and am looking for advice about what to order.Mentioned in this Episode:Ep. 9: Breastpump Flange SizingRead the transcript and see our sources HERE.Check out our new subscription-only podcast, Beyond the Boob, following Heather's third pregnancy! We take you week by week and share Heather's personal experiences as well as Maureen's advice as her midwife. Available on Apple Subscriptions or on or Patreon at www.patreon.com/milkminutepodcast.Support the showCheck out Milk Minute Podcast's website here!Become a VIP Click here to get exclusive access and more!Send us an e-mail! MilkMinutePodcast@gmail.comFacebook | Instagram | TikTok

Entrepreneurship is risky business (literally), but in Memphis, the rewards often outshine the risk. Memphis is known as a city that produces movers and shakers—problem solvers who get creative and look beyond limitations—but what are we doing to support and keep them here? How do we define success and how does hope factor into a business plan? Can we invest in innovation with more than just money? Perhaps most importantly, why is the 901 the perfect place to get started? We covered all of this and more at Celebrate What's Right: Risky Business conversation on entrepreneurship from April 6th, 2023. This event was sponsored by First Horizon Foundation, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee, and Duncan Williams Asset Management. We work very hard to make these events accessible, but we know that there are a myriad of reasons why members of our community had to miss this conversation. In an effort to ensure that these leaders' insights are disseminated far and wide, we're bringing you their conversation on the radio waves this morning. In this episode, you'll hear from: Jessica Taveau, President and CEO at Epicenter Memphis (Moderator) Suzanne Drumwright, Director of Operations at Dextrous Robotics Brandon Harris, Principal at Ridgeline Erica Plybeah Hemphill, CEO and Founder at MedHaul Ido Sarig, Managing Director of the Memphis Hub at Alchemist Accelerator This episode is made possible in partnership with Independent Bank. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

AmeriHealth Caritas, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Optum at Home & Reema Health share bright spots and novel tactics for engaging dual eligible beneficiaries. Discussion topics include: building a foundation of trust through a community approach, engaging hard-to-reach or historically unreachable members, and addressing health-related social needs to improve clinical outcomes   Panelists Include: Christopher McDade, Vice President, Medicare Integrated Health Plans and Revenue Management, AmeriHealth Caritas,  Leanna Moran, Managing Director of the Duals Market, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island Catherine Mitchell, Chief Strategy Officer, Optum at Home Melissa Kjolsing, Head of Engagement Strategy, Reema Health Bios: https://www.sharedpurposeconnect.com/events/unique-approaches-to-building-trust-with-dual-eligible-members/ This episode is sponsored by Reema Health Reema is transforming how people navigate the gaps between health care and social care using technology and Community Guides who share their identity with the members they serve. Reema's approach improves healthcare experiences, leading to higher member engagement and reduced costs.    Reema's breakthrough health platform uses proprietary technology and predictive data modeling to identify people with the highest level of unmet social needs, power Community Guides with the right information to engage them meaningfully, connect them with the most relevant resources, and improve their health and lives. Because they believe in guiding all members to better health. Learn more at reemahealth.com

Scott Rabschnuk, Vice President of Strategic Marketing at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, has an extensive background in healthcare marketing. Scott much of his career as an Executive at Hill Holiday, where he led the healthcare practice, Scott has gained invaluable experience in the field. In this episode, he shares his wealth of knowledge and provides practical advice for marketing professionals looking to break into the healthcare industry.   Key Takeaways: [1:40] Scott shares how his BA in English has benefited his career in marketing. [4:40] Scott worked with Hill Holiday for 17 years and shares what he misses most working agency-side. [7:00] Scott reveals how he ended up in healthcare marketing. [12:10] Scott explains the challenges he experienced transitioning from the technology sector into healthcare. [14:15] Why did Scott move back to the client side? [17:35] Scott shares his experience of joining a new company after almost two decades and highlights the importance of learning the organization's rhythms, people, and culture as part of the onboarding process. [21:40] How does Scott structure and connect with his team now that everyone is working remotely? [25:00] What are some of Scott's biggest challenges as a marketing executive in the healthcare industry? [31:30] Scott discusses BCBS of Massachusetts's comprehensive approach to corporate citizenship rooted in health justice. [40:10] Why did Scott feel compelled to write an article about the Peloton, which at the time was having backlash for a poor-taste ad? [45:00] What advice does Scott have for the next generation of marketers? [48:10] Scott answers rapid-fire questions.   Mentioned in This Episode: Demandspring.com Bcbs.com Scott on LinkedIn    

It's been a little more than a year since —a unique collection of support systems for young children and their families—began operations in Spartanburg, and the capacity-building approach the initiative has brought to early childhood services in our community is already changing lives according to their . The program is a first-of-its-kind approach aimed at significantly improving child wellbeing, boosting future prosperity, and providing quantifiable financial benefits to the Spartanburg community well in excess of its cost and provides free universal nurse home visiting, free evidence-based parent education and support tools, and significantly enhanced early learning opportunities at a full citywide scale Among the group's first year outcomes, more than 85 percent of mothers served by BirthMatters, a free doula service for young, expectant mothers in the City supported by Hello Family, delivered their babies without a NICU admission, and more than 80 percent had a healthy birth weight and were breastfed at birth. Meanwhile, Family Connects, another program supported by Hello Family, completed 236 nurse home visits to assess needs and offer supportive guidance on infant health-related topics. Supported by , Hello Family is a broad community partnership with additional support coming from Mary Black Foundation, the Duke Endowment, BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina Foundation, and Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System.  Today on the podcast, we discuss Hello Family's first year and future goals with Hello Family Director, Kaitlin Watts.

In this solo episode, you'll learn why Jenny thinks RD2BEs can benefit from being clients of dietitians. She also offers the learning opportunity for future dietitians that want to experience her new coaching program at All Access Dietitians. This program combines the expertise of a dietitian with the behavior change skills of a health coach.   To join the beta test for All Access Dietitians, you must have Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance. Sign up at allaccessdietitians.com and include "beta test" when completing the interest form.

There's no other industry as profitable as banking. So, we invited Sarry Ibrahim to share how banks operate and ways you can start thinking like one! We'll also discuss Infinite Banking and the benefits of a whole life insurance policy. Watch until the end of this episode to find out more!WHAT TO LISTEN FORHow to make the most of the money borrowed from your life insurance policyMain reasons people don't leverage The Infinite Banking ConceptBenefits of using whole life insurance policies as a fund source for RE investmentsTop tips to ensure that your whole life insurance is set up to meet your goalsOne of the biggest challenges of entrepreneurshipRESOURCES/LINKS MENTIONEDWho Not How by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy | Paperback: https://amzn.to/40o88xs, Kindle: https://amzn.to/3ngN9Oa, and Hardcover: https://amzn.to/3TKlul7ABOUT SARRY IBRAHIMSarry founded Financial Asset Protection after learning about the Infinite Banking Concept. He saw this as an opportunity to save retirement accounts, real estate properties, and businesses from market failures and other risks. Sarry believes the number 1 rule to your money is ensuring it lives somewhere safe and accessible. As Sarry states, when working with clients, “it is never an either/or situation; it is a both/and situation. We want you to integrate the solutions we recommend alongside your business and real estate portfolio to have a double-compounding effect on your money.” Sarry earned his MBA from Keller Graduate School of Management in Chicago, IL, and has consulted companies like Blue Cross Blue Shield, Allstate Insurance, Humana, and Cigna Healthspring.CONNECT WITH SARRYWebsite: Thinking Like A Bank: https://thinkinglikeabank.com/Podcast: Thinking Like a Bank | Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinking-like-a-bank/id1555903014, and Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6m5XsxjlDzXw9T9nbWU5wjCONNECT WITH USWebsite: https://www.selfstorageinvesting.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/selfstorageinvestingTwitter: https://twitter.com/SelfStorageGuyLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottameyers/Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/SelfStorageInvestingInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/self_storage_investing/Subscribe so you never miss a NEW episode! Leave us an honest rating and review on Apple Podcast.

“Warning: If pregnant or breast-feeding, ask a health professional before use.”Have you ever turned over a hair or skin care product and seen that warning tucked onto the bottom of the label in fine print? How can you tell when it's based on evidence or a worry over liability? Today on the Milk Minute Maureen and Heather chat about actual risks to consider when making purchases.Work With Us!Book a Lactation Consult with Heather! Click HERE for the deets.Book a Lactation Consult with Maureen! Click HERE to get started.THANK YOU TO OUR PATRON, Katie Hyde!THANK YOU TO THIS EPISODE'S SPONSORSGet your breastfeeding journey BACK ON TRACK with a Lactation Consult with Heather! Telehealth available and some insurance accepted. Click HERE for the deets. If you have Blue Cross Blue Shield, Anthem, Cigna PPO or Provider Network of America– you can fill out a short form to get pre-approval to get your visits with Heather 100% approved! Click HERE to access the form.Click HERE to get HappiTummi and enter code MILKMINUTE10 for 10% off your order!Click HERE to save 25% off and free shipping on all Liquid IV products with the code MILK_MINUTECeres Chill - Grab your Ceres Chiller or Milkstache HERE and enter promo code MILKMINUTE15 for 15% off!Listener Question: I'm about to start fertility treatments to have a second baby after a miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy. I'm still nursing my 2-and-a-half year old and not ready to stop. I'm not sure if they'll recommend if I stop nursing when I start hormones or get pregnant again, given my history.Mentioned in this episode:Breastfeeding Mums undergoing Fertility Treatment/IVF | FacebookEp 150: Conceiving While Breastfeeding: Let's Talk Infertility TreatmentsEp 143: Breastfeeding in Appalachia in 1930-1950: Interview with Alpha Ellison CookPrefer to read the transcript? Click HERECLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR THE WEBINAR ON INFANT GUT HEALTH!Support the showCheck out Milk Minute Podcast's website here!Become a VIP Click here to get exclusive access and more!Send us an e-mail! MilkMinutePodcast@gmail.comFacebook | Instagram | TikTok

Yeah, so while the commercial payer marketplace is completely boring, the reasons it's boring are not. Let me walk you through this conversation I have in this healthcare podcast with Jacob Asher, MD. First, we establish that the relative number of each carrier's commercial members in California don't seem to change year over year … and this has been true for years. When you rank order carriers by member count, the song remains the same. It's Groundhog Day. Here's a link to the 2022 CHCF (California Health Care Foundation) enrollment almanac, which shows for the large group market, Kaiser has captured and retained just over half of enrollees. Anthem comes in next with 14%, Blue Shield gets 9%, and then bringing up the rear we have UHC, Aetna, Cigna, Centene, and all others in descending order splitting the remaining 21%. Hmmm … intriguing, the whole idea that these relative member counts remain so consistent. Then Dr. Asher and I dissect what is anybody actually doing to cut into the Kaiser market share or try to grab share from the two blues plans, if anything. Dr. Jacob Asher was a great guy to have this conversation with. He was a practicing head and neck surgeon with Kaiser Permanente, and then he also served on the Permanente Medical Group Board of Directors. Then he changed careers and became a full-time health plan chief medical officer for, first, Anthem, then Blue Cross, then Cigna, then UHC (UnitedHealthcare). Now he's “retired” and reflecting back on unsolved and unaddressed issues within healthcare. And we've covered one here: Why is the commercial payer market as boring as it appears to be in California? Now, after I had this conversation with Dr. Asher, I called up Wendell Potter, who everybody already knows (EP384), and Lauren Vela, who everybody also probably already knows, but she has spent her career at various employer coalitions and now works at a big employer transforming their health benefits (and she lives in California). I learned a few things that really helped me frame my thoughts on some of the issues that surfaced in the conversation that I had with Dr. Asher and that you'll hear today. So, let's get to it. Why doesn't the relative market share of the big payers change year over year in California in the commercial space. May I present six reasons: 1. Everybody I talked to—Dr. Asher, Wendell Potter, Lauren Vela—first thing right out of the gate that practically everybody mentioned is employer inertia. Trying to get an employer to switch carriers is like trying to pull Excalibur from its stone. And right, not so surprising, it's disruptive and obnoxious for employees and also benefit teams if carriers are switching all the time. 2. EBCs (employee benefit consultants). They have deals with carriers and others, and they also have a lot of power over employers. Listen to the show with AJ Loiacono (EP379) and Paul Holmes (EP397) for more on this. 3. As Wendell Potter put it, “The commercial market is [as a whole] stagnant. No real growth nationally. And in many states, the real money for carriers is not in the self-funded market; so they don't care much about aggressively competing for market share.” Given that chart that just came out the other day showing the insane relative gross margins that carriers are making on Medicare Advantage patients, which is over double other lines of business … yeah, totally. 4. Just keep this in mind before we barrel into reason #4 here for a stagnant and maybe not exactly competitive market. Kaiser excluded, all of the rest of the California payers have what amounts to largely the same provider network. I'm exaggerating slightly here, but largely the same hospitals, the same consolidated integrated delivery networks. And one thing that's pretty clear (not just in California but across the country): Plans who bring the most members get the best prices from these hospitals and other provider organizations. Also, as Dr. Asher mentions in the show today, he never saw an employer buy on quality. Most were far more concerned about discounts. So, right … we have some circular reasoning here or circular logic. The big plans get the best prices, and then, because they have the best prices, they maintain their market share. But wait … there's more to this one, and it's not just big gets you lower prices. Remember from episode 395 with Brennan Bilberry? He talked about the concept of the Most Favored Nation (MFN) anticompetitive clauses in hospital contracts. This concept is also super relevant here for payers as well if you think about it. This MFN Most Favored Nation anticompetitive clause, this is where a big hospital and “big carrier” have a chat … in a back room. The hospital agrees to not give any other carrier a lower price than the “big carrier.” These MFN clauses are, of course, terrible for competition and plan sponsors and any patient with cost sharing. A lot of states have started to ban, restrict, and limit these clauses. The DOJ brought a case in Michigan about this, and here's a great federal government summary of the problem: “The department and the state of Michigan alleged … that the MFN clauses in [Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan's (BCBSM's)] contracts with Michigan hospitals decreased competition among health plans. Some … clauses required hospitals to charge competitors more than the hospitals charged BCBSM, often by a specified percentage. Moreover, BCBSM often agreed to raise the prices that it paid hospitals, in part to obtain [the] MFN clauses.” Oh, hey … I'll let you raise your price so I can have a Most Favored Nation clause, just as long as I get a lower price, which is higher than it was originally. And this was actually back in 2013. I have no insight at all or knowledge, or I am not suggesting in any way that what was going on in Michigan is going on in California. However, this anticompetitive practice is common enough. If you're interested in how common, count the lawsuits. 5. Employers are unaware a lot of times of how they are being charged more than what might be appropriate. And they are largely unaware of options other than Blue Cross, United, Cigna, Aetna … the big payers. 6. As Dr. Asher talks about and which I never really thought about, Kaiser doesn't have Medicaid patients. [Correction: Kaiser does have some Medicaid members—just less than others.] And because their network and hospitals to a large extent are closed, they also don't have uninsured patients to a large extent. So, no charity care to speak of and, therefore (at least as it is posited), they can be cheaper because they don't have to cost offset. So, their price advantage has a structure element here that could make it even more untouchable. So, there's your six reasons. You can start to see basically all of these things solidify into the same thing. It's less about trying to get new business and more about locking in the existing business. It's not really a secret that this market is rock hard. Plans realize that. They realize that the cost of keeping an enrollee is cheaper than acquiring a new enrollee. So, carriers focus sales and marketing efforts on holding on to their existing customers, especially the coveted jumbo accounts. Interestingly (and I was talking about this with Lauren Vela), the more clinical programs a carrier has deployed for an employer, the more the carrier is locked in there. So, the more the clinical value proposition resonates, the more clinical stuff that gets integrated. Changing plans becomes even more disruptive, and employers are even more likely to remain where they are. So, there's more to clinical programs than payers catching themselves a little PMPM (per member per month) something something upcharge recurring revenue or trying to get new business. It's also locking in customer retention. Is any of this specific to California? Some of it is—like a lot of the Kaiser stuff—but most, not. Meaning a lot of the country doesn't exactly have a functioning commercial small group or large group marketplace either. To a certain extent, it's no wonder big employers don't change plans that often. Why would they bother, given probably fairly incremental differences between these big payer carriers? I realize I'm scrambling out on a limb here and making assumptions, but to achieve more than incremental improvements, a BUCA (Blue Cross, United, Cigna, Aetna) would need to invest all kinds of resources into being that shining star. And why would they do that when nobody can take down Kaiser? And for all the reasons that we just talked about, it's a hard row to hoe to grab new clients. There's a lot of ramifications to this, but this show can't be seven hours long.    You can learn more by connecting with Dr. Asher on LinkedIn.   Jacob Asher, MD, completed a residency in otolaryngology–head and neck surgery at the University of California, San Francisco, after receiving degrees from Brown University and the Boston University School of Medicine. Dr. Asher then practiced as an ENT (ear, nose, and throat) surgeon with Kaiser Permanente in Northern California and also served on the board of directors of The Permanente Medical Group, where he focused on physician compensation reform, member satisfaction initiatives, and retirement benefits. After transitioning to full-time health plan management, Dr. Asher served as a California commercial market medical director between 2008 and 2022 for Anthem Blue Cross, Cigna, and UnitedHealthcare. In those roles, he supported membership growth and retention in both fully insured and self-funded product lines and promoted value-based reimbursement, including capitation. He has led utilization management teams, collaborated with internal and external population healthcare advocates, and worked to develop clinical initiatives that sought to achieve the Triple Aim. In his role as the clinical face of the health plan to the local market, he worked with network colleagues on accountable care organization partnerships and hospital and physician contract renewals with integrated pay for performance, supported Obamacare exchange participation, engaged in quality improvement collaboratives, and supported regulatory compliance efforts. Currently, Dr. Asher is serving as a mentor for the Stanford Master in Medical Informatics program while exploring innovative solutions to healthcare delivery.   10:00 What is the competitive picture of California's health plans? 11:28 What was everyone doing in order to get market share? 15:07 EP387 with Betsy Seals. 15:22 EP379 with AJ Loiacono and EP397 with Paul Holmes. 15:26 Why is it difficult to take market share? 16:16 Who was Dr. Asher pitching to and why? 18:49 Did employers ever buy plans for quality? 22:43 What does this look like from the payer perspective? 27:01 What improvements have there been to engagement in health plans? 29:07 Have plans gotten better at communicating with employers? 30:38 Why is it hard to compare the Kaiser world to the non-Kaiser world? 33:00 EP390 with Gloria Sachdev, PharmD, and Chris Skisak, PhD.   You can learn more by connecting with Dr. Asher on LinkedIn.   @JacobAsher18 discusses California's #commercialpayer marketplace on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast Recent past interviews: Click a guest's name for their latest RHV episode! Paul Holmes, Anna Hyde, Dea Belazi (Encore! EP293), Brennan Bilberry, Dr Vikas Saini and Judith Garber, David Muhlestein, Nikhil Krishnan (Encore! EP355), Emily Kagan Trenchard, Dr Scott Conard, Gloria Sachdev and Chris Skisak  

Today's guest is Ylan Kazi, Chief Data Officer at Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota. He joins us in the first of two episodes to discuss AI's strides in diagnostics over the years, primarily driven by visual data in radiology and elsewhere. But this is not to discount where we find compelling use cases in text and language data – especially with how the healthcare space has reacted to the emergence of Chat-GPT and large language models. To discover critical AI applications and trends, download our whitepaper “3 Ways to Discover AI Trends” at emerj.com/t3.

With 27 years of personal training experience, Curtis Starks has EVOlved as a “trend setter,” being one of Birmingham's top personal trainers, whose mission is to get people moving and seeking a healthier lifestyle. He has trained at some of Birmingham's top facilities such as the YMCA, Gold's Gym, Fitness Together, and the Birmingham City Fitness Center. His training is not limited to Birmingham Alabama, he has trained and lead workshops in Houston, Rhode Island New York, and Minneapolis. He is the founder and owner of TRAIN & BURN Fitness Studio in downtown Birmingham, which is a personal training Fitness Studio and home to the H.I.I.T (High Intensity Interval Training) and TRX group training class. His program design includes functional training, nutrition education, and lifestyle changes as a way to achieve and maintain desired weights and healthier lifestyles. He assesses each client, and prescribes the appropriate individual training program. Recently, TRAIN & BURN expanded its services to include corporate clients, like ACIPCO Credit Union, US Auto Logistics of Birmingham, A.M.T Medical Staffing and the City of Birmingham. Curtis attended Samford University and is a certified Personal Trainer by The Aerobics and Fitness Association of America (AFAA) now NSAM, and is a member of the Nation Fitness Business Alliance (NFBA). In addition to managing his business, Curtis's mission is to eradicate obesity, and has consulted with UAB on solutions to fight this epidemic. He piloted a program which provided guidance to teachers on moderate intensity activities for children during playtime. At Birmingham Southern, he conducts a year-round Boot Camp aerobics class; and at the University of West Florida, he conducted a health and fitness workshop. He has also been recognized by Who's Who in Black Alabama, the 2014 Best of Birmingham Awards for Personal Trainers, the NAACP for Outstanding Community Service, and he volunteers in the community by participating in health fairs, speaking engagements and organizing group runs. Curtis was instrumental in the development, design, and instruction of the fitness course for Blue Cross Blue Shield's health initiative, “GET HEALTHY IN THE PARK” (at Railroad Park). He has developed summer fitness programs for two Birmingham area YMCA's called EVO KIDS, designed specifically for youth ages 10 to 16 years. He has also successfully trained collegiate, NFL and AFL athletes. Curtis has been featured as a trainer on TLC's Ultimate Make Over, seen on ABC 33-40 “Talk of Alabama,” is featured regularly on FOX 6's “Exercise Monday,” with Jeh Jeh Pruitt, and has been recognized in Birmingham News and Birmingham Times as one of the city's top personal trainers. Curtis was recently featured in the 5th Edition of the 2016 Birmingham Magazine, and is founder of the 5k Fit Challenge for Children's Hospital and the Lupus Foundation of America Mid South Chapter. His voice can be heard weekly on national radio talk shows. Curtis is a Christian, the father to an 17 year old son, a mentor, innovator, and a hard working businessman. His faith, perseverance and dedication define his success; but his character, loyalty and work ethic are the qualities that attract and retain his clients.

Free Copy of My Book: Building Wealth In the TSP: Your Road Map To Financial Freedom as A Federal Employee: https://app.hawsfederaladvisors.com/free-tsp-e-book FREE WEBINAR: "The 7 Biggest FERS Retirement Mistakes": https://app.hawsfederaladvisors.com/7biggestmistakeswebinar Want to schedule a consultation? Click here: https://hawsfederaladvisors.com/work-with-us/ Submit a question here: https://app.hawsfederaladvisors.com/question-submission I am a practicing financial planner, but I'm not your financial planner. Please consult with your own tax, legal and financial advisors for personalized advice.

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Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO podcast. I am Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space and we're here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so that they can be more effective in their jobs. Today, I’m excited to have Rick Kickert from Zscaler join us. Rick, I would love for you to introduce yourself, your role, and your organization to our audience. Rick Kickert: Thanks, Shawnna. I am the global vice president of what we call REV, which is revenue enablement and velocity. Zscaler is a cloud security company, and I’ve had the opportunity to be here for almost four years now. I have also been in the pre-IPO space, mostly with tech, doing a similar rollover at Rubrik and then over AppDynamics doing enablement, sales emerging technologies, and also had the opportunity of working on the business value consulting team there. Before that, I actually spent about 10 years over at Blue Cross Blue Shield and I always give the same story during boot camps and training sessions and that I used to actually live on the other side of the fence. I would be what salespeople would call their economic buyer champion, and in my office, you’d walk in and to the right. I always have a whiteboard that would have our top 5 or 6 projects for the company. A sales rep would walk into my office and we would exchange pleasantries for the first five or 10 minutes and get to know each other. Then, I’d ask, how do we align with some of the projects there on my whiteboard? If we couldn’t, that’s fine, we’ll talk later, otherwise, let’s talk about how you can help me be more valuable in my business. I use that story all the time because I spent a lot of time talking about the buying journey and understanding how the buyer makes investments. I’m a true believer that within enablement if we can help enable our sellers, partners, and customer success teams on what the buyer has to go through with the buying journey looks like, we’ll just be more successful on the other side of the fence from a selling perspective. SS: Absolutely. In your role, you are uniquely positioned to focus on go-to-market, partner, and customer enablement, which you shared with us that you call the global revenue enablement service center. Can you walk us through this process and how it impacts your view on enablement? RK: If you think about an automotive center for a moment, Shawnna, I am assuming you’ve probably taken your car to some type of automotive center before, right? SS: Absolutely. RK: All right. When you pulled up to that service center, there could be multiple service areas behind all those bay doors. There’s usually not just one bay door that you go to get your car serviced, there are multiple. Even though you might need different tools and services from multiple areas, you just go in the front door and go to the front desk. The front desk takes the requirements, they do the paperwork, and hopefully, something very efficiently and effectively happens in the back end and they drive your automobile back out and it’s all revved up and ready to go. That’s the perfect scenario, right? In this REV Center, which is revenue enablement and velocity, the same analogy holds true. Our marketing teams, our product, and our engineering growth teams, all come to the front door of the REV center and we want to understand what they’re launching. We collect the paperwork, we make sure it follows a value framework that we’ve built out, playbooks, LMS and then we go enable the proper teams, whether it’s sales specialists, partners, customers, customer success, renewal’s professional services, all of that. Anything inside of go-to-market and external. You think about most things you launch and for enablement within a company, and it shouldn’t just only go to sales, we make sure that maybe there’s a play there for customer success, maybe there’s a play there for partners. Maybe there’s something we can do to highlight the customer training partner portal that also helps enable that launch. Maybe we’ve created a demo that can be leveraged for not just sales but also for partners. Getting everyone in the same boat and rowing in the same direction with full momentum’s goal. Just make sure everyone is enabled at the same time efficiently with some of the same tools and then using the same common measurements. That’s the vision that we built for this revenue enablement service center and why we’ve kind of married everybody together in that same model. SS: I love that, but I imagine there are some unique challenges to building an enablement strategy that can fit all of the needs that are part of your role. How do you overcome these challenges as you design enablement programs? RK: There is. It’s a lot of different bay doors if we’re sticking with that analogy, to try and make sure we get everybody enabled at the same time, but luckily I’m a pretty big fan of enabling the buyer, the partner, the customer success rep the same way we’ve been able to the seller. Putting the most enablement available out there in the market I think really helps engage people, help them learn about your product, your solution, and your use cases, and understand what they can solve for it. The challenge there is just making sure that you’re getting the right content to the right consumer at the right time. We always make sure we’ve got a pretty large bill of materials in place. We’ve built that consistency in place with the marketing teams and the product teams. Everyone’s prepared when they’re coming to that front door of the REV center what things need to look like and make sure that we’re able to launch all at the same time. SS: What are some ways that you go about ensuring that you’re tracking the right metrics across the entire enablement program, today? RK: Metrics are probably one of the most critical elements of a successful enablement program. Just rarely will you see me or hear me talk about the amount of training that is specifically consumed. How many people completed the training inside of our LMS or courses or webinar that we might have hosted? I’m a lot more around the measurable outputs of it. Now that is a leading indicator and in a lot of cases training is consumed, but at the end of the day, if everyone consumed their training, but if it still didn’t create more visible opportunities or drive more new business meetings or create more pipeline generation or we’re not improving our win rate, we’re not selling more specific products, then who cares about the training consumed. I try to align all of our metrics with what business partners care about. What’s the most important to the CRO? What’s the most important to the CMO? Whatever their indicators are that are important to them, we want to make sure that we’re measuring the same metrics in the same type of success. SS: I think that’s fantastic. You talked about the auto body shop analogy, how does enablement prevent and fix potential roadblocks that may happen within your organization? RK: If you didn’t have that service center analogy, which we experienced initially also and I’ve seen this a lot of other companies, you might have a lot of training going over into specifically your sellers, but maybe the SEs didn’t get that same training or maybe your partners are not getting enabled with the same content at the same time for a new product launch or solution that might be coming out. Those are the roadblocks that you could potentially come across or some of the bottlenecks. Again, it’s making sure that you do all the prep ahead of time, understand that launches have an impact, what you want each team to be able to articulate from an enablement perspective, and build those business partners to make sure that we’re not having delays in making those teams each being very effective. SS: I want to shift gears a little bit because you also focus a bit on partners and have a partner enablement background. You shared an article on LinkedIn about developing a robust partner enablement strategy and how that’s really a key to driving revenue. Why is partner enablement important to the business, especially in the current economic climate? RK: Well, for one, it’s how you scale. I truly believe that you have to have a partner motion and the easiest way to be able to do that is by making sure that you’re enabling them. You think about it, you brought up the economic times of today and there are not a lot of companies that are still accelerating at the same headcount they had in the past, so you’ve got to look for other ways how to continue to grow your revenue year over year by 40 or 50%, or whatever the number is, you’ve got to continue that growth rate and partners are truly a great way to be able to do that. It’s hard for partners to be able to help you drive that kind of growth and be able to position your solutions if they’re not enabled and if they don’t understand how you integrate together with things that they might sell today. They’ve got a book of business, they’ve got customers, they’re working with other solutions, they might be competitive, so helping them understand how that entire architecture goes together, how do they offer the best value to their customers, to their buyers with the solutions that we sell today? If you don’t put them in that position, it makes it really difficult just like it would your internal sellers if they don’t know how to position the value position, the right use cases, and be able to find the right buying personas, it makes things more difficult. I think partners have a unique advantage where they have trusted advisors to these customers. I think about when I was over at Blue Cross Blue Shield, we leverage a lot of partners to be able to give us insight into if I want to be able to roll out new products if I want to be able to fix some of the problems inside of my company, what’re the best tools to be able to use? Partners are kind of that extension for a lot of business. I think today, in the current economic times, partners are a great way and a great extension of anyone’s business to be able to help, but you need to be able to enable them and teach them what your products do. I’ll even say; give them the same tools, the same demos, the same labs, all of that, open the door of enablement to them as much as you would internally. SS: I think that is great advice. In closing, do you have any additional advice you’d give to organizations wanting to incorporate an enablement strategy with this model and their business? RK: I think it’s about alignment. It took us a while to be able to make this journey and be able to get to this type of model. I truly believe that for efficiency it’s definitely a much better model to go through. If you can align and build business partners inside each area and show your metrics of success. Whether you think about customer success, I care about churn and enablement as much as you do, how do we help improve those things? I care about renewal and up, sell as much as you do, how do we measure and build playbooks to be able to support that from a partner perspective? We care about deal reg as I want to make sure that we’re doing everything in enablement to help drive that. Obviously, for sales and SEs, we care about success and demos, we care about success and POVs and again, your measurements and your areas of success are the same as enablement. If you can get to that type of relationship and kind of be kind of the same fabric together, that to me is the power behind being able to build a model like this that works and has everybody essentially rowing their boat in the same direction. If you’re doing that, you’re going faster and you’re going to beat the competition. SS: I love it. Thank you so much, Rick. I appreciate the time. RK: Absolutely. Thank you for having me. SS: To our audience, thanks for listening. For more insights, tips, and expertise from sales enablement leaders, visit salesenablement.pro. If there is something you'd like to share or a topic you'd like to learn more about, please let us know we'd love to hear from you. Take our survey: Are enablement teams supporting their sellers effectively to ensure they're motivated to reach their goals? Help us find out by taking the State of Sales Enablement 2023 survey, and get exclusive early access to the insights that will help you enhance the satisfaction and performance of your revenue teams.

In today's episode, Meenakshi Verma-Agrawal, BS, MPH, is Associate Professor of Practice at Simmons University and Racial Justice Center. She promotes and practices explicit, structural analysis of the impact of racism on health, education, housing, and other systemic outcomes. She conferred a Bachelor of Science in Biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst then a Master of Public Health at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. And is now a Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Community Health Leadership at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation as well as the Associate Professor & Assistant Program Director for Master of Public Health in Health Equity at Simmons University.Meenakshi Verma-Agrawal, MPH on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meenakshi-verma-agrawal-514a761/Full Shownotes: https://thephmillennial.com/episode142Support the showThanks for tuning in. Let's all work together towards a culture of health, wellbeing, and equity for all. ⭐⭐ SUBSCRIBE & Leave a 5-STAR REVIEW! ⭐⭐ Follow & Support:- Buy me a coffee through Ko-Fi- The Public Health Millennial on IG - The Public Health Millennial on LinkedIn - The Public Health Millennial Website- Omari Richins, MPH on LinkedIn- Support on The Public Health Store

Today's guest is Ylan Kazi, Chief Data Officer at Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota. Ever since Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota began following the Great Depression, they have been dedicated to helping people get affordable health care solutions to improve their health and well-being. As we enter a new era of healthcare, BCBSND continues to transform the way healthcare is delivered and to make a meaningful difference for those they serve. Ylan brings deep strategic experience in analytics, emerging technology, data governance and other aspects of creating a data-driven culture. He leads the Enterprise Data and Analytics Solutions team, where he is focused on creating and executing data strategy using sophisticated analytic capabilities and modern data governance practices. He works closely with C-level and other senior executives by finding value in data and using it to drive clinical and financial results for members. In the episode, Ylan will talk about: The work they do at Blue Cross Blue Shield, His role and responsibilities as Chief Data Officer, How the culture & people attracted him to the company, How they are using data to impact the overall business, Plans for growing the team, and Why BCBS of North Dakota is a great place to work

Don't. Be. Boring. Every time you talk to a new client, in the back of your mind, you know you're not the first person to ever pitch to them. You might not even be the first person to pitch to them that day. You need to stand out, and more importantly, be remembered. In this episode, Donald Kelly sits down with Andie Jewett, the Senior VP of Business Development at AMP Agency. They talk about the core elements of an amazing pitch, and how to make sure you're not making the same mistakes as everybody else. Jewett's Background Started in account management, with clients like Blue Cross Blue Shield and NinetyNine Restaurants Now works with AMP Agency, overseeing business development and reaching out to potential clients Most Common Pitching Mistakes - and How to Fix Them Don't jump into your pitch immediately, placing the focus on you and your product. Do your homework so that you know your client, ask them questions, and place the focus on them. Don't recite all your great ideas or figures one after the other in a list. Your client won't remember them all! Instead, take them on a journey with a narrative thread.  3 Core Elements of a GREAT Pitch Make the client the main character. It's not about you, or your product. Your client is the hero of the story. Build a profile around who that customer is based on your research. Then, use this to address their needs and aspirations when you make your pitch. Take them on a journey. A story has a beginning, middle, and end. Have one main idea, or “hook” that will be the big takeaway from your pitch meeting. Build to your hook, share what it is, and make sure it threads all the way through.  Use a little showmanship. If you recite too many facts and figures, you will put your clients to sleep. Bring your personality, fun, AND facts. Even virtual pitches can have creative elements that help clients remember them. “Look at how storytelling is done, not just in other industries, but even in literature. If you were to look at the perfect story arc of the best books and novels out there, you can absolutely compare your pitch to that.” - Andie Jewett  Resources Andie Jewett on Linkedin AMP Agency  Andie Jewett on Instagram Sponsorship Offers This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Scratchpad is the fastest way for sales professionals to update Salesforce. Move at the speed of thought with Scratchpad. Try it for free or learn more at Scratchpad.com.  2.            This episode is brought to you in part by TSE Sales Foundation. I think we can all agree that sales should be fun. However, many times, we find ourselves in a quagmire where we're not progressing and deals are not going the way that they should. This is why we created TSE Sales Foundation. It's a program designed to help sales professionals just like you master the fundamentals of sales so they can radically improve their sales pipeline and close more deals. To find out more about TSE Sales Foundation and our next start date, simply go to thesalesevangelist.com/foundation.  Credits As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We'd love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.

Today on the Milk Minute join us to chat with Mel Mutterspaugh, founder of The Herbalist's Path. Mel is a clinical herbalist, environmental educator, mother, wilderness therapist, and podcast host! She's hopping on the podcast today to chat about ways that you can use safe and effective herbal remedies in your every day life. She wants to inspire everyone to take better care of themselves and the planet by bringing herbalism back into every home. Tune in to learn more!Work With Us!Book a Lactation Consult with Heather! Click HERE for the deets.Book a Lactation Consult with Maureen! Click HERE to get started.THANK YOU TO THIS EPISODE'S SPONSORSGet your breastfeeding journey BACK ON TRACK with a Lactation Consult with Heather! Telehealth available and some insurance accepted. Click HERE for the deets. If you have Blue Cross Blue Shield, Anthem, Cigna PPO or Provider Network of America– you can fill out a short form to get pre-approval to get your visits with Heather 100% approved! Click HERE to access the form.Click HERE to get HappiTummi and enter code MILKMINUTE10 for 10% off your order!Ceres Chill - Grab your Ceres Chiller or Milkstache HERE and enter promo code MILKMINUTE15 for 15% off!Click HERE to save 25% off and free shipping on all Liquid IV products with the code MILK_MINUTEResources:Herbal Medicine Classes | Portland | The Elderberry School of Botanical MedicinePortland School of Traditional Western HerbalismRosemary Gladstar's Science & Art of HerbalismAviva Romm's Herbal Medicine for Women's HealthThe Association of Accredited Naturopathic Medical Colleges - AANMCThe Herbalist's Path Discover How To Use Plants As Medicine, Safely!The Herbalist's Path Podcast: Herbal Podcast Where You Can Learn To Use Plants As MedicineFacebook: The Herbalist's PathTikTok:

We've talked a lot recently about workforce influences. From our past episodes on workplace conditions, housing availability, and childcare access, you'll see each of these topics plays off one another.This week's Mind Your Business heads in a similar direction as we focus on working to improve your employee benefits, paying attention to both what you can provide and what you can pass along in terms of savings.This is one of the topics we'll discuss with Wayne Randall, Manager of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Customer Center in Boone. We'll also hear about supplemental products that can be offered to employees, that might not be traditionally bundled with standard benefits packages.And now for the fun part -- the BCBSNC Boone Center will soon be moving to a new location, one that features opportunities for the local community to use a new space for activities. Wayne gives us the scoop on that project and many other details about their impending Grand Opening.Mind your Business is produced weekly by the Boone Area Chamber of Commerce. The radio show airs each Thursday morning at 10:05AM on WATA (1450AM/96.5FM) in the High Country.The podcast version of the program is made possible each week by Appalachian Commercial Real Estate and sponsored in part by Appalachian Regional Healthcare System.Support the show

Susan Flanagan, Senior Plan Consultant - Medicare Markets, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts provides information about the Medicare Open Enrollment Period, and the various medicare options available.

“I did about 5000 interviews, I'd say about 3000 of those, the person has told me what they're currently making, which we call in recruiting terms spilling the candy, which you do not want to do. And it's actually illegal for anyone in HR, or a hiring manager to ask what they're making. So instead, what I recommend doing is something called reverse.” Mia Maria Smithson Top Five Tips To Negotiate Without Leaving Money on the Table1.      Spilling the candy2.      The Reversal3.      The Double Reversal4.      BATNA5.      Land the Plane TIME STAMP SUMMARY00:07 How Maria empowers women to advocate for themselves.07:44 Why Maria specifically works with uplifting women.12:40 How the new generation operate in the current market.16:47 Having an effective strategy.Where to find Mia Maria?Website                               https://www.the30kprogram.com/ LinkedIn                               https://www.linkedin.com/in/smithson Mia Maria Smithson Bio Mia Maria is the CEO and Founder of The $30K Program. The aim of the program is to empower women to get higher-paying jobs they ADORE by teaching them how to effectively package skills and strategically negotiate with confidence. The results? Women in our program increase their income by $30K+ on average within 12 months. She has vast experience in the corporate sector, having been a Global Director of Talent Management overseeing hiring and leadership for 400+ employees and 450+ contractors in 7 countries. As well as having trained 100+ hiring managers and interviewed 5,000+ professionals for companies like Disney, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Microsoft.In terms of professional development Mia has accomplished a great deal, having undertaken several courses such as, Yale's Science Of Well-Being and Harvard Business School's Advanced Certification In Negotiation (2023, Q1 Completion). In her spare time, Mia loves to salsa dance! On the odd occasion that you find yourself in San Francisco contact her, and she will take you for the best cauliflower rice. Mia's passionate about helping people get their dream jobs and effectively negotiate WITHOUT leaving money on the table.

Should the cost of scans stop you from taking care of yourself? No!Dr. Cristin Dickerson is a founding partner of Green Imaging. Healthcare professional and host, Cristy Gupton, interviews Christin Deacon on the Mass. Health and Welfare Fund v. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mass. During the interview, the two discuss and clarify confusion related to ERISA Fiduciary Duties. Learn more about the healthcare industry by following the Healthcare Solutions Podcast. Need healthcare consultation, retirement strategizing, wellness consultation, or benefits enrollment? Custom Benefits Solutions has your back.

Breanna C. Keepers, M.D., M.B.A., and Ish P. Bhalla, M.D., M.S., join Dr. Dixon and Dr. Berezin to discuss the results of a survey of mental healthcare providers and their usage of measurement-based care.  Dr. Keepers is in the Department of Psychiatry at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, and Dr. Bhalla is Medical Director of Behavioral Health Value Transformation at Blue Cross-Blue Shield of North Carolina. •    Keepers and Bhalla interview [00:50] •    Incentivizing provider behavior changes [03:01] •    Measurement instruments [05:30] •    Measurement-based care from the care recipient's perspective [06:27] •    Study design [09:16] •    Clinical utility and measurement-based care [11:31] •    Are we using the right measure? [14:45] •    Heterogeneity in provider perceptions of measurement-based care [16:08] •    Training providers [17:25] •    Providing care is hard [19:36] •    What's next for your research? [22:10] Transcript Subscribe to the podcast here. Check out Editor's Choice, a set of curated collections from the rich resource of articles published in the journal. Sign up to receive notification of new Editor's Choice collections. Browse other articles on our website. Be sure to let your colleagues know about the podcast, and please rate and review it wherever you listen to it. Listen to other podcasts produced by the American Psychiatric Association. Follow the journal on Twitter. E-mail us at psjournal@psych.org

Is breastfeeding birth control? There are so many misconceptions around fertility and lactation, so today on the Milk Minute your friends are tackling this topic! Lets dig into the Lactation Amenorrhea Method of birth control and chat about how to use it, how effective it is, and why we do or don't recommend it.Work With Us!Book a Lactation Consult with Heather! Click HERE for the deets.Book a Lactation Consult with Maureen! Click HERE to get started.THANK YOU TO OUR BELOVED PATRONS - We couldn't do this without you!THANK YOU TO THIS EPISODE'S SPONSORSGet your breastfeeding journey BACK ON TRACK with a Lactation Consult with Heather! Telehealth available and some insurance accepted. Click HERE for the deets. If you have Blue Cross Blue Shield, Anthem, Cigna PPO or Provider Network of America– you can fill out a short form to get pre-approval to get your visits with Heather 100% approved! Click HERE to access the form.Ceres Chill - Grab your Ceres Chiller or Milkstache HERE and enter promo code MILKMINUTE15 for 15% off!Click HERE to get HappiTummi and enter code MILKMINUTE10 for 10% off your order!Click HERE to save 25% off and free shipping on all Liquid IV products with the code MILK_MINUTEListener Question: My child is 8 months old and I've heard that a lot of parents switch their child to cow's milk or they supplement with cow's milk. Do I have to give my child cow's milk? Are there alternatives?Sources: Postpartum contraception: the lactational amenorrhea method - PubMed (nih.gov)World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action : WABALactational amenorrhoea method for family planning - PMC (nih.gov)Prefer to read the transcript? Click Here Support the showCheck out Milk Minute Podcast's website here!Become a VIP Click here to get exclusive access and more!Send us an e-mail! MilkMinutePodcast@gmail.comFacebook | Instagram | TikTok

February 23: Today on TownHall Linda Yang, CIO, talks with Ylan Kazi, Chief Data Officer for Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota about embracing a more data-driven healthcare industry and strategies for better hiring and employee outcomes. How can the healthcare industry embrace a truly data-driven culture? What is his perspective on the recent layoffs from several tech companies and how can healthcare organizations capitalize on an assumption that there are possibly more qualified data professionals in the job market? How can healthcare organizations better identify, hire, and retain this talent? As someone that has worked on both the provider and insurance side, what are some common challenges and how can each side learn from each other?Healthcare needs innovative ways to address staffing shortages from clinical to IT employees. Are you curious about how technology can help support your Healthcare staff? Join us on our March 9 webinar, “Leaders Series: The Changing Nature of Work,” to explore how Health IT can be used to supplement Healthcare professionals.Subscribe: This Week HealthTwitter: This Week HealthLinkedIn: Week HealthDonate: Alex's Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer

Welcome to the Test Automation podcast! In this episode, we have Tony Venditti, the Test Automation Manager from Advantasure, a subsidiary of Blue Cross Blue Shield. This is a replay from Tony's highly rated automation Guild session he gave this year, where he shared a wealth of knowledge and experience in Test Automation. Using Jenkins as a Test Automation Hub, he will discuss his background, test automation tools, approach, applications, and test types. He also shares his company's Test Automation Team Structure and Organization. We will also discuss the future of test automation, including new, emerging technologies such as cloud-based and containerized solutions, and how artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly integrated with test automation tools. Tune in and learn more about test automation and the tools available to help you do the job! Join us as we dive into Test Automation and explore the available tools and approaches. If you want to hear more and hear the live Q&A where Tony answered the Guild's questions about his session, head to AutomationGuild.com and register to get your instant access pass. Use code pod30 to get 30% off all the replays.

‍In this episode, Crystal May, from Devdent, details some of the essential tips and tricks around medical billing and how it can help your patients afford the care you recommend! At Devdent (Developing Dentistry,) their mission is to take the headaches out of medical billing, claims, and any appeals along the way. Crystal shows that with proper billing procedures using medical, a $10,000 treatment could be much more obtainable and affordable for your patients. She notes that it is less about "what" you are doing, but "why" you are doing it, to qualify for medical billing. If a patient's tooth is missing, and that is the reason why they are unable to chew, the procedure might qualify for medical billing!‍Follow Crystal and Michael's conversation here to learn more about how your practice could utilize medical billing!‍You can reach out to Crystal May here:Email: support@devdent.comFacebookDevdent Website‍Other Mentions and Links:‍Imagn Medical Billing SoftwareRed, white, and blue card (Medicare)Blue Cross Blue Shield‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Marketing, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Our Sponsors & Their Exclusive Deals:CARESTACK | Cloud-Based Dental SoftwareSCHEDULE A FREE DEMO TODAY!Click the link below and get 1 MONTH FOR FREE + 10% OFF your Annual Subscription + 50% OFF Your Set-up Fee!Check out CARESTACK now: https://lp.carestack.org/thedentalmarketer‍‍‍Dandy | The Fully Digital, US-based Dental Lab‍For a completely FREE 3Shape Trios 3 scanner & $250 in lab credit click here: meetdandy.com/tdm !‍Thank you for supporting the podcast by checking out our sponsors!‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: Hey Crystal, so talk to us about medical and dental billing. How can we utilize this, or what advice or suggestions can you give us that will help us with doing medical and dental billing? Crystal: Absolutely. So medical billing is quite a bit different than dental billing. a lot of people are scared of it.They're intimidated. Maybe they've heard horror stories even that it takes forever to get paid or it's not worth the energy. And really my mission is just to explain to dentists how it is not as complicated as it sounds, and it's certainly worth the effort. So we get thousands and thousands of dollars of reimbursement from medical insurance for dental services. Many dentists don't even know that it's a possibility to bill medical for dental. Treatment, So when you think of an implant or a bone graft, you might be thinking, well, dental insurance might cover a little bit of that, or there might be that $1,500 per year max benefit available. But what if we could tap into their medical benefits?So when you start talking about, especially larger procedures, if your patient portion is more than $5,000, we know that dental insurance doesn't make a very big impact in that patient portion, They're still gonna be spending at least $3,500 out of pocket after they use all their dental. So the combination of adding medical billing to your dental practice allows your patients to be able to afford the care that you recommend.Taking a large treatment, 5, 10, 20, $50,000, and we can get medical insurance to pay sometimes a hundred percent of those procedures. So it's really about. Identifying the medical necessity. So you see a patient and you're trying to figure out which insurance should I build? Should I build their medical, should I build their dental?What? What are my options? And so what we do is we teach Dennis how to find the medical correlation. So when I teach about medical billing, I use the statement a lot. It's not about the what you're doing, it's about the why you're doing it. So if you can prove that there's a medical correlation to your dental, So let's say again, an implant, for example, if you can't chew because of that missing tooth, then that's a medical condition and we can actually build medical for that.Or what if you've lost that tooth for a medical reason? So maybe you took a medication that caused dry mouth. So now all of a sudden you had acid erosion and just all this enamel was gone because of this severe dry mouth. Well, we can prove the medical insurance that you are losing that tooth because of a medical condition.So it's just about the why can we tie back something that's going on inside of the mouth to the rest of the body or something in the rest of the body that's affecting the oral cav. Michael: So then once we identify the dental necessities and we decide, okay, we're gonna bill medical, right? Which sounds beautiful.Like, we're like, we wanna bill medical. Where do we go from there? Crystal: Wonderful question. So it all starts with the insurance card. So it doesn't matter how perfect the medical necessity is, you've got this patient that desperately needs this treatment and you can prove that it's directly related to an a medical condition.If the insurance policy doesn't offer dental treatment for any reason. There's nothing we can do. So sometimes our best doesn't trump the payer. Okay? So the medical insurance determines coverage. Also, remember your patient chose that plan. A lot of times we get really like emotional about how we wanna help our patient more.And darn it, this silly medical insurance won't do much, but remember, Your patient chose that plan, so they're paying a lower premium to have a higher deductible or less coverage. So, you know, we can't own that. We just have to say to them, unfortunately, the plan that you've chosen doesn't have medical benefits available.Also, let's say Medicare, so everyone knows who, what Medicare is, right? It's, it's generally thought of as a, as a 65 or older plan. . Medicare's changed a lot over the last decade, and we are getting some coverage for dental treatment through medical, red, white, and blue insurance cards.They're actually paying dental offices, but you have to sign the right paperwork. You have to be participating. So you look at the card. If it's a red, white, and blue card and you're not participating, you simply hand the card back to the patient and say, unfortunately. This plan won't pay anything here at our office, but let's say it's a good plan.You get a card and you're like, Ooh, I know that one. I think they might cover benefits at this office. You then start with the verification of benefit. So we reach out to the insurance company and we ask them for details. What's the deductible? Are there any plan limitations? Does this plan cover dental treatment for these scenarios?Maybe you're treating sleep in your practice. Well, medical billing for sleep appliances, by far the most common procedure that we bill. So you ask specifically, do they cover sleep appliances? What that end of that call? we give back to our clients a summary of coverage and we'll actually say, yay, ur nay, this plan makes sense, or this plan doesn't.Assuming it makes sense to Bill Medical. Because we've called the payer, we verified there are benefits available for these services. Now the next thing is to talk to the patient. You give them their treatment plan with all their treatment options and with all their payment options. That's gonna include potentially dental, right? Because we're still gonna build dental for class two fillings. We're still gonna build dental sometimes for the crown or restoration. Some plans only cover the implant under medical. So we're still working very closely to maximize all of the. Insurance benefits, medical and dental. And then assuming the patient wants to proceed, most of these procedures I'm talking about do require pre-auth.So we would actually then start the process of getting authorization to, to treat this patient. Um, and if that's approved, which we're averaging about 75 to 80% approvals on pre-auth. So it's a good high. As long as it's approved, then you complete treatment and you submit the claim the same day you finish the treatment.So it's really not that much different than what we do in dental, with the exception of, most dental team members are not familiar with these insurance cards, so they have to learn how to look at them and read them. Michael: Gotcha. Okay, because I was gonna ask you, why aren't people doing it more then? Well, it's Crystal: not easy. Okay. So I don't wanna make it sound like, oh my gosh. Like all you do is take a copy of the insurance card and you've got a gold ticket, right? That's not it. . You have to code it correctly. You have to have the right documentation, you have to have the right submission tools. So most of our dental practice management softwares do not include enough information on medical to even use them. when customers come to me all the time, they're using any number of the large practice management companies and they're saying, well, they say they have medical. But if you read the fine print, it's very limited. They might allow you to print out a claim, but these claims to medical have to go electronically. So one of the things that causes a little bit of an obstacle is do you have a submission tool? Do you have a way to get these claims to these medical payers? Not dental, but these medical payers electronically? So I think that's one of the obstacle. But I'd say more often than not, the biggest thing is, is dentists and dental team members don't even know that they can bill medical.It's not even so much they've tried it and struggled. It's just their, their minds are blown when I show the potential. Michael: So then what submission tool should we have or would you recommend, or how did that work? Crystal: Well, so there's a couple of different options. Some the, the manual way and the less expensive way is to go to some of the, uh, payer portals.So you could go to Blue Cross Blue Shield, for example, and you can manually submit a claim directly to them. So that does get you your electronic submission. But it doesn't provide you tracking or any automation. It's very manual. Um, the option that we provide is actually a software solution. So Dev Den offers a system called Imagine Billing, and we are a cloud-based medical billing software built specifically for dentistry.So all of our clients are dental, and everything in the software is directly related to something under the dental category. So with our solution, We have the clearinghouse connections and all the electronic communications to kind of take the technology piece out of the equation for the customer. Michael: Okay.So if I was front office right now and I'm, and let's just say there's a implant, right? That needs to be done and you're like, okay, we're gonna check that out, and stuff like that. And then you realize, okay, there is a necessity. It does, you know, the whole body is affected and things like that. I'm new, but I know dental billing, right?But if I have dev. I can just use that and then it like kind of scans it out. Crystal: Pretty much, so we built a cross code tool so you can go put a patient's entire dental treatment plan. So there's c d T codes into our software. It cross codes as it to medical forward for you. And then it also adds the diagnosis conditions that are required.So it, it really takes the coding component entirely out of it, which is a lot of fear. The dentists aren't necessarily scared about the coding because generally speaking, that falls on an office administrator of some kind, right? Mm-hmm. . So when I talk to them, they're always like, oh my gosh, how will I know what codes to use and how do I do this Crystal?I don't even know these acronyms. And so what we've done is just take away a lot of that. We've just allowed them to stick in their dental codes. So you use your C D T code, we cross it for you. We show you what documentation is required. And then part of our training program as a new customer is we teach them how to read those insurance cards.We teach them exactly what to look for. We go over case presentation and how to present estimations to their patient because you know, you now have to explain to the patient their medical benefits and if it's scary and new to you. now you don't feel like the smartest person in the room anymore, and we don't like that feeling.So we wanna make sure that our, our office admins are always the smartest person in the room when it comes to their medical insurance benefits. and then we offer, um, a lot of coaching on your clinical documentation. So, many dentists haven't looked at their clinical notes in a very long time, so they use auto notes.There's just sentences that are just click, click, click and prefilled out. Unfortunately, medical, I. Spends a lot more time and attention when looking at clinical notes than dental, so we have to do a little better job. So we teach our clients exactly what documentation they need and how to incorporate it into their everyday dental process. Michael: So then typically crystal, when someone signs on how much do they see an increase in like their collections or product? Crystal: so across the board, we have 80% success rate on all of our claims submission. That's including the worst claims out there. The best claims out there. 80% is our average approval rate.But what we're finding is patients are accepting treatment. At a faster rate because they can now afford the treatment. Imagine you had a $10,000 treatment plan and you got presented $1,500 from dental, and you were gonna owe the $8,500 difference. Now imagine I present that same $10,000 treatment plan, but I explained to you that you have to meet your $3,000 deductible and then you have a hundred percent coverage.So now that treatment plan costs the patient $3,000 instead of 85. We all know that there are far more patients who would be willing to pay 3000 than nearly 9,000. So that's the story we tell. That's the, the, the purpose of medical billing is to help patients access the care that they need. So historically, we're seeing about a 20% case acceptance increase with cases over 5,000.So if you're a $5,000 case and we can decrease patient portion, at least 20% more of those patients are proceeding with treat. . Michael: And then what headaches can we encounter with. Crystal: You're dealing with insurance, ? it's just the insurance companies. It's nothing else. The, the conversations with patients is quite easy.They're just excited. They're just really feel great that their dentist is willing to go above and beyond to help them get more, more access to PA care. Right. They're, that's what they care about. Even when deductibles are in play, even if the patient gets no actual payment from the insurance company.There's gratitude for helping them access their deductible in these medical benefits. But so that's not the obstacle. Never the patient, uh, it's never the coding. We can teach the coding. It's, it's just one plus one equals two, right? Mm-hmm. , it's not challenging. but it's the insurance payers. One minute one payer says this.And literally the next claim, we call back and we'll get a different response. So the quality of representatives that are answering the phone are, are quite low. They haven't been well trained, they're not very familiar. So you get really inaccurate information will literally be told, yes, we'll pay for this.And so we submit the claim with an approval number and they'll deny saying We changed our mind. So then we have to appeal it. Now again, a huge benefit of working with a company like DevNet is we do all of that follow up. So when you submit a claim through our system, we're responsible for it all the way through the process.So we are the ones on the phone with the insurance companies arguing these approved prs or these denials and things like that. So I would say the first initial obstacle is just understanding the I. Knowing which plans pay what and why. And then I think the forever frustration is that we're just dealing with insurance companies and they are not in the industry of wanting to pay claims.Their goal is to slow down and reject claims as quickly as possible. Michael: Yeah, retain that money too. Crystal: Yeah, that's their job, right? So we're kinda going against, against a big force in that sense. The good thing is, is there's a lot of rules and regulations. Insurance companies cannot just choose not to pay. And so when we know all the proper paths to take and all the right words to say, and all of the right, you know, if you will, threats to make.They finally process our claims. So we do have some tools in our, our toolbox to help us make those go faster. But I would say to anyone who's getting into medical billing or is considering it just, just pre-prepared for the first few months to be exceptionally frustrating, these medical payers will not recognize you.They won't recognize your M P I and tax ID numbers. There's gonna be a slight delay. Usually if you can get past the first 90 days, if you can just stay with it. Be diligent. Follow our program. By the end of 90 days, you've pretty much got a system in place that's working. . Michael: so Dent is a program or is it like a software that I can utilize forever? Crystal: dent is an education and distribution company. So Dent stands for developing dentistry. We just are here to pri find solutions that help dentists improve their practices and improve patient care. So that's our mission, is to just provide tools and solutions for dentistry. One of the tools we provide is Imagine Software.So Imagine is a cloud-based software that handles these cross codings and handles all of this documentation. And behind that is a third party billing company. So we actually facilitate the entire billing process for our clients. Michael: Okay. Awesome. Awesome, crystal, I appreciate your time and if anyone has further questions, you can find her on the Dental Marketer Society Facebook group, or where can they reach out to you? So Crystal: you can always find us@www.devnet.com. We've got some awesome resources, re recorded webinars, tutorials, demos, everything you could possibly want to see. We have some awesome programs going. You can check out our Facebook page and you'll see success stories and just a whole program we've got specifically to different types of dentistry.And then if you want to reach out directly, you can reach me@supportdevdent.com. Michael: Awesome. So guys, that's all gonna be in the show notes below. And Crystal, thank you for being with me on this Monday morning marketing episode. Thanks for having me.‍

My guest today is Sue Harvey.Sue established Riverwise Leadership, previously New Direction Strategy, to help leaders and organizations do change better.  Working at the intersection of leadership coaching, team effectiveness, and change management, Sue guest leaders and teams to unlock their creativity and innate wisdom to deliver meaningful, lasting change. Sue serves emerging leaders and C-suite executives across a range of industries including life sciences, technology, health care, and professional services. She is a highly-rated faculty member for leadership development programs at a leading global professional services firm, and is also the founder and lead coach for “Creating What's Next,” a peer-coaching program for women in career transition. Before launching her own company, Sue was involved in organizational change from every angle – as a leader, as a team member, and as a C-suite advisor.  Previous positions include Chief of Staff to the CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Deputy Communications Director for the Minority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, and executive-on-loan to the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy. A Williams College graduate, Sue holds certificates in Leadership Coaching from Georgetown University's Institute for Transformational Leadership and in Change Management from Prosci.  She completed the Center for Creative Leadership's Leadership Development Program and UMass Boston's Emerging Leaders Program.  She is a recipient of the Wonder Woman Award from the Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus.  Sue lives outside Boston with her husband, two children, and a rotating menagerie of pets. Sue and I met last summer and sensed an immediately connection.  It's truly a delight to share this conversation with you today.  Sue shares pieces of her journey and transition out of the corporate world where she was extremely successful and yet came to a place where she knew she wanted and needed a change.   We talk about the courage that it takes to make such a change, Sue shares how she was inspired to action through watching someone else's courageous act, and the power and contagion of courage. Sue, thank you so much for sharing these glimpses into your story, the wisdom you have cultivated, and your humble courage and transparency.  You are an inspiration!  And you embody the courage and I hope many catch the contagion of courage from you as your story is shared through this platform.Connect with Sue:LinkedInMake Life Less Difficult

Vamsi Polimetla, is a seasoned runner, reader, and coach, joining us to discuss his incredible story. Born in India, Vamsi taught himself how to code and was quick to embrace the Java programming language when it first emerged. Vamsi moved from India to Singapore and then to the US, since it was far cheaper to obtain a car in the US. That's right, Vamsi moved because he wanted to own a car, and that wasn't feasible in Singapore. In the US, he was able to pursue his love for running and reading, two activities that helped him stay motivated and focused on his goals. Despite not being the “brightest student”, he was always eager to learn and read everything he could about coding. This dedication to growth and learning would eventually lead him to a successful career in the corporate world, where he worked for Blue Cross Blue Shield and even became an advisor to the CEO and CIO.However, once Vamsi reached this point in his life, Vamsi realized that this wasn't the path for him and left to start his passion project, "Make More Leaders." In this coaching program, he teaches others how to be the best leader they can be and how to cut down on their work hours while enjoying life to the fullest.Thanks for listening, follow us on Instagram or Twitter

A grant opportunity to advance “healthy food equity” from the Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation automatically disqualifies otherwise eligible organizations if the CEO is white. President Biden referred to new Maryland Democratic governor Wes Moore, the first black governor of his state, as “boy.” A black Democratic lawmaker from Georgia called Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas an "Uncle Tom" who “sold his soul to the slave master” during a vote over whether to erect a statue in the judge's home state. California State Sen. Steve Padilla (D-San Diego) recently introduced a bill that will codify what a “living wage” is for Californians. Padilla defines a “living". The tragic death of Selma Police Officer Gonzalo Carrasco Jr. at the hands of convicted felon Nathaniel Dixon has thrust various state laws back into. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this week's episode, Roger Knecht is joined by Sarry Ibrahim, a financial planner and financial services expert, to discuss the importance of accountants in the accounting industry. Sarry will delve into the ‘Bank On Yourself' concept and how insurance can be leveraged to outpace inflation. They will also be discussing the key differences between 401Ks and life insurance policies, how to retain your best employees with insurance, the benefits of having a financial planner and accountant working together, and how a financial planner envisions money differently from an accountant. So sit back, grab a pen and paper, and get ready to learn from one of the leading financial experts in the industry. It's time to take your accounting business to the next level. Your Host: Roger Knecht, president of Universal Accounting Center Guest Name: Sarry Ibrahim Sarry Ibrahim is financial planner and member of the Bank On Yourself Organization. He helps real estate investors, business owners, and full-time employees grow safe and predictable wealth regardless of market conditionsusing a financial strategy that has been around for over 160 years. Sarry started this journey when he was in grad school completing his MBA. He worked for companies like Allstate, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna Healthspring, and Humana before founding Financial Asset Protection, a financial services firm that focuses on one sole concept; the Bank On Yourself Concept, also known as the Infinite Banking Concept. Sponsors: Universal Accounting Center ●        Helping accounting professionals confidently and competently offer quality accounting services to get paid what they are worth.   Offers: Reach out to Sarry Ibrahim and download his e-book at www.thinkinglikeabank.com Get a FREE copy of this book all accounting professionals should use to work on their business and become profitable.  It is a must-have addition to every accountant's library to provide quality CFO & Advisory services as a Profit & Growth Expert today: ●        “in the BLACK, nine principles to make your business profitable” – e-book ●        Red to Black in 30 Days. Learn the turnkey process to take your clients from “Red to Black” as the Profit & Growth Expert offering proven CFO & Advisory services.   For Additional FREE Resources for accounting professionals check out this collection HERE!   Be sure to join us for GrowCon, the LIVE event for accounting professionals to work ON their business. This is a conference you don't want to miss.   Remember this, Accounting Success IS Universal. Listen to our next episode and be sure to subscribe.   Also, let us know what you think of the podcast and please share any suggestions you may have.  We look forward to your input: Podcast Feedback   For more information on how you can apply these principles in your business please visit us at www.universalaccountingschool.com or call us at 8012653777  

So, your baby started sleeping through the night…but your boobs didn't! Should you wake to pump? Should you sleep when baby sleeps? How can you prevent mastitis or maintain your milk supply?Join Maureen and Heather today on the Milk Minute to answer all of these questions and more! Listen to your favorite LCs chat about managing your milk production when baby isn't moderating it for you.Work With Us!Book a Lactation Consult with Heather! Click HERE for the deets.Book a Lactation Consult with Maureen! Click HERE to get started.THANK YOU TO OUR BELOVED PATRONSAshley GTHANK YOU TO THIS EPISODE'S SPONSORSGet your breastfeeding journey BACK ON TRACK with a Lactation Consult with Heather! Telehealth available and some insurance accepted. Click HERE for the deets. If you have Blue Cross Blue Shield, Anthem, Cigna PPO or Provider Network of America– you can fill out a short form to get pre-approval to get your visits with Heather 100% approved! Click HERE to access the form.Click HERE to get HappiTummi and enter code MILKMINUTE10 for 10% off your order!Click HERE to save 25% off and free shipping on all Liquid IV products with the code MILK_MINUTECeres Chill - Grab your Ceres Chiller or Milkstache HERE and enter promo code MILKMINUTE15 for 15% off!Listener Question: I'm pregnant and nursing a 16-month-old. Is it safe to pump to build up a stash for the baby that's on the way?Mentioned in this episode:Ep. 87- Oversupply...What It Means and How to Handle It!Prefer to read the transcript? Click HereSupport the showCheck out Milk Minute Podcast's website here!Become a VIP Click here to get exclusive access and more!Send us an e-mail! MilkMinutePodcast@gmail.comFacebook | Instagram | TikTok

Communication in the workplace can be fraught.Bringing together groups of people with different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives that shape how they communicate in a single workplace culture can create situations ripe for conflict and miscommunication.When we approach each other with curiosity and obtain consent before giving feedback, we can shape workplace cultures where people feel witnessed, appreciated, and respected.Erica Courdae and India Jackson are joining me for a discussion about creating space for difficult conversations in the workplace, the importance of behavior modeling from leaders, and how conscious communication deepens our relationships.In 2018, Erica and India co-founded Pause on the Play: a community, podcast, and consultancy committed to guiding individuals in the process of defining their values, diversifying their networks, and disrupting systems of oppression. Combined they have provided training and consulting applied in businesses ranging from Christian Dior and Paul Mitchell School to Martha Beck Incorporated and Blue Cross Blue Shield. Their voices have been featured on podcasts, workshops, and online communities with a combined reach of over twenty thousand people.If you're ready to start having conscious conversations, tune in. Show notes are always available at elainelou.com/podcast/40.Resources Mentioned:Visit Erica and India's Website: https://www.pauseontheplay.com/ Follow @pauseontheplay on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pauseontheplay/Connect with Erica on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericacourdae/Connect with India on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/theindiajackson/ Join the Pause on the Play Community: https://www.pauseontheplay.com/community Where We Can Connect:Apply to schedule a call to see if the Color Your Dreams Inner Circle is a good fit for you: https://elainelou.com/innercircleSchedule a call with me: https://elainelou.com/callJoin my weekly Color Your Dreams Newsletter: http://elainelou.com/joinFollow Along on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elainelou_Follow Along on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iamelainelouConnect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elaineloucartas

In this episode, Mindy, Ryan, and Jen discuss a few recent newsworthy items including Amazon's RxPass (00:30), a study on the impact of high-deductible health plans on health outcomes (05:08), and a push from Blue Cross Blue Shield to expand site-neutral payments (08:34).    Podcast Tags: healthcare, healthcare news, drug costs, generics, public health, health plans, health outcomes  Source Links: https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/health-tech/amazon-pharmacy-rolls-out-rolls-out-service-unlimited-generic-prescriptions-5-month https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/health-tech/how-amazons-latest-pharmacy-move-lays-groundwork-longer-term-play https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2023/01/25/amazon-rx-pass https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/forefront.20200615.238552/ https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/payers/employers-should-carefully-weigh-benefits-high-deductible-health-plans-study https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/providers/blues-press-congress-expand-site-neutral-payment-reforms-more-outpatient-clinics https://www.beckersasc.com/asc-coding-billing-and-collections/bcbs-leans-into-site-neutral-payments.html  For additional discussion, please contact us at TrendingHealth.com or share a voicemail at  1-888-VYNAMIC.  Mindy McGrath, Healthcare Industry Advisor and Head of Public Health Sector Mindy.McGrath@vynamic.com  Ryan Hummel, Executive and Head of Provider Sector Ryan.Hummel@vynamic.com   Jen Burke, Healthcare Industry Strategist Jen.Burke@vynamic.com

Dr. Aadeel Akhtar is the Founder and CEO of PSYONIC, a company whose mission is to develop advanced prostheses that are affordable for everyone. Victoria talks to Dr. Akhtar about the gaps in the market he you saw in current prosthetic ability, advancements PSYONIC has been able to make since commercializing, and essential principles and values when you were building out the team. PSYONIC (https://www.psyonic.io/) Follow PSYONIC on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/psyonicinc/) or Twitter (https://twitter.com/PSYONICinc). Follow Dr. Aadeel Akhtar on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/aadeelakhtar/). Follow thoughtbot on Twitter (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: VICTORIA: This is The Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host Victoria Guido. And with me today is Dr. Aadeel Akhtar, Founder and CEO of PSYONIC, a company whose mission is to develop advanced prostheses that are affordable for everyone. Aadeel, thank you for joining me. DR. AADEEL: Thank you for having me, Victoria. This is fun. VICTORIA: Yes, I'm excited to meet you. So I actually ran into you earlier this week at a San Diego tech meetup. And I'm curious just to hear more about your company PSYONIC. DR. AADEEL: So, as you mentioned, we develop advanced bionic limbs that are affordable and accessible. And this is actually something I've wanted to do my whole life ever since I was seven years old. My parents are from Pakistan. I was born in the Chicago suburbs. But I was visiting, and that was the first time I met someone missing a limb; and she was my age missing her right leg, using a tree branch as a crutch, living in poverty. And that's kind of what inspired me to go into this field. VICTORIA: Wonderful. And maybe you can start with what gaps in the market did you see in current prosthetic ability? DR. AADEEL: When we first started making these prosthetic devices, we were 3D printing them. And we thought that the biggest issue with prosthetic devices was that they were way too expensive and saw that with 3D printing, we'd be able to reduce the prices on them. And that's true; it was actually one of the biggest issues, but it wasn't the biggest issue. After talking with hundreds of patients and clinicians, the number one thing that we found that patients and clinicians would raise issue with was that their super expensive bionic hands were breaking all the time. And these were made with injection molded plastics and custom-machined steel. And they weren't doing anything crazy with it. They would accidentally hit the hand against the side of a table, but because they were made out of rigid components, they would end up snapping up those joints. And a natural hand, for example, if you bang a natural hand against a table or a rigid object, then it flexes out of the way. It has compliance in it, and that's why it's able to survive those types of hits and impacts a little bit more. It forced us to think outside the box of how can we still leverage the low-cost manufacturing of 3D printing but make this hand more robust than anything out there? And that's when I started looking into soft robotics. And with soft robotics, instead of making rigid links in your robot, so instead of having rigid joints and components, you'd use soft materials like silicone that are more akin to your skin and your own biological tissues that are more flexible and compliant. So we started making the fingers out of rubber and silicone. And now we've been able to do things like punch through flaming boards, and I dropped it from the roof of my house 30 feet up in the air, and it survived. We put it in a dryer for 10 minutes, and it survived tumbling around in a dryer. I've arm wrestled against the para-triathlete national champion and lost. So this thing was built to survive a lot more than just hitting your hand against the side of a table. VICTORIA: Wow, that sounds incredible. And I love that you started with a premise, and then you got feedback from your users and found a completely different problem, even though that same problem still existed [laughs] about the low cost. DR. AADEEL: Absolutely. VICTORIA: Wow. So taking it back a little bit more to the beginning, so you knew you always wanted to do prosthetics since you grew up in Pakistan and saw people without their limbs. Take me a little bit more from the beginning of the journey. When did you decide to start the company officially? DR. AADEEL: And just to clarify, I was just visiting Pakistan for the summer, but I grew up and was raised here in the U.S. So I went to Loyola University Chicago for undergrad, and I got a bachelor's degree in biology there, followed by a master's in computer science. And the original plan was to actually become an MD working with patients with amputations and developing prosthetics for them. But while I was an undergraduate student at Loyola, I took my first computer science class, and I absolutely loved it. I loved everything about coding, and programming, and engineering. And I realized that if I became a straight-up MD, I wouldn't get to do any of the cool things that I was learning in my computer science classes. And I wanted to figure out a way to combine my passions in engineering and computer science with clinical medicine and prosthetics. And right down the street at a hospital formerly known as The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago...it's now the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. It's the number-one rehabilitation hospital in the U.S. for the last 31 years. They made these huge breakthroughs in mind control bionic limbs where they were doing a surgery where they would reroute your nerves to other muscles that you already have on your body. And then, when you try to imagine bending your phantom elbow or making a phantom fist, your chest muscles would contract. And then you could use those signals to then control this robotic limb that was designed by Dean Kamen that was sponsored by DARPA and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. That was just absolutely incredible. And it was this perfect mixture of engineering and clinical medicine, and it was exactly what I wanted to get into. But, as you'd mentioned, we're all about accessibility, and a $100,000 cost hand would not cut it. And so I ended up finishing a master's in computer science. I taught at Loyola for a couple of years and then went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where I got another master's in electrical and computer engineering, a Ph.D. in neuroscience. And then I finished the first year of medical school before I left to run PSYONIC because it is a lot more fun building bionic limbs [laughs] than finishing medical school. And while I was a graduate student, we started 3D printing our own prosthetic hands, and we got the chance in 2014 to go down to Quito, Ecuador, where we were working with a nonprofit organization called The Range of Motion Project. And their whole mission is to provide prosthetics to those who can't afford them in the U.S., Guatemala, and Ecuador. And we went down there, and we were working with a patient who had lost his left hand 35 years prior due to machine gunfire from a helicopter; he was in the Ecuadorian Army. And there was a border war between Ecuador and Peru. And Juan, our patient, in front of international news stations, said that he felt as though a part of him had come back. And that was because he actually made a pinch with his left hand for the first time in 35 years. And you have to imagine the hand at that time was three times the size of an average natural hand, adult human hand. Had wires going everywhere, breadboards, power supplies, the walls, you name it. And despite that, he said that a part of him had come back. And he actually forgot how to make a pinch with his left hand, and we had to retrain his brain by placing a mirror in front of his left side reflecting his right hand, tricking his brain into thinking that his left hand was actually there. And he would make a pinch with both sides, and it would reactivate the muscles in his forearm on his left side. And when he said that, that's when I realized that if I stay in academia, then this just ends up as a journal paper. And if we want everyone to feel the same way that Juan did, we had to commercialize the technology. And so that's when PSYONIC was born. VICTORIA: I love that you're working on that as someone who's from Washington, D.C., and has done a lot of work in veterans and homeless organizations and seen how life-changing getting access to limbs and regaining capability can be for people. DR. AADEEL: Absolutely. In fact, our first user in the U.S. is a U.S. Army sergeant who lost his hand in Iraq in 2005 due to roadside bombs, Sergeant Garrett Anderson. He used a hook on a daily basis, and with our hand, he's actually able to feel his daughter's hand, which is something that he wasn't able to do with any other prosthesis. And for him to tell us that that is why we do what we do. VICTORIA: Right. And I saw on your website that you have several patents and have talked about the advances you've been able to make in what I'm going to call the sensorimotor bionic limbs. Can you tell me a little bit more about some of the advancements you've been able to make since you decided to commercialize this? DR. AADEEL: The first thing that usually users notice is that, and clinicians notice as well, is that the hand is the fastest bionic hand in the world. So the fingers close in about 200 milliseconds. And to put that into context, we can wink our eyes in about 300 milliseconds. So it's technically faster than the blink of an eye, which is kind of a cool statistic there. So it's super fast. And the fingers are super resistant to impact, so they're very durable. And so we've got a couple of patents on both of those items in particular. And then there's the touch feedback aspect. So this is the only hand on the market that gives users touch feedback. And so the methods that we have to mold the fingers to enable that sensory feedback that is what our third patent is on for the hand, and it just looks really cool. It's got like this black carbon fiber on it that just looks really futuristic and bionic. And it just gives users the confidence that this isn't something to be pitied; this is something that's really cool. And especially for our war heroes, that's something to be celebrated that I lost my hand for our country, and now I've got this really cool one that can do all of the things that my hand used to do. VICTORIA: And I also saw that it's reimbursable by Medicare in the U.S. And I was curious if you had any lessons learned from that process for getting eligible for that. DR. AADEEL: Yeah. And that was part of the goal from the very beginning. After we did our customer discovery process, where we figured out what the pain points are and found out that durability was one of the biggest issues, obviously, one of the other issues was the really expensive price of the other hands, and typically what we call a multi-articulated hand, so that's one where each one of the fingers move individually. Those are only covered by the VA, so if you're in the military or workman's comp so if you had a workplace accident. And that only accounted for about 10% of the U.S. market. And what the clinicians kept telling us over and over again was that if you can get the hand covered by Medicare, then usually all the other insurance companies will follow suit, like your Blue Cross Blue Shield, your Aetna, your Kaiser, et cetera. So that was our design goal from the beginning. So how can we hit a price point that Medicare would cover but also make this fully featured that no other hand can do any of these other things? What it primarily came down to was hitting that price point. And as long as we hit that price point, then Medicare was going to be fine with it. So we invented a lot of the manufacturing methods that we use in-house to make the hand in particular. So we do all the silicone molding. We do all the carbon fiber work. We do all the fabric work. We do all the assembly of it in-house in our warehouse here in San Diego. And by being so vertically integrated, we're able to then iterate very quickly and make these innovations happen at a much more rapid scale so that we can get them out there faster and then help more people who need it. VICTORIA: So you've really grown tremendously from when you first had the project, and now you have a team here in San Diego. Do you have any lessons learned for enabling your team to drive faster in that innovation? DR. AADEEL: Yeah, the biggest thing that I feel like a lot of things come down to is just having grit. So especially with a startup, it's always going to be a roller coaster ride. And for us, I think one of the big motivating factors for us is the patients themselves when they get to do these things that they weren't able to do before. So another one of our first patients, Tina, had just become a grandmother, and she was able to feed her granddaughter for the first time because she was able to hold the bottle with her bionic hand, The Ability Hand, and then hold her granddaughter with her natural hand and then feed her using The Ability Hand. It's, like I said, moments like that is why we do what we're doing. It gives us that motivation to work those long hours, make those deadlines so that we can help as many people as possible. VICTORIA: Right. So you have that motivating power behind your idea, which makes a lot of sense. What else in your customer discovery sprint was surprising to you as you moved through that process? DR. AADEEL: So there was definitely the robustness that was surprising. There was the cost that wasn't necessarily the highest priority thing, which we thought would be the highest priority. And the speed and just having to rely on visual feedback, you have to kind of look at the hand as you're doing the task that you're doing, but you have to look at it very intently. So that takes a lot of cognitive load. You have to pay attention very specifically to am I doing the right movement with my hand? In ways that you wouldn't necessarily have to do with a natural hand. And by making the hand move so responsive as it is and move so quickly, in addition to having that touch feedback, that reduces, or at least we believe it'll reduce a lot of that cognitive load for our patients so that they don't have to be constantly monitoring exactly what the hand is doing in order to do a lot of the tasks or the activities of daily living that they're doing on a day to day basis. The whole customer discovery process drove what features we were going to focus on in actually making this hand a reality. VICTORIA: Yeah, that makes sense. And I love hearing about what came up that surprised people. And I appreciate your commitment to that process to really drive your business idea and to solve this problem that happens to so many people in the United States. Well, how widespread is this issue? And, of course, I'm sure you're targeting more than just the United States with rollout, but... DR. AADEEL: So, globally, there are over 10 million people with hand amputations, and 80% of them actually live in developing nations, and less than 3% have access to affordable rehabilitative care. So it's a huge need worldwide, and we want to make sure that everyone has access to the best available prosthetic devices. VICTORIA: That makes sense. So I guess commercializing this product leads to more room, more availability across for everyone. DR. AADEEL: Absolutely. And interesting thing about that, too, is that as we were developing these, the hand in particular, we've optimized it for humans to do human tasks. And we have a programming interface that we put on it that allows researchers to control each one of the fingers like you control the speed, the position, and the force from each one of those fingers as well as you can stream all of the touch sensors like over Bluetooth or over a USB connection, and then also the location of each one of those fingers as well. A lot of robotics researchers who are building humanoid robots and robot arms to do other tasks like manufacturing and robotic surgery and things like that have been purchasing our hand too. So notably, for example, NASA and Meta, so Facebook Meta, have purchased our hands, and NASA is putting it on a humanoid astronaut robot, which hopefully will eventually go into space. And then, on Earth, they'd be able to control it and then manipulate objects in space. And it's opened up an entirely new market, but the critical thing here is that it's the exact same hand that the humans are getting that the robots are getting. And what this allows us to do is just expand our volume of production and our sales so that we can actually further drive down the costs and the pricing for the human side of things as well. So if we're talking about places like India, or Pakistan, or Guatemala, or Ecuador where there are no government incentives in place to reimburse at a rate that they might in the U.S., then we can actually get the price point to one that's actually affordable in those areas as well. And I'm really excited about those prospects. VICTORIA: That's so cool that future robot astronauts will be financing people who have no ability [laughs] to go into space or anything like that. That's a cool business idea. I wonder, when did that happen for you, or what was that like when you realized that there was this other potential untapped market for robotic limbs? DR. AADEEL: It's interesting. It was always in the back of our minds because, as I was a Ph.D. student, I was in the Ph.D. group that focused on robotics, in particular more so than prosthetics. And I was the first one in the group to actually kind of have the prosthetic spin on things. And so I had an idea of where the market was for the robotic side of things. And I had some connections as well. And so I was actually giving a talk at Georgia Tech early last year. The Director of the Georgia Tech Robotics Institute, Dr. Seth Hutchinson, he was telling me that...he was like, "You should go to the big robotics conference, ICRA, because people are going to be like...absolutely love this product for their robots." And we were just like, huh, we never considered that. And so we decided to go, and it was just absolutely nuts. We've had researchers from all over the world being like, "How can I get this hand?" And compared to a lot of the robotic hands that are out there, even on the robotic side, this is a much lower price point than what they've been dealing with. And by solving a lot of the problems on the human side, like durability, and sensory feedback, and dexterity, and the pricing, it actually solved a lot of the problems on the robotic side as well. So I was just like...after we had gone to that conference, we realized that, yeah, we can actually make this work as well. VICTORIA: That's really cool. And it sounds like tapping into this robotics market and networking really worked for you. What else about your market research or strategy seem to be effective in your business growth? DR. AADEEL: This is interesting as well. So half of our sales actually come from social media, which for a medical device company is usually unheard of. [laughs] Because usually the model is, for medical devices, where you have a group of sales reps located across the regions that you're selling and so across the U.S. And they would visit each one of the clinics, and then they would work with the clinicians directly in getting these on the patients. That usually accounts for like 99% of sales. And so for us, for half of them to come from social media, it was a goal that we had set out to, but it was also surprising that that accounted for so much of our volumes and our revenue. The way we set it up was that we wanted to make videos of our hand that highlighted things that our hand could do that were novel and unique. And so, for example, we wanted to highlight the durability of the hand as well as the dexterity and the touch feedback. And so some of the first videos that we made were like arm wrestling against a bionic hand. And what's cool about that is that the general public just found that very interesting in general. But also, when a clinician and a patient sees that, wow, this hand can actually withstand the forces of an actual arm wrestling match, then they're also just as impressed. And the same thing with punching through three wooden boards that we set on fire; if it can handle that, then it can handle activities of daily living. General public seizes, and they're just like, "Whoa, that's so cool." But then clinicians and the patients they see that, and they were like, "My prosthetic hand couldn't do this before." And so then they contact us, and we're like, "How can we get your hand?" And then we'll either put them in contact with a clinician, or we'll work with one of the clinicians that they are already working with then go through their insurance that way. And so it's just been a really exciting and fun way to generate, like, expand our market and generate sales that we didn't necessarily think was going to be a viable way from the start. VICTORIA: Right. I totally get it. I mean, I want one, and both my hands still work. MID-ROLL AD: thoughtbot is thrilled to announce our own incubator launching this year. If you are a non-technical founding team with a business idea that involves a web or mobile app, we encourage you to apply for our eight-week program. We'll help you move forward with confidence in your team, your product vision, and a roadmap for getting you there. Learn more and apply at tbot.io/incubator, that's tbot.io/incubator. VICTORIA: Have you ever seen someone rock climb with the prosthetic hand? DR. AADEEL: Not yet, but that is something that is definitely on our docket. VICTORIA: Okay, well, we need to do it. Since we're both in San Diego, I can help you. [laughs] DR. AADEEL: Sweet. I love it. [laughs] VICTORIA: Yeah, we can figure that out because there are, especially in the climbing gyms, there are usually groups that come in and climb with prosthetic limbs on a regular basis since it's a kind of a surprisingly accessible sport. [laughs] DR. AADEEL: So one of the great things about being here in San Diego is that there's like a ton of incredible resources for building prosthetics and then for users of them as well. So the Challenged Athletes Foundation is located 10 minutes from us. So we're located in Scripps Ranch. And the Challenged Athletes Foundation they're like over in the Sorrento Valley area. They hold the para-triathlon every year. And so we just went to their event a couple of months ago, and it was absolutely incredible. And so we've got like a five-year goal of making an ability leg. So we have The Ability Hand right now. So the ability leg, we want to actually be able to perform a triathlon, so run, bike, and swim with the leg. And I think that would be a phenomenal goal. And all the pieces are here in San Diego. We got the military hospital, and so we've got the veteran population. We've got the Challenged Athletes Foundation. We've got UCSD, and they're incredible at engineering. We've got two prosthetic schools right around LA, so Loma Linda University in California State University, Dominguez Hills. And there are only 11 in the entire nation, and two of them just happen to be right around here. It's a med tech hub. There's like a bunch of med tech companies and both startups and huge ones like NuVasive that are in the area. And it's a huge engineering place, too, with Qualcomm. And so we want to bring all of those resources together. And it's my goal to turn San Diego into the bionics capital of the world, where people from all over the world are coming here to have the most advanced devices ever created. VICTORIA: Oh, I love that idea. And you just moved to San Diego a few years ago. Is that right? DR. AADEEL: Actually, six months ago, so it's very new for us. VICTORIA: Six months? [laughter] Well, you sound like me when I moved to San Diego. I was like; it's great here. [laughter] DR. AADEEL: Well, I hope you still find it to be great. [laughs] VICTORIA: Yeah, I love it. I've been here for two years now. And, yes, there's more to it than just the weather being good all the time. [laughter] There's a lot here. DR. AADEEL: [laughs] It doesn't hurt, though, right? VICTORIA: Yeah. And, I mean, I love that I can still do my networking events outdoors all year long, so going on hikes and stuff versus being indoors in the winter. But I find it fascinating that San Diego has just so much biotech all around, and I will happily support how I can [laughs] turning it into a bionic limb capital. I think that's a great idea. Well, so I wanted to get back...we're talking about the future right now. I wanted to ask about building your team. So you started the company almost seven years ago, and you've grown the team a lot since then. Did you have any essential principles or values that you started with when you were building out your team? DR. AADEEL: Yeah. So when we were first hiring, I was still a Ph.D. student when I started the company. Our first employee was actually my undergraduate student. He's currently our Director of Engineering, Jesse Cornman. And we specifically were recruiting people that did stuff outside of the lab, so the electrical engineers and the mechanical engineers that we initially hired. We wanted to make sure that it wasn't just like the university projects that they were working on. And we would find a lot of our early people from like car team so like this was like building like a solar car, so Illini Solar Car was one of our places where we'd get a lot of our early employees as well as the electrical vehicle concept team and design, build, fly, and these student organizations where they had like competitions, and they had to build real, tangible things to compete in with. And the thing is that those are the people who do this stuff for fun, and you learn the most when you're having fun doing this stuff. And so we would always look for that stuff in particular. And there were some litmus tests that we'd have to be able to weed out very quickly what people know what. And so for electrical engineers, we would always ask if they know surface mount soldering because it's not like your typical soldering on a perf board or even like using a breadboard. It's like you have a circuit board, and you have to solder these very small components on there. And if you know how to solder those small components, you typically know how to code them as well. So they have some embedded systems background as well and some PCB design experience as well. And so that was like a quick litmus test that we use for the electrical engineers. For the mechanical engineers, it was typically if they knew how to do surface modeling. And so we would ask them, "How would you make the palm of a hand where you got these complex structures and these complex surfaces that have different geometries and different curvature?" And if they were able to do a surface modeling, then we knew that they'd be able to CAD that up pretty quickly. They probably have some sort of 3D printing experience from that as well, and that they can just rapidly iterate and prototype on the devices. And so that worked really, really well. And so we were able to get a lot of bright engineers who early on in the company...and many who were student interns at the time that eventually even went on to Microsoft and Google or some of the students went to MIT and places like that. And we were very fortunate to be in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's ecosystem, where it was just one of the best engineering schools in the world to develop this kind of stuff. VICTORIA: That's great. So you had really specific skills that you needed. [laughs] And you kind of knew the type of work or an experience that led to that. As you've expanded your team and you're building a culture of collaboration, how do you set expectations with how you all work together? DR. AADEEL: As a startup, we all wear many, many hats. So my job, I feel like, is to fill in all the gaps. And so some days, I might be doing marketing; some days, I might be visiting a clinic and doing sales. Other times I'm working with the engineering team to make sure that we're on track over there. And it's like all this stuff in between. And so being able to work cohesively like that and put on those many hats so that you know every part of the process from the marketing and sales sides but also the engineering and operations side, I think that's really allowed us to get to the point where we have by doing all these different functions together. VICTORIA: That makes sense. So you are all located in San Diego now, so you have to be in person to work on robot hands? DR. AADEEL: Yeah, we found that it was much easier to build a physical object in person than it was to do things remotely. At the beginning of COVID, we actually did try to, like, you know, we moved 3D printers out into people's houses and the manufacturing equipment. And then I remember just to put together a power switch that usually took like one hour to do in the lab. It took us a day and a half because one person had the circuit board, the other person had the enclosure, the other person had the thing to program it. And then each thing depended on each other. So you had to keep carting that small piece back and forth between houses, and it was just a nightmare to do that. And so after a couple of months, we ended up moving back into the offices and manufacturing there with staggered work hours or whatever. And at that point, we were just like, okay, this is much more efficient when we're all in person. And honestly, a lot of our best ideas have come from just me sitting here and then just walking over to one of the engineers and being like, "Hey, what do you think of this idea?" And it's a lot harder to do when you're all remote, right? VICTORIA: That makes sense. Yeah, just the need to physically put pieces together [laughs] as a group makes it hard to be fully remote. And you get a lot of those ideas flowing when you're in person. What is on the horizon for you? What are you most excited about in your upcoming feature set? DR. AADEEL: Like I said, one of the reasons why we moved here was to work with the military hospital, and so some of the work that we're doing with them is particularly exciting. The way you typically wear these prosthetic devices...so you'll have muscle sensors that are embedded in a...it's like a shell that goes around your residual limb. We call it the socket. Think about it as like a shoe for your residual limb. And the thing is, as you're wearing this throughout the day, it starts to get sweaty. It starts to get uncomfortable. Things shift around. Your signals don't control the hand as well because of all these changes and everything. And with the military hospital, we're working on something called osseointegration. So instead of having this socket that's molded to your residual limb that you shove your arm into, you have a titanium implant that goes inside your bones and then comes out of your body, and then you directly attach the hand to your bones like a limb naturally should be. And then, on top of that, instead of using these muscles sensors on the outside of your body, we're actually working on implanted electrodes with some of our collaborators. For example, at University of Chicago, they're doing brain implants to control prosthetic limbs. And a company in Dallas called Nerves Incorporated that's working with the University of Minnesota and UT Southwestern; they're doing nerve implants in your forearm and in your upper arm to control prosthetic limbs. And with those, you get much more fine control, so it's not like you're just controlling different grips, like preset grips in the hand, but you're actually doing individual finger control. And then, when you touch the finger, it's actually stimulating your nerves to make it feel like it's coming from your hand that you no longer have anymore. And this is where we're heading with all of this stuff in the future. And so we built The Ability Hand to work with clinically available systems now, like sockets, and muscle sensors, and vibration motors that are all outside of the body. But then also, when these future technologies come up that are more invasive that are directly implanted on your nerves as well as into your bones as well, we're really excited about those prospects coming out in the horizon. VICTORIA: That's really cool. [laughs] I mean, that would be really life-changing for a lot of people, I'm sure, to have that ability to really control your fingers and get that extra comfort as well. How do you manage quality into your process, especially when you're getting invasive and putting in nerve implants? What kind of testing and other types of things do you all do? DR. AADEEL: With The Ability Hand itself, there was actually an FDA Class I exempt device, meaning that we didn't have to go through the formal approval process that you typically do. And that was primarily because it's attached to your residual limb as opposed to going invasive. But with going invasive, with our clinical partners they're actually doing FDA clinical trials right now. And so they've gone through a lot of those processes. We're starting to enroll some of our patients who are using The Ability Hand to get these implanted electrodes. We're kind of navigating that whole process ourselves right now too. So I think that was one of the reasons why we moved to San Diego, to work with and leverage a lot of the expertise from people who've done it already, from the med tech device companies that are big that have gone through those processes and can guide us through that process as well. So we're excited to be able to leverage those resources in order to streamline these clinical trial processes so that we can get these devices out there more quickly. VICTORIA: That's very cool. I'm super excited to hear about that and to learn more about PSYONIC. Is there anything else you want to share with our audience today as a final takeaway? DR. AADEEL: Absolutely. So in order to make all this stuff happen, we're actually in the middle of raising a round right now. Our biggest issue right now is actually that we've got more demand than we can produce, so we're working on scaling our manufacturing here in San Diego. So we're in the middle of an equity crowdfunding round. And we're all about accessibility, so about making our hand accessible to as many people as possible. So we were like, why don't we make the company accessible as well? And one of the most beautiful things about doing this as an equity crowdfunding round is our patients actually have invested in the company as well. And so it's like, we're making these devices for them, and then they get to be a part of it as well. And it's just this beautiful synergy that I couldn't have asked for anything more out of a crowdfunding campaign. And so we've raised over 750k already on StartEngine. And you can find out more and invest for as little as $250 at psyonic.io, so that's psyonic.io/invest. And the other thing I was going to mention, especially Victoria since you're in San Diego as well, is that I happily give tours to anyone who is in the area. So if anyone wants to see how we build all these bionic hands and just a cool robotics startup in general, we'd be happy to have you come visit us. VICTORIA: That's very cool. I'll have to connect with you later and schedule a tour myself. [laughs] That's wonderful. I'm excited to hear all the things you're working on and hope to see you more in the San Diego community coming up. And we'll share links to the funding page and other information about PSYONIC in our show notes. You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on Mastodon at Victoria Guido. And this podcast is brought to by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thank you for listening. See you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot, your expert strategy, design, development, and product management partner. We bring digital products from idea to success and teach you how because we care. Learn more at thoughtbot.com. Special Guest: Aadeel Akhtar.

Today your faithful hosts do things a little differently! Join Laura Birek from the Big Fat Positive podcast to have an informal night weaning consult on the Milk Minute. A lot of parents struggle with breastfeeding at night and today Maureen and Heather go over several strategies you can use to change things for the better!Tune into the Big Fat Positive podcast next week to hear us chat with Laura and Shanna about the results of Laura's night weaning.Work With Us!Book a Lactation Consult with Heather! Click HERE for the deets.Book a Lactation Consult with Maureen! Click HERE to get started.THANK YOU TO OUR  BELOVED PATRONS:Taylor R from Rankin Inlet CanadaTricia E from St. Helens, OregonTHANK YOU TO THIS EPISODE'S SPONSORSGet your breastfeeding journey BACK ON TRACK with a Lactation Consult with Heather! Telehealth available and some insurance accepted. Click HERE for the deets. If you have Blue Cross Blue Shield, Anthem, Cigna PPO or Provider Network of America– you can fill out a short form to get pre-approval to get your visits with Heather 100% approved! Click HERE to access the form.Ceres Chill - Grab your Ceres Chiller or Milkstache HERE and enter promo code MILKMINUTE15 for 15% off!Click HERE to get HappiTummi and enter code MILKMINUTE10 for 10% off your order!Click HERE to save 25% off and free shipping on all Liquid IV products with the code MILK_MINUTEListener Question: How much breastmilk does a child need to get an adequate amount of antibodies to help fight off illness?Mentioned in this episode:Ep. 43 - Cold and Flu Medications while BreastfeedingEp. 75- Tandem FeedingBigFatPositivePodcast.comBFP Socials: Instagram @BFPPodcast  | Facebook | TikTokPrefer to read the transcript? Click HereSupport the showCheck out Milk Minute Podcast's website here!Become a VIP Click here to get exclusive access and more!Send us an e-mail! MilkMinutePodcast@gmail.comFacebook | Instagram | TikTok

Amazon announced a new subscription plan for generic prescription drugs. Elevance will acquire Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana. And a new strain of gonorrhea found in Massachusetts is raising concerns among public health officials. That's coming up on today's episode of Gist Healthcare Daily. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sarry Ibrahim is a financial specialist, private money lender, real estate investor and member of the Bank On Yourself Organization. He helps business owners, real estate investors, and full-time employees grow safe and predictable wealth regardless of market conditions using a financial strategy that has been around for over 160 years.Sarry started this journey when he was in grad school completing his MBA. He worked for companies like Allstate, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna Healthspring, and Humana before founding Financial Asset Protection, a financial services firm focusing on one sole concept; the Bank On Yourself ® concept.[00:01 - 03:27] Opening SegmentIntroducing Sarry to the show!He shares his advice to business owners and real estate investors to think like a bank instead of focusing solely on business[03:28 - 18:47] Thinking Like A Bank And Leverage Your Life InsuranceThinking like a bankQuestions to ask yourself as an entrepreneurBenefits of thinking like a bank include higher multiple when selling and leveraging/collateralizingEvaluating how much interest you are payingLeverage life insurance policies to borrow moneyMoney saved in a bank account is subject to inflation and reduced spending power[18:48 - 37:18] Unlocking The Benefits Of Investing In Life Insurance PoliciesCash can be borrowed against a life insurance policy, allowing for liquidity while still growingComplete control over cash valueAssets can grow faster than liabilitiesPyramid of wealth creation: active income, investing, and leveraging assetsTime is more important than moneyManaging time leads to making more moneyTax benefits from investing in real estate[37:19 - 42:42] Closing SegmentSarry shares that tax benefits are a big part of thinking like a bank, such as taking accelerated depreciation and bonus depreciation to reduce taxes  See the links below to connect with Sarry! Quotes:“It's important to grow cash to have cash on hand…You can still get other sources of lending, even when you've borrowed from the li