Webinar Recording – The Growth Challenge: Leading through Change 

September 4th | 2:00 pm EST

Behavioral healthcare is more in-demand than ever. With that demand comes the need to grow, but scaling without undermining your quality of care or overwhelming your staff.

Join our panel of leaders from across the behavioral healthcare landscape as they share their insights, best practices, and lessons gained from their years of experience.

We’ll help you answer questions like:

• How can you decide if and when the time is right to grow?
• How does a plan for growth impact your tech strategy?
• How can you ensure that your tech strategy supports positive patient outcomes?

Transcript

Welcome, everybody. Thank you for joining. We’re excited to have this conversation. We have an amazing group of panelists lined up for you.

Before we begin, though, we would like to ask the crowd, of the folks who are out there, who is already a Kipu patient or excuse me, Kipu patient Kipu client. And if you are, what product are you using? I’m gonna stop my share to bring up that poll. If you’ll give me just a moment here, and we’ll give that a couple minutes to roll.

But, Carina, as as answers are coming in there, if you would like to go ahead and get started off, feel free.

Awesome. Well, thank you, everybody.

Let’s see. We’re all across the country here, so we have some good mornings, good afternoons.

So here, in, in mountain time, it’s just at at noon. So thank you all for joining us. For those of you that don’t know me, I am Carina Edwards. I’m the CEO of Kipu Health, a thirty year technology veteran, and I am thrilled to be here with all of you today moderating this great panel.

We all know that the demand for behavioral health is an all time high. It’s a fantastic time to be making a difference in this crucial field. But with that demand comes the challenge of scaling your services without compromising the quality of care you provide or burning out your staff. And so today, we’re really delving into that very challenge.

We have an amazing panel of leaders from across the behavioral health landscape here with me to share their insights, their best practices, and their lessons learned. They’re also gonna be discussing the upcoming challenges they see and offering practical advice on on how they’re navigating them and how we can all navigate them. But before we get started, I think why don’t we, introduce our esteemed panelist? So, first, we have Danielle Craig, the VP of facility operations at Evoraa Health.

Dani, could you share a little bit about yourself and Evoraa?

Oh, you’re on mute.

I’m muted. There we go. Thank you for having me. So I’m Danielle Craig, and I’ve been working in behavioral health for about thirteen years now.

Started on the clinical side of things. I have a master’s in mental health counseling and ended up on the operation side of things back in 2017, 2018. And I’ve been working in operations, different facets from admissions to facility operations. Evoraa is the parent company that oversees six facilities.

We have full continuum of care in both Nashville and Atlanta, and we are growing. So a lot of exciting things going on over the last couple years. I’ve been with the company going on two years now, and we’ve just seen exceptional growth and lots of fun things going on, you know, as well being able to really truly offer that full continuum of care to to our clients, and also primary mental health.

Carina, you’re muted now.

This is gonna be the game today. Sorry. There was some background noise. So next, we have Sariah Hopkins, the CEO of Atlantic Health Strategies. Sariah, a quick introduction from you, please.

Thanks, Carina. Happy to be here.

My name is Sariah Hopkins. I am the CEO of Atlantic Health Strategies. Individually, I have about twenty years in behavioral health sector. I’m certified in health care compliance.

Atlantic Health Strategies is a behavioral health advisory services firm. We work with startups to mid stage growth companies and have three primary pillars within our service offerings. The first one is mergers and acquisitions advisory. Second, we do program development, which includes things like licensure, accreditation, EMR implementation.

And our third pillar is managed services, where we provide fractional support to providers and behavioral health for IT, HR, compliance support, regulatory support, and quality.

Awesome. Thank you so much. And finally, Emma Spight, currently a partner at the management consulting firm SEI, where she works with behavioral health organizations. She previously held a technology leadership role at several behavioral health organizations. So, Emma, I will turn it over to you.

Thanks, Carina.

So, yeah, I’m, I’m really a technologist. I have twenty years experience across a range of industries, including seven years in behavioral health organizations, specifically in that technology and operation space.

Currently, I’m at a management consulting firm supporting behavioral health clients. Previously, I held technology leadership positions. Most recently, I served in a CIO capacity as part of the cofounding team of Mind 24/7, and I’ll certainly talk about Mind 24/7 a little bit more.

I love all things technology in health care. I just love how being able to use process and technology, you can really streamline operations and increase revenue when it’s done the right way. And then, personally, I’m a bit of a tech geek, always exploring the latest apps and gadgets, driving my family crazy, asking them to try new things out.

I love that. And I love the breadth of this panel because I think, we have providers, we have clinical, we have consulting that sees all things. We have depth in technology, and so we’re gonna have a great conversation. I want each of you to reflect just on the past two years and kind of where you think things are going for the future, and and take a minute and just give us your your background of what you’ve seen of the evolution because so much has changed so quickly. And I thought I would kick it off just to Sariah. You work with so many organizations. Do you wanna kick us off and just give us that, like just what what have you seen that that arc of change over the past year, and where do you see things going?

Sure. So, you know, the past two years has been a bit of a wild ride. Obviously, we’re all in the post COVID world. At Atlantic, we started as a tech forward company, and we’ve leveraged technology and everything we’ve done from day one.

My cofounder and I started in the provider space. So while we’re in advisory services now, we have a couple of decades of combined experience on provider side. And the changes that happened in the past two years, I think, were are really a cascade of things that started a few years earlier. And a lot of that is payer compression where insurance rates keep shrinking and shrinking.

And we’ve also, of course, seen major changes and things related to employee morale. You know, the work from home movement, it does not translate as well to inpatient behavioral health care.

And, you know, as we’ve addressed these things, we’ve looked at technology as being on the forefront of how to address them. And so from our world, as we work with our clients, whether it’s project management software, database management software, compliance software, AI. It’s, of course, obviously huge these days. We look to see how technology can make the lives of our teams better, which obviously just translates directly into better, employee morale and better patient care.

As we look forward, diversification is really probably the number one thing that’s on the forefront. Behavioral health itself is diversifying.

And, you know, we are diversifying as a company. As I mentioned earlier on our pillars, we started foundationally really as a compliance focused firm, and we’ve expanded out into those areas of providing fractional support. We saw a need with a lot of new providers coming on to the landscape that needed hands on help with IT, HR, compliance, but they don’t have the bandwidth to really bring on full teams and full departments. And so we help bridge that gap. And along with that, we’re diversifying the technology that we use through valued channel partners that we believe can really make a difference for the providers that we work.

Awesome. Thank you for that. Dani, do you wanna take a take a stab here?

Sure. Just to kind of echo what you were saying, you know, I think this post COVID era has, you know, changed things in a sense that, yes, we are at the facility level. Our clients are at the forefront.

Their care is paramount. But, obviously, in the post COVID era, there are different things that come into play with employees. I think people are more aware of their own struggles.

And, you know, as behavioral health continues to expand, we know that there is a need, you know, how do we serve our clients, but how do we also serve our staff? And, you know, especially when facilities are growing and expanding because change is difficult and there’s a lot of pivoting and you think things are gonna go one way and then they go a different way. And really being able at a facility level to be able to support the staff so that they can support the clients. We need to have good morale in the facilities and, you know, our staff needs to be on board with the mission. We need their buy in to be able to serve the the the the population that that needs us the most you know so making sure that staff have what they need and you know also utilizing technology to make things easier.

To you know whether it’s databases that we’re using or different platforms where we’re storing information.

There’s a lot to be done in a facility on a daily basis and how are we streamlining things so that everything from compliance to documentation can be housed in one place where it’s easily accessible and easy to enter, retrieve, et cetera.

So important. And then and, Emma, I’m gonna turn it over to you because I know you’ve also seen this huge explosion in telehealth, and so we’d love to just get your perspective on the last, you know, the last few years and where where things are going.

Yeah. I mean, what I’m really seeing and just looking through the lens of the few organizations I’ve been with is I saw this hypergrowth going really, really fast.

And so, I mean, at Mind 24/7, we set up four clinics in kind of a year and a half. And so from a technology perspective, you’re kinda throwing all this technology together. But what I’m seeing now is going forward and just really pivoting on what Dani had said as well is I’m just seeing a lot more now streamwise streamlining, optimizing, almost kinda having a pause, preparing for that next stage of growth.

I could not agree. I think, I’m gonna build on all of your comments because we are seeing across our customer base that the broad umbrella of behavioral health is now also merging together, where traditionally substance use disorder was a standalone thing. Right? Mental health is in here. We’re seeing eating disorder. We’re seeing general mental health. We’re seeing a lot more of this come at us to really get to whole person care.

And as we’re doing that, a lot of this growth, especially the upper end of the market, is being fueled by private equity, rolling up provider organizations. And with this evolution, the need for technology, but not for technology’s sake, is kind of critical. And I love, Dani, your comments about we always have to keep not just the patients in mind, but the staff in mind. And so as you’re my you know, my question to all of you is, how can providers make this transition continue to scale now with different service offerings, and really support this through either technology or people investments? And, Sariah, do you wanna kick us off?

Yeah. And, Carina, fantastic point on that on this wrap up. We’re seeing it everywhere, that merge of mental health substance, you know, been adding in eating disorder. And we’re even seeing that bridge outside of traditional mental health, behavioral health into human services with intellectual disabilities and foster care being wrapped in too. So it’s it’s really broad footprint of all behavioral that, we start to see this branch out in this roll up for. You know, some of these deployments, and we talk about software deployment. I think people that get a little scared and think this is something that’s massive.

We really look at some areas of pillars, and some of them are what we would consider to be very small scale deployments. The first one really is how do we do things? Do we have a master policy and procedure library? And, you know, whether you’re doing just substance or substance mental health and even, you know, branching into those human services areas, you can create a integrated policy and procedure library that has subsets for those specific verticals. And, obviously, there’s software that helps manage those within the compliance world, and we, recommend utilizing that technology to track when is the last time those policies been reviewed. Are we playing across the same playbook on our whole organization?

And that really leads into standardization in other areas.

Are our documentation standards the same? Are we utilizing unified forms within our EMRs so that we can, you know, have employees maybe move from one location to another or one industry to another without having to go bottom up retraining?

Data analytics is probably the third major area. If anyone’s accredited, Kirk Jacob, you definitely know you have to have some analytics measures. We love Kipu outcomes as a measure of that. But having some standardization to measure analytics and identify trends within the organization is definitely a very tech forward and very integral part to growing with that interoperability.

And then the last really is, are we in silos or are we integrated? Are we still using an old school server in our business? Are we on a cloud based software? If we’re doing telehealth, like Emma’s gonna talk about a little bit more, do we have a secure platform for that?

And these type of deployments, I think, are really, really critical to the ever evolving landscape of behavioral health. And, frankly, not, many of them are huge deployments. They don’t require a re teching of an entire industry. It just requires focus on doing things built for efficiency and built for scale.

And I and I love that concept of right.

How do you lay the the the the the the the tracks with paper before you actually automate? Or how do you know what that process is gonna be with those standards? So so thank you for for grounding us there. Dani, I know you take a mixed approach to this. And so, what what’s your perspective here?

You know, talking about more on the client side of things and a mixed approach, you know, obviously, we’ve seen over the years the trends in acquiring clients or, you know, boosting emissions. You know, it was full on business development for a while, then it really shifted and it was full on digital for for a while. And I think, you know, there really does need to be a mixed approach. And, and you can’t forget about like alumni, for example.

You know, unfortunately, we all know that people decompensate, people relapse. We have, clients that come in and do very well in our programs, but then go back, you know, to their regular lives and need continued support. So are making sure we’re not forgetting about those alumni. How are we keeping track of how they’re doing?

How are we checking on them so that if they do need help again or or making sure we have those relationships so they feel comfortable reaching back out to us and saying, you know, I’m not doing okay. I need to come back into treatment or or, you know, I just wanna do intensive outpatient. I don’t feel like I need to, you know, be back in a residential building, but really, you know, well rounded targets and blending and and balancing your approach, you know, for scaling rather than putting all our chickens in one basket.

But using tech to track everything and everyone, you know, and in integrating all of that so that we can really keep a base on where individuals are coming from.

I love that because it’s a great bridge to patient experience. And so, Emma, bring us home that they’re on the on the actual patient experience through all of this.

Yeah. So when I when I look at organizations and we’re looking at leveraging technology to support scale, One of the most important things I see, in organizations is actually having a, a leader who understands technology.

A lot of times in organizations, as you’ve been a small organization, your technology is kind of fragmented. So you have somebody over here who’s managed the EMR. You’ve got your IT person managing hardware. Somebody else is doing reporting.

And so it can be a bit fragmented. And so starting to get a leader in place that can really look at that big picture and bringing in that that patient experience to understand the end to end picture because all of these different elements impact your patient care.

You want a technology leader who who understands the business strategy, because your technology to support the patient experience need to understand what the business is trying to achieve. Technology should always follow your process, not the other way around.

And then building on what Sariah talked about, just having that right base technology in place. Do you have a strong EMR? Do you have a good RCM platform?

Even more and more, I’m seeing the need for CRMs because your your patients now talk about experience. It’s about patient relationships. It’s no longer just this transactional relationship that you have. And then getting more techy infrastructure, thinking about your network.

Right? You’re gonna have telehealth in your clinics. You’ve got all these different applications running. You gotta have the right network providers and redundancy, meaning two different Internet providers.

If one fails, you have another one in your buildings so you can continue to support your patients.

And don’t forget about information security. I know there’s often this thing, well, it’s a we’re fine. Nothing’s happened. Well, yeah.

Not yet. And so just thinking about, do you have an incident response plan in place? As you’re scaling, if you go down for two days, it can it can cripple you. What are you gonna do?

And then just just lastly on this p point for scale, talking about that fragment fragmentation, just thinking about having the right people who can support all of your technology, support the scale. And so you might have to start thinking about bringing technology under that one umbrella and so that everybody all the technology people are talking to each other to truly think about that end to end patient experience.

Yeah. I wanna underscore a point you made because, you know, for us, as we’re seeing our our customer base and they are converging, they did start off with that workflow process of like, hey. The BD team’s doing this. The intake team’s doing this. The clinical team’s doing this. The billers are doing this. And yet, we now have really doubled down on saying that experience, although different user types across the organization, has to be not one pane of glass, but fully understood, fully integrated.

And across each of the spectrums, you have to be able to thrive. Right? So as you’re as you’re looking at CRM and how those handoffs happen and how does nobody get dropped and how do you see then the full alumni management pieces as you’re thinking about billing. So I’m excited with our four product pillars that we, you know, we we’ve put in the market to underscore just that that sentiment that listen. There’s gonna be many different user types, but it’s core foundational processes that get you the best outcomes across the board.

And, you know, I know a lot of folks in the audience are sitting here kinda going, everyone’s in growth mode. Should I be in growth mode? And if I’m not growing, then then then what am I focused on? Because we talked about there was explosion of growth, then there was some stabilization.

Are we back in another growth envelope? And so, I’ll just ask, how do you decide if the timing is right? And how does this affect, you know, the foundational technologies you’re putting in place in in your strategy? So, Dani, you wanna kick us off there? Should we should we be in growth mode?

So, you know, I think we made the decision to grow over the last year really based on on a need that we saw, especially on the mental health side of things. And it’s been my experience over, you know, the past ten years that we have a lot of inpatient psychiatric facilities and a lot of out patient psychiatric facilities, but there’s not really anything too much in the middle. Right? So people end up in short term stay inpatient psychiatric.

They end up getting discharged to a lower level of care, which ends up being like intensive outpatient where they’re just going to programming and living at home.

Our our mental health program. You know, we increased our bed size, in, in Nashville and moved moved our building, ended up taking the building that we moved out of, and we relicensed it to use that as a detox residential program for for primary substance use. So we that’s where we get, okay, we can really address this full continuum of care.

You know, and then kind of the things that we learned from from expanding, You know, I I love to say I didn’t get here by being perfect. I make mistakes all the time, and I have to be comfortable doing so. You know? So when we went and we staffed this initial building, we went from twenty eight mental health residential beds to fifty three.

And in my brain, I knew what that looked like compliance wise. You know, what are the state regs? What are the joint commission regs? What does that need to look like? And I honestly didn’t take into account the layout of the building. You know, this building was very different than what I was used to. It has lots of different wings and nooks and crannies, and we realized, oh, wow.

We need we need more staff.

So, you know, really being proactive in in doing those things and being able to be flexible and kind of pivot and adapt. And then also, you know, from a tech side of things, I know we’ve we’ve talked about this a lot already, but do we have the infrastructure to be able to support it as opposed to being reactive?

Are we being proactive from the beginning and having everything, you know, all of our ducks in a row as far as, you know, CRM and billing and compliance and licensing and EMR so that we really can house everything as opposed to six months or nine months down the road saying, oh, wait.

Where is all of that stuff? I know I have it in a file somewhere.

You know, being organized about it from the beginning so that it makes it easier when we do wanna grow again.

No. Awesome perspective. Sariah, I know you have a a fun statement here.

Yeah. So, you know, it comes from days of working with PE firms. My, you know, view on growth is if you’re not growing, you’re shrinking, and that not growing can be a path to obsolescence. But, you know, when we talk about that, though, I think a lot of what Dani brought to the table is so critically important. You know, I love your, assessment about that physical plant infrastructure.

Right? We all know that there is just this incredibly emerging need for behavioral health. We are in a mental health crisis. We are in a substance use crisis.

The market demand is not going to get any smaller. But market demand itself is not carte blanche enough to say we should be growing. We have to do internal readiness assessments. And so just like where you were talking about taking assessment of your physical plant infrastructure, We have to do those internal readiness assessments. We started out today talking a lot about personnel and team issues. Is our team ready? Can we recruit the people that we need to actually provide the proper patient care in the area that we want to grow into?

Do we have the financial stability? You know, when we start increasing staff, which, you know, staff is, of course, our number one expense in providing health care, do we have the financial resources to make sure that we can cover those costs until the insurance payments start coming in? That’s a little bit of a delay when you launch a new facility and and making sure that we just have those financial reserves and the full financial evaluation of what is it really going to take. And then from a tech perspective, do we have those foundational support systems?

You know, are we trying to change EMRs at the same time that we’re trying to add new facilities? Are we implementing an RCM at the same time, or are we foundationally ready? I think if we start focusing on that operational readiness globally from the personnel side to the tech side, then what we’re really doing is focusing on patient outcomes and making sure that as we grow, we are growing to the right end result and that we’re creating value.

One of the other aspects of that, especially as we look into acquiring or looking into selling, so some individuals are looking to exit the space, which will lead to other people’s growth, is are we prepared even for that exit? We’ve seen deals fall apart because the seller was still using paper charts. You know, we need to make sure that our organizations are ready both to grow from an acquisition standpoint and organic growth or to be acquired by someone else, and there’s a tech focus on them as well.

I wanna take a a little aside. There was a question in the q and a from Martha Rakes. She she’s she was very curious about how behavioral health organizations are prioritizing having the right leaders who are innovative user experience, change management experts. Are the three of you across your organizations seeing the hiring profile change as you’re now focused on expansion, your clients are focused on expansion?

Emma, I wanna start with you on that. It’s it’s a it’s a it’s an ad hoc question, but just curious. Are you seeing that that new leader emerge?

Yeah. I would say in the in the organizations, in the behavioral health side, I am seeing that pivot from just your kinda your CEO, your COO to bringing in many more of the leaders across the organization to that kinda c suite, that seat of the table, especially in the technology side. I talked about you often see the from the technology leader side, it’s a a director or VP level, but now seeing that a lot more the CIOs and the CTOs having that seat at that table to really help grow and drive that expansion, thinking about the big picture to support the business operations.

Oh, awesome.

Ladies, either one of you wanna jump on to that or have any more to add?

I was Go ahead.

Go ahead.

Okay. I was gonna say, you know, in addition, you know, to those higher level positions, one of the things we’ve seen at our our new facility our our larger facility is Arbor Wellness is really the need for additional middle management.

You know, the go between between our frontline staff and our directors, you know, more management positions because where we would have a clinical director at a smaller facility over only overseeing a few therapists. You know, in a bigger facility, they have they have a lot more direct reports. And so putting those middle managers in place so we can really support them in being able to run their teams effectively.

What I would add to that, and part of this comes from sitting in an advisory services firm seat, is we are seeing individuals in the c suite that aren’t afraid to ask questions.

And I think that is, really remarkable and wonderful shift that those are willing to ask advisors, people that have maybe been in the industry longer. You know, some of our c suite members have come from totally different industries, and there’s nothing quite like behavioral health. And so being able to sit with a a c title and to not be afraid to ask the hard questions and to admit that you don’t necessarily know what the whole road map looks like. I think it’s a very powerful trait in what we’re seeing in some of our leaders. That’s great.

It’s great insights. Yeah. I’m gonna move us to to to pricing and payer considerations. I I think, a big consideration in aligning technology with your growth strategy is dealing with the the the payer pricing pressures that I know all of our customers are dealing with on a daily basis. And so how are you advising or thinking about your mix of patients, your self pay versus commercial versus state funded versus federal funded? You know, how are you thinking about that mix as you’re as you’re aligning that to future growth strategies? And so, Emma, would love to to start with you on this one.

Yeah.

So focusing so I’ll focus more on the technology.

I know, Dani, I’m sorry, will talk more about kind of the overall organizational strategies. From the technology side with the payers and the pricing pressure, I see a lot of payers almost demanding that behavioral health facilities start to integrate physical health into their workflows.

I saw one organization where the payer demanded that the organization did EKGs.

And that’s not a small ask to implement the technology, the process, who’s gonna read the EKGs. Now you’re sending out data potentially outside of your organization.

And and the more and and also in the RCM space, I’m seeing this is a big one as well with payer one payer wants you to code one way, another payer wants you to code another way. And so we start to lean heavily on our providers like Kipu because we need customization.

Right? We need more sophisticated rules engines and scrubbing so we can really customize and configure to meet the payer needs. And these RCM teams, they often end up with so many manual processes to meet all the these demands.

And I know Sariah talked about it a little bit on the data, but I’m seeing so much on the data side from the payers where I’ve seen where the where the payers ask for real time notifications when a member shows up in their facilities.

So you can leverage the HIE, but many patients won’t consent to that.

And so now you’re really starting to get into sophisticated technologies when you’re talking about APIs.

And and it it’s really interesting because I do think on the API front and the rule side of this. Right? We operate in all of the states, and you think about the payer side of our Kipu RCM product and just knowing the state contracts, the federal contracts, the national contracts, the multistate contracts, all the rules associated. Our larger clients have four hundred payer contracts in place and you go there’s just so much to manage there as you scale up, so it’s spot on.

Sariah, you you have a very interesting seat here because you get to work with many different faceted organizations thinking about how they enter into a new market or grow into a new market.

Yeah.

You know, Emma hit the

the head, this is a data, data, data.

You know, the okay.

I’m sorry. It’s so it’s like a bit of a a David and Goliath situation between the providers and the payers. The payers have all the information as providers. We just have a microcosm of it.

But we’re also really subject to their external demand. We had one contract negotiation that we worked with that the payer insisted that the continuum of care provider that had detox, res, PHP, and IOP had to add OP in order to get the contract. They were fine with it being telehealth, but they wanted to make sure that it was a full continuum wrap around and lowest level of care was available. And so we have to respond to those type of payer demands if getting that contract is very important.

We do guide our clients, though, on, you know, looking at payer mix. Are we wanting to be all commercial? Are we wanting commercial Medicaid? And is this all in network? Is this a mix of in and out of network? And really evaluating the revenue streams on a payer by payer and a population basis.

But, frankly, it all ends up wrapped up in the same place, which is outcomes. And our probably biggest focus in all of that is having a good view.

the analytics. Are we having, documentation and analytics that validate medical and assessment with compliance so we really to try and take a holistic approach to that.

Thank you. And, Dani, I know you are in the thick of it as well.

Oh, yeah. And this one gets me pretty riled up because, you know, let’s be honest, payers don’t wanna pay us, for the services we provide to the clients. So, you know, it’s always the game of those persistent, you know, care denials, you know, with utilization review and and making sure you have patients at the right level of care for the right time. And, you know, insurance companies want them at the least restrictive, level of care that they need, which, you know, can sometimes be a little maddening if I’m being honest, because what we’re basically saying is let’s see them fail at a lower level of care before we actually give them the care that we need.

You know, just making sure, you know, we’re we’re getting a that good mix of of self pay and and insurance based clients. But, and I know Sariah and Emma really, really talked about this is the data management of what those payers are paying because, you know, it changes. Their their usual customary rate changes sometimes, you know, the drop of a hat. Something that might be out of network and not contracted might be paying a certain rate this week and next week, it’s completely different.

Or, you know, on our in network contracts, they’re putting, you know, crazy constraints on what they wanna see, you know, in order for us to be, you know, in line with their contract. You know, just dealing with those ever changing reimbursement rates.

You know, we just have to keep in mind, like, kind of what we’re up against and being one step ahead.

You know, really being able to track the data, you know, through analytics to be able to look at those trends.

It’s this this, I think, now we’re gonna move over to AI, and I know you can’t have a technology panel like today without talking about AI. And and I and I wanna, like, set the stage for the conversation of AI because I do think so much that’s out there that we hear is, like, this magical mythical thing that’s just gonna solve all of the problems.

And yet, it’s a lot of, you know, buyer beware of garbage in garbage out. And so, Dani, just in your use case there, right, if you don’t have that right mix of data learning in the algorithm and being able to say, you don’t wanna take this contract. Do you want to take this contract because here are the actual rules? That data governance and really making sure that the AI is ethical and it’s actually looking at all of the populations and all of the basis.

And so as we kinda go into the AI topic here, you know, a a lot of folks have dove in by leveraging AI for clinical note taking and and basically being able to record session and transcribe sessions just like we do on Zoom on a daily basis in our team meetings. But where do you think as you look at the horizon, you actually think a few years out, where can this be game changing across the spectrum of clinical efficiency, staff efficiency, organizational efficiency, patient outcomes, and best practice outcomes. So, yeah, Emma, as the technologist on the on the on the group, I’m gonna move it to you first to say, you know, a few years out, what do you see in the world of AI?

Yeah. So, overall, I know that AI is kind of this magical thing that’s gonna change everything. And from my perspective, yeah, I do think it’s gonna do that, but it’s nowhere near ready. The as you said, Carina, the garbage in, garbage out, the models aren’t there yet.

I my belief is as as we have our software products, Kipu, for example, you’re gonna start to integrate these AI pools on behalf of your clients. Yeah. And so as much as we feel like we’re missing out, just wait. It’s gonna naturally come. And so organizations don’t I don’t feel they need to feel the pressure that they have to go do something with AI because I think it’s naturally gonna gonna evolve.

In terms of efficiencies, right, I used it at one organization where we did a predictive model to figure out where which program the patient should go into. So we could ask we use the model, identified five key key questions. We could ask the patient to predict the program. It was, like, eighty five percent confidence.

And so that helps efficiency because now we’ve stopped a clinician, potentially, and even a nurse, an MP level, from having to go ask spend thirty minutes doing an intake. So that’s where I’m seeing kind of those immediate benefits in the technology.

Yeah. What I’ll what I’ll share I I can share a bit more since our our last, conversation, but we have a deep partnership with AWS when it comes to AI. And so the the fun part for us is, because of our scale and size, we were invited into a beta, that is actually built on an AWS language model that’s all derived from behavioral health. And so that’s an exciting piece for us because now when we put things out, we know the model is large and aggregated and ethical and learned.

And so we can just now release technology within the chart to within the systems to then, like, kind of go because our entire infrastructure is on AWS. So we’re excited to kinda share more as that goes on, but it’s the it’s sometimes the the slow to the race is the best because the jump ins have unintended consequences because you also don’t know where your data is being stored, and also how it’s being leveraged outside of just that model. And so I just any other comments? You know, Dani, do you wanna bring, any comments here on where you see this trend emerging and where you’d like to see used in your organization?

So I really like what you said, you know, about kind of not necessarily being first to the game in this situation. Right? Making sure that when you’re using AI, you know, we’re making sure where where that information is coming from, where that stuff is being stored, etcetera, especially because we’re dealing with, confidential information. You know, I I think you kinda have to acknowledge the fear of the slippery slope, if you will. I mean, it is such a great tool. You know, right now I’m pursuing my MBA, and they actually are encouraging us to use AI as opposed to saying, you know, we’re scanning everything for plagiarism. They’re encouraging us to use it as a tool appropriately.

Yeah.

You know, but I think that on our side of things, what we really have to think about and, you know, make sure all ducks are in a row is what are the what is the other side gonna do to combat us using AI as an enhancement tool?

You know, what algorithms are insurance companies going to put into play to try to, prevent it, if you will, or say that this wasn’t this isn’t, you know, human written.

At at the same time, you know, I think, like I said, it can’t we can’t use it as a crutch. I think we use it as an enhancement tool, you know, and in really being able to make workflow process, which I know we’ve already talked about today, simpler, easier, more efficient, more, you know, taking less time overall.

Appreciate that. And, Sariah, do you have any other points to add here on the AI front?

I don’t have a lot to add. I think Dani and Emma did a fantastic job covering it, and I do love Dani’s, commentary of always being on the watch for those denials because they’re they’re they will find a way.

So Awesome.

So I’m gonna close this here and then start opening up to questions to the audience. So for those of you in the audience, feel free to get those questions in the q and a box. So one piece of closing advice for the facilities listening in.

What would what would your one piece of advice be? And so, Dani, I’ll start with you.

I think my one piece advice kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier that it’s okay to, you know, not implement things perfectly, need to pivot. You know, it’s how we’re going to learn and be able to grow successfully. You know, don’t ignore the the ounce of truth or those underlying lessons in in in scaling and growing.

Over to you, Emma.

My one piece of advice, what I see in a lot of provider organizations is if you’re you’re trying to solve a problem before rushing out and doing demos and looking at new tools, get really clear internally on what problem are you trying to solve and what is the business process you want. Like, in the dream, what does your business process look at? Write that down and give it to the vendor and ask them to show you their system can do this. What this does is it really ensures you’re selecting the right technology to support your business processes, not your business processes at your last organization, your current organization.

It helps you understand the limitations, so you’re going in with your eyes wide open, and it also prevents overbuying.

And so I always say, what do you want? Why do you want it? And then figure out how because you might find you don’t even need a technology solution.

Love that. Alright. Sariah, bring us home.

Alright. So mine is just to make sure you really have a clear understanding of your growth objective, have a strategy around it, and then make sure that interoperability is part of that priority.

Technology that worked last year may not be the right solution this year, and so doing that annual reevaluation of your tech stack is really critical, especially when you’re in growth mode.

Love that. Alright. So audience members, I know, it’s, it’s getting late in the, in the afternoon here. We’ve been on for forty five minutes. Any questions for this esteemed panel?

Open it up.

Carina, we’ve got a couple of, of questions that aren’t in the q and a box, so they they came through. Oh.

I dropped them in the chat for you as well.

But Oh, perfect.

I got them here. Yeah. So how can you tell if your tech stack is capable of scaling efficiently?

Who wants to field that one? Emma? Feels like a a a one for you.

So I’m gonna go back to what I said. What are what are the business processes that you want? What are you trying to get to? Map them out and then use that to look at your technology and assess it.

Can the the EMR and the RCM platform meet where you wanna go in three years?

Love that. Future future proof it.

Mhmm.

And, well, one last question here.

It’s about staffing. How do you ensure that you have enough staff but not so many that you’re paying staff that’s not getting reimbursed? And so, you know, Danny, do you wanna take this one on a staffing perspective? Like, how do you get the right ratio at the right facility and the right level of care?

You know, sometimes it’s a little bit of trial and error if I’m being honest. You know, you have your staffing plans like I discussed earlier.

The reality is is that sometimes things on paper don’t translate into the facility, you know, and you need to be aware of that, and you need to be able to to pivot. You know, there are certain positions that, you know, we’re always looking for contributors, if you will. Like, you know, the right people for for certain positions, you know, especially those frontline positions, that have so much, one on one contact with with our clients. You know, the reality is is that your behavioral health techs and your nurses, they have more interaction than than really any other staff because they’re with the client so much. So, you know, you have to obviously look at, the financials of everything. But to for me personally, to have an extra behavioral health tech, and accentuate client engagement and client care, it’s worth it in the long run. I think it it pays in spades on the other end of things because we are providing such, you know, great care to our clients.

You know, obviously we know that the what, what they what the state regulation is in theory on, you know, in a building, it just doesn’t translate.

I don’t feel like it’s I I almost feel like it’s not safe even though this is you know, it’s thirty to one or or or whatever the case may be. When you put people in a building who need support and are, you know, not necessarily emotionally well, you need to have the staff to be able to support them.

That’s a great callout. And I also think culture plays a big role here. I’ll I’ll channel my friends at Care Predictor where they’re really looking at, like, the culture of of of the the team.

You know, I think one for Sariah, you know, how do you ensure the SOPs are utilized long term and not just a folder on the shelf?

Oh, the worst thing in the world is policies and procedures that are written and sit on a shelf. So one, you know, compliance best practice, every single one of those should be looked at every year and updated. Our industry changes, regulations change, they need to be updated. But training also just isn’t one and done.

You know, as you bring, onboard staff, everyone does new hire orientation because it’s mandated by the states that we’re licensed in. The training doesn’t stop there. We really need to have a culture of ongoing learning and ongoing training with our organizations and make sure that we’re continually reinforcing those SOPs. That’s also how we know when we need to update them.

If we’re continually training and we get feedback from our team that this SOP just doesn’t work, we need to make it work and match our organization.

So, I think the feedback loop is critically important to making sure SOPs are followed as well.

Great. Great call. A question here, regarding the consolidation across the space, whether it be PE or just existing growth, through through all the different means. As we think about this, right, there’s there’s there’s some great things that happen as we scale and there’s some challenges that happen as we scale. And so what do we think that that that through your eyes, how does the patient benefits benefit in this consolidation process? You know, I think some of the things I’ve heard from the CEOs I’ve spoken to, a lot of it is that breadth of levels of care, being able to support them where they are, having that offering that’s very consistent with the tools and technologies they use. But other insights that you you might have regarding, like, the the benefits to patients through growth.

I’ll jump in, if you don’t mind. I think one of the biggest benefits in that consolidation is access to care. As we start seeing the consolidation, it’s bringing more and more providers in network, greater bandwidth with contracts, greater bandwidth of access, and to some level, some degree, higher level medical directors and psychiatrists that are providing that care. So I think it elevates the access that some of the clients have that they didn’t have before.

Love that. Thank you.

And the last question for the day, and then we’ll wrap up, is, probably gonna go to Emma here. So, you know, Emma, the Martha has a question here that says, how can we help executive leaders who are decision makers better understand the staff and patient experience so that they have a better handle on the readiness for change?

I would say what I found most effective is detailed documented workflows. I know I keep saying that, but the step by step that staff go through, that patients go through, and then walking that workflow through with the leadership. I know that can be really hard because they’re like, oh, they’re really senior. I don’t wanna go in the details.

But just even just one of the flows I’m doing it right now for a client with RCM, and they’re like, why does it take so long? I was like, well, there’s fifty steps.

And just bringing that insight to the leadership can really help.

That’s great advice.

I can’t thank the three of you enough. This has been such a wonderful panel. Thank you so much for your insights.

Travis, I’m gonna turn it over to you to wrap us up for the day. But, ladies, thank you so much for your great sharing and your willingness to share all of your experience.

It’s great. Thank you.

Yeah. And, Carin, first, echo you. Thank you all for for pip participating. I thought this was great. I hope the audience enjoyed it, and thank the audience for being here as well. Before you head out, if, you are able to answer a quick question for us, just if you’re interested in learning more about Kipu, our solutions, and information.

We also have put together a whole lot of great resources on our kipu dot com resources page around growth and the challenge with it. How do you keep a hold of your mission without losing that as you grow?

What kind of things do you need to put in place as you go through a growth process? And and also a story about Banyan and how they manage their growth. So if you get an opportunity, please go and sign up there. We’re also offering some free growth assessments right now. But, otherwise, thanks to everybody, panel and and audience for your time today. Really appreciate it.

Alright, everybody. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day, and enjoy your Wednesday.