S2E6 - Interview: Chris Blakeley of Repaytient (recent Render Capital winners)

Speaker 1: 0:11

Welcome to the Citrix developer solutions podcast by brick bridge consulting. This podcast is dedicated to the design development and implementation of a growing number of Citrix SAS platforms, as well as some topics around their associated virtualization products. We'll use this podcast to discuss our own experiences and challenges with the SAS platforms, as well as meet interesting people from around the groin , Citrix developer community, you're a developer designer, administrator, customer, or agency that uses Citrix products and wants to get the most out of your experience. Then you're in the right spot and should smash that subscribe button and the bell. If there's one of those where you're listening, if you have already thank you so much for your support. Lastly, engage with us. If you have a topic solution, challenge, or message, we want to know about it. Reach out to us. We are a company pages on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tik, TOK, YouTube , uh , probably many more. You can also send us a message or Podio chat@serviceatbrickbridgeconsulting.com special guests with us today, Chris Blakely of re patient a local startup to us that chose Citrix Podio as a way to build their business. And it has worked out really well for them , uh, so much so that they've recently won the render capital business competition to receive $100,000 towards their business, as well as the notoriety and the attention of other venture capitalists to help grow their budding startup . They've been working on re patient for about 18 months. Uh , I'll let Chris do some explaining, so we'll get right into the podcast again. Thank you so much. And this is an exciting one. Hello folks, Chris Blakely today re patient a recent winner of the render capital contest. I'll let you fill in more of the specifics, Chris, and , uh , just want to first thank you for joining us on the podcast and being open on how some , some of the Citrix products, as well as other SAS integrations, it kind of helped you go from where you all started a little over a year ago. Is that right?

Speaker 2: 2:26

Yeah. So we founded the company in April of 2020 and , um , launched our first hospital in November of 2020,

Speaker 1: 2:35

April, 2020. That's an interesting time to launch a company. I thought it was a little closer to the summertime when we first started talking, but yeah, that's a heck of a time to dive into the medical field. That's right.

Speaker 2: 2:47

Yeah. Um, lots of opportunities in the medical field during a pandemic.

Speaker 1: 2:52

Fair enough. Well , um , just for our folks and , uh, education to them who is re patient, what do they do? Uh , how do you guys help?

Speaker 2: 3:02

So , um, we make paying for healthcare easier. Um, and the way that we do that is we offer patients interest free payment plan programs to pay their rising out of pocket expenses , uh, mostly to hospitals. Um , so it's completely interest free to the patient and the hospital pays a fee , um , to offer a service to ,

Speaker 1: 3:23

So the hospital is supporting well first off, I think that's really cool because that, that really helps , um, you know, a lot of people that otherwise now they do have to pay it back. It's just the interest free, right? Correct .

Speaker 2: 3:35

Yeah. It just gives them, you know, 10 years ago, 10% of a hospital bill was the patient's responsibility. Um, that's nearly 40% now. So, you know, a decade ago, if you went into the hospital, you might owe somebody 250, 300, maybe $500 today it's 2,500, 3030 $500. And when you consider that half the country doesn't have $400 in emergency savings. Um, hospital bills are probably the most unaffordable bill that folks have today. All right .

Speaker 1: 4:06

And it's unexpected, right? I mean, like, nobody's like, oh, I'm going to have a appendectomy in two months. Right. So I better start saving. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 4:13

So hospitals can't collect on those balances because they're not set up to do that sort of thing. Um, and you know, essentially finance someone's out of pocket expense for two or three years. Uh , so we step in, we've got that expertise and we do a form

Speaker 1: 4:27

That's amazing. Well, you know, and there's a lot of losses, right. For some of these where people just can't pay it. So that just drives up the cost more. So it's kind , you got this, I guess what they call it, positive feedback, not positive in that. It's good, but it's just that it, that it feeds it , it grows upon itself as a , as it just to know one of the problems, you know, let alone everything else that's going on in healthcare , uh, even pre pandemic. Um, yeah. That's , that's really cool. I , I think , uh, so , so basically , uh, to , to break it down, it's kinda like a buy now pay later with, is it more, is it mostly around surgeries? Is it, or ,

Speaker 2: 5:04

Yeah, it can be other procedures, mostly it's going to be inpatient procedures. And just because those are going to be , uh, the types of , uh , health procedures that are going to cause a patient to have a significant bill, you know, more than sort of five or $600. Um, and , um , so, you know, on average it costs about $2,000 to spend the night in a hospital. Um, and you know, if you haven't had any healthcare spending and your new plan year , um, you're most likely going to have a deductible that's probably 25 or $3,000 on the low end. So you're going to be responsible for the first $3,000. Yeah. So

Speaker 1: 5:47

Yeah ,

Speaker 2: 5:48

It's going to be all on the patient , um , to start this

Speaker 1: 5:50

Include the procedure itself and all the things afterwards and that ,

Speaker 2: 5:55

Yeah, that's just on average to spend a night, essentially, a 24 hour period in the hospitals about two grand. Uh, you know, it depends on where you live. If you live in a big city, it's gonna be more than that. Um, unless there's significant competition , um, from other healthcare providers and hospitals and health systems in your space, but you know, if you're in a rural setting where maybe you were , it's the only hospital in the county , um , you don't have a lot of choices. I mean , what are you gonna do?

Speaker 1: 6:20

Yeah. You have aging population, especially in rural areas. Have you seen, you talked to a lot of hospitals , um, and we , we , uh , you are a Citrix Podio user and looking at other Citrix products, a lot of hospitals are Citrix. Citrix has a very, very large portfolio of hospitals. What are some of the other challenges that as you're seeing and talking to them, particularly around finance, or maybe even technology that you're aware of?

Speaker 2: 6:47

Yes . So , um, you know, we don't talk to hospitals a ton about technology. One of the beauties of the way that we've set up our product is especially for mall small and mid-sized hospitals. Um , when we go in, we don't have to have a conversation with the it department , um , which makes the buying decision a lot narrower. Um, in our case, it's a lot fewer people that have to have an input. It's typically , um , the CFO and the CEO. Um, if the hospital's large enough to have a , uh, a department or an executive that's responsible for revenue cycle management, they're going to have input on that decision as well. Okay . So be technology agnostic for the hospitals so that we don't have to , um , further complicate their priority , um, projects , uh, you know, they always have technology projects that hospitals are running, whether it's implementing a new AGL EHR or , um, you know, making sure that all their data is secure. Uh, we, we, we prefer to not have to tread into those waters and keep it to financial discussion between the CFO and the CEO.

Speaker 1: 7:50

I mean, that's fantastic. I'm sure some of the listeners that, that work in that hospital setting, particularly in the it departments are probably really happy to hear that because that's not another thing to their plate or half or shoe horn in, because some executive has said, this is , uh , outside of the system. Maybe , uh, this is obviously it's a podcast. So really hard to be visual here, but maybe describe kind of what's the, what's the patient experience. What's a hospital experience like for somebody that's , uh, that's employing your services. So ,

Speaker 2: 8:21

Um , we really like to offer the product, or at least make folks aware of the product at every step through that patient's journey with that hospital. So, you know , if it's an elective procedure , uh, you know, you're having your knee replaced or you're having , um, some other orthopedic surgery or heart surgery or , um , vascular surgery, whatever it might be, if it's a, if it's a scheduled or , um , elective procedure, depending on the hospital, that hospital will at least make an estimate of what that patient's going to owe their provider , um, after their insurance pays. Um, and some hospitals are forcing folks to make financial arrangements before the procedure's done even all the way up to, Hey, if you can't make a financial arrangement with us, then we're going to delay or reschedule your procedure. Um, so if you, if you have the option, if they estimate you're going to be out of pocket $3,000 and you can't pay that you can't pay 10%, you can't pay 20% down. Um, having the option to enroll in an interest free payment plan at that point allows patients to get access to the care they need when they need it. Um, while also allowing the hospital to provide the care that they are there to provide , um, that, that, that, that patient needs without having to have finances , um, hinder that care or making sacrifices due to costs , um , to their healthcare . So they can enroll their , excuse me. Um, they can enroll at admissions when they show up at the hospital. Um , they can enroll at discharge or they can enroll once they finally receive their ultimate bill after if they have insurance after their insurance has paid. Yeah . Yeah. So, and we do that by just, it's an online enrollment form. That's mobile responsive. You can do it on a phone and tablet, computer , um , any electronic device you can enroll in our , in one of our payment plan programs.

Speaker 1: 10:07

Yeah . From the hospital's perspective there , since there there's a fee and that's , that's on the hospital side, they're probably happy about that because they get their revenue quicker. Right?

Speaker 2: 10:17

Yeah. So on average, across all hospitals , um, they only collect about 55% of what patients own today , uh, then any , you know, that's an average, so everything's on bell curve. So , um, the hospitals that are first five or six hospitals that we've been working with, they're probably closer to collecting on 35 or 40% of what's owed them. Um, you know, the average hospital system has $45 million in annual bad debt now , um, from collect from patient collection . So it's an untenable situation. Um, you know, what, what it forces is hospitals are down two weeks of cash on hand, as opposed to months and even a year of cash on hand. And it's, it's tied to the growing balances that patients owe them. Um, you know, to two thirds of personal bankruptcies are tied to medical debt. So patients can't pay it. Hospitals can't collect it, but in a lot of circumstances, they still have to provide the care , um, especially with emergency. Uh,

Speaker 1: 11:17

So Jen probably not good PR, Hey, you didn't have enough money. So we just a tack outside right

Speaker 2: 11:24

Now. You're seeing for-profit hospitals now taking patients to small claims court. Um, and, and they've built entire legal teams just to go after patients to collect the balances that they're owed.

Speaker 1: 11:36

I have a collections background way many, many years ago. And, you know, medical dad is again, it's pretty good sized dollar amounts and it's, and it's usually for people that can't pay. And I really just couldn't pay it to begin with. Right . Right. Even if they have insurance, that's what I think that's what kind of prickles me a little bit is that it's, they have insurance , you know , paying for this insurance, maybe through employer or whatever. It's still not, you know , this stuff's still not getting covered. Right.

Speaker 2: 12:04

Probably 70 to 75% of our accounts are commercially insured. So they get their insurance through their employer

Speaker 1: 12:10

It's, you know, and , and now they got to go get alone on top of that. I don't think we're going to be able to solve the healthcare problem , But it does seem, I think they interest. I you're definitely helping. And when , when you first started talking to this , uh, talking to us here at brick bridge about what you had going on and wanting to get set up, I , that that really inspired me , uh, that there , you know, if there's a will, there's a way, and there's, there's other ways that things can get done, but it , it comes back to me saying the hospitals have to have money . I mean, doctors and nurses and facility staff that, you know, they don't work for free either. Um, but the most medical would you agree, most medical expenses are relatively just kind of out of thin air. You know, that's not something that you would have a lot of people put down on a calendar and start saving money for you. And it's not like Christmas club account or something.

Speaker 2: 12:58

Yeah. Most people don't plan to get sick. Um, you know, we could discuss the pros and cons of that, but that's just the situation. Um, and we're one of the, you know, one of the few developed countries that has a for-profit healthcare model, now we can discuss the pros and cons of that. Um, it just sort of is what it is. And , um, you know, the , the rising deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses were an unintended consequence of the affordable care act, the affordable care act put up , made sure that folks had good healthcare benefits when they had health insurance. And it , and it, you know, got insurance into the hands of a lot more people so that they could get their health taken care of, but as a way to protect the insurance industry against all of those new patients, those new members coming on to insurance , uh , they built in these escalators for deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses. And it's built into the statute that it goes up , um, a couple of percentage points each year. Um, and the insurance companies have become addicted to it. And , um, I don't see it changing anytime soon . No ,

Speaker 1: 14:02

There's , uh , I agree . We definitely agree on that. Uh I'll uh , I'll go one path I'll , I'll play down. Uh, w we don't get into a lot of economics and politics on this pie. We're developer solutions, but healthcare affects us all. So , um , I spent some time in New Zealand , uh, not, not in a long, long time, several weeks, and got to meet some businesses and things of that nature as part of the MBA. Um, and , and I learned a little bit about their health care center . It's very interesting. The hospitals, all the hospitals were publicly funded, but if you got sick, you went to a private doctor, you paid cash, basically, if you're giving birth or you were dying car wreck, that society would put you back together, right. If you, if you had a serious issue or even some of the, just regular surgeries, you know, Hey , we, as a society, we want everybody to be as healthy as possible, but the , a lot of the insurance companies, or you could go get private insurance, not on the social insurance , uh, you could , uh, you, you, you handled your own, day-to-day kind of , you know , colds employees and stuff like that. So that was pre pandemic. So, you know, asterix, I guess, one of those floating around right now, but , um, yeah, I , I , it's a tough challenge. Right. I gotta be able to solve it on this podcast. So I kind of liked that system a little bit more from what I saw, but I know that's a, that's kind of a special place. So I just don't know. I just , I just don't know how to solve it. I know there's a lot of smart people working on this. If , if you, and you're included, I think this is a wonderful private market solution to what's going on. I think the hospitals are losing the money. They'd rather collect it and pay some, some points. It's not adding a high cost to health care because of the , uh, uh, the interest free financing to it. So, yeah , I thought it was really, I really did

Speaker 2: 15:48

Well . I appreciate that. Yeah. You know, we feel good about the product. We feel like it's , um, it's a product that gives a win to the patient, gives a wind to the provider. You know, we're on average, we're delivering about a 31 30 2% net present value increase on cashflow , um , from the patient collections than what hospitals are getting from doing it themselves, or outsourcing it to other vendors. Um, and it's, it's a win for repayment too . Um, you know, I think we come up with for-profit solutions to a lot of the challenging problems we have if , um, if folks are just given the space , um , to innovate.

Speaker 1: 16:21

I agree. Yeah. We have some , uh, other medical based ones and it's always, it's quite the headaches , a lot of regulation and a lot of it's for good reasons . So, but , uh, it doesn't allow for a lot of breathing room for new ideas. I'll , I'll say that. So , uh, and it's kind of what we need right now . Um, so anybody else listening out there in a public officials or anybody that's got any strings to pull, help us out? Uh, okay. So what's , uh , speaking of wins , tell us about render. Um, I'm vaguely familiar now. You and I are local to each other. Most of our podcasts , uh , guests are around the country. We've had a couple from Europe, so, so you and I are local and I knew render had come to town. So kind of give us a synopsis of what you went through. You got the big cardboard check is so cool, man. It's a great feeling. Yeah .

Speaker 2: 17:11

Yeah. So , um, so renders are local, local Louisville, Kentucky based , um , venture capital firm that invests in early stage companies. Um, and for the last two years, they've run a competition where they select eight recipients of a hundred thousand dollar investment and some up to, I think it's a million plus in, in kind services and discounts. And, and , um, some of the things that you get as part of being a whim or yeah, as the total prize package. Um, but it's, it's focused on investing in sort of the Louisville MSA, so loyal the surrounding counties and across the river and Southern Indiana , um, essentially focused on either helping locally based companies flourishing and grow or identifying early stage high growth potential companies and relocating them to Louisville. So if you're not a local based company, but you're chosen as a winner, you have to relocate to Louisville and stay in Louisville to receive all of the funds and benefits of being a winner of the program. Um, so there were over 300 applications , um, from companies around the world. I think five, I think they said 20 to 23 different countries, three or four of the three or four confidence con continents were represented. Um, and they willed it down to , uh , the final eight that were selected. So , um , it was a competitive process. Uh, we were excited to win , went through I think, four different rounds, three online applications. And then , uh, um, for the final round, that was a presentation , um, 15 companies presented to a panel of judges and they chose eight to move them as winners.

Speaker 1: 18:53

So, so, yeah. So the total, just , just so we're all clear, particularly listeners , there's eight total winners out of that pool of 300 ready . And you guys are

Speaker 2: 19:01

Correct. Yes . If there's eight companies that received a hundred thousand dollar investments, like

Speaker 1: 19:05

An overall last man standing

Speaker 2: 19:07

Now , uh , now they select, you know , their VC firm , they spread their money around hoping they get a couple of winners .

Speaker 1: 19:14

Yeah. You can't put all the eggs in one basket prize package. I assume it's the typical, you know , consulting and some free accounting and office space.

Speaker 2: 19:24

Yeah. All that stuff. There's , um, office space , um , accounting, HR partnerships that , uh, with some , uh, HR vendors , um, you know , uh , really the it's, it's not like an accelerator program though. You know, they, they look at it more as they are now, investors, they're owners in the company and how can they help you grow if that meeting the two biggest things outside of the money that we're hoping to get from the being a partner with render is access to other investors , um, and access to , um, potential customers and hospitals and or potential partnerships where we could join forces with a company that's also solving a problem for hospitals , um, combined forces and maybe , um, solve multiple problems for our hospital together.

Speaker 1: 20:10

I think you make a great point there, Chris, which is obviously the , the dollar sign with the zeros and commas is always really attractive to young companies. We're always starving for money. Um, you know, there's never enough, right? So, but that runs out, you know , at some point, right. And you gotta, you gotta figure it out another way, hopefully with revenue. Um, but what doesn't run out as those connections and , uh , some of our clients, because we have other clients that are in the startup phase and we , we, we try to recommend to them, you know, don't go after that first check. Right. I , I love these competitions because there's a vetting process, you know, that they've selected you, you know, that they're serious about it. Cause they're, you know, they're outlaying 800 grand and you know what they're looking for by the end, right. Because you've gone through the pitches and the application , so, and coming back to them and going, how can you , uh , you know, the check is nice. Um, but you know , the Rolodex , uh , for those who are a little bit older, like us , the Rolodex , uh , and the networking connections, both capital, because you're going to need it again. Of course , especially for national national size solutions , as we had mentioned it , it does run out actually , you know, money doesn't grow on trees. It runs out. So yeah , it's those connect. I think that's probably more than the money is. And some people like to hear that and some don't on it, but , uh, yeah , I it's, I think it's super important. So I like, I I've heard that before. I like to highlight that because I think that's really how you, if your , the entrepreneurs startup , that's how you probably should select the , get your money from, right. If you're, if you're going to go financing route, it really comes down to that, you know, make sure you get a couple of term sheets from a few different people and you're giving up a piece of the business, you know, you're getting married to them . So

Speaker 2: 21:55

You want to bring in a partner that can deliver for

Speaker 1: 21:57

You. Yeah, absolutely. Um, anything else about the competition? Uh, render? What do you gotta, you gotta , uh, did you guys have to get up and pitch?

Speaker 2: 22:07

Uh, so yeah, I mean, it was virtual , um, partly because of COVID partly because , um, I think of the 15 companies that pitched only three or four were local, so, and the judges were sort of spread out around the country as well. So , um, yeah, it was a virtual presentation and then , uh , it was a 10 minute presentation of our company. And then 10 minutes of question and answer with the judges. Um, that's pretty long ish, not super long but long ish. Um, and then they did a , uh, an event , um, as part of , um , startup week in Louisville , um, Techstar startup week , um, where they announced the eight winners and each of the winners did a three-minute presentation. Then

Speaker 1: 22:54

I'll give him a quick page . That's cool. Yeah , yeah, absolutely. Shout out to startup a week or weekend.

Speaker 2: 23:01

Uh, that was startup week. Yeah. I started weekends coming up, I think in a month or so. So ,

Speaker 1: 23:06

Um, shout out to them, especially, I know there are a lot, a lot of locations around the U S and I think what started weekends worldwide, so highly recommend that event. Okay. So , um, is there a Citrix developer solutions podcasts ? I assume we should talk about that at some point, you guys , uh , you and I have known each other a little while, and when you came to this idea that , as I said before, I thought it was great. And , um, we were very fortunate to be able to , to win your business and, and show you Citrix Podio , uh , which is your primary , uh, Citrix tool. We've integrated several things, but that's the primary , uh , Citrix one, w let's talk about that for just a second. Unpack it a little. What attracted you to Podio initially? You know , how's it , how has it been filling the filling in for you and the other people that might be looking at this, particularly other young companies, you know , what , what do you like about it ? What do you know, what are some of the hangups that you've run into?

Speaker 2: 24:02

Um, you know, we were at the point , um, we had come out of , uh , an accelerator program, a healthcare based accelerator program , um, that we went through in the summer of last year, summer of 2020. Um, and we already had a pilot customer or pilot hospital , um, that we were running, you know , just a couple of accounts a month through just to see are people, is this something people would be interested in, you know, as Mike Tyson said, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the nose. Um, you know, that's , that's what it is with a startup. Everybody has a product until it gets in front of a customer, and then you figure out if you really have a product or not. So , uh, you know, we were doing it based off paper based applications and entering stuff into a spreadsheet. So , um, you know, what Podio allowed us to do was in a relatively cost-effective way, get a system up and running that could run the business for us . Um, in an effective way, gave us the ability to automate a lot of the sort of , um , manual stuff that we were doing around collecting payments, entering the payment plans, you know, just sort of managing the payment plans on a month to month basis. Um, and it , and it did so in an easy, easy to understand way, you know, the system, the system from my perspective is built to effectively work with anything. Um, you know, it's very flexible. Um, and, you know, since our payment plans are, they literally are interest free fee free. We don't calculate interest , we don't calculate fees, we don't charge any fees. It's literally what your balance is divided by the term you choose , um, is what your monthly payment amount is. We didn't need loan software, we didn't need any sort of sophisticated financial software. Um, we just needed really something , uh , that would allow us to communicate with the patients, manage the patient accounts and do that in an effective and affordable way. Um, and to be able to find a tool that's owned by Citrix, you know, one of the largest it infrastructure companies in the world , um, not only did it give us the system that we knew we could rely on, but it also, when we go into hospitals and we say, yeah, our , our payment plan management system is based off of the system from Citrix. Um, everybody's heard of Citrix , um , and it gives us instant credibility when we walk in there.

Speaker 1: 26:12

It's fantastic. Um, I , uh , it's affordable. I think that's why a lot of the systems that we work on, especially with our younger, small business crowd or startup crowd versus it's not , obviously you've got to build your stuff out in it, and there's an outlay and some investment in that, but I think really shots, the ongoing maintenance it's relatively inexpensive.

Speaker 2: 26:34

Yeah, there's this , there's an upfront investment, you know, to get, to get the thing up and running, but the ongoing maintenance, a monthly costs are very reasonable , um, and, and gives us the ability to stay at a reasonable cost as we scale , um, and gives us the flexibility to scale. Um, you know, so that we're not going to have to worry about migrating to a larger system that , uh , for some time

Speaker 1: 26:58

It really gives that early traction and you're , you're hitting it, you're hitting it right on the head, which is that you got it at some point you got to build this software, right. So you're going to have an outlay of some sort. Um, it , it said ongoing that a lot of people just don't, you know, it's like buying a house. You don't think about the water heater, but bustin or the furnace going out, right. Like , yeah , it's an ongoing maintenance, that's that that's that cost that's just hidden and nobody wants to either acknowledge or talk about, or, or even know about, you know, they may just not even know. So it's , um, now versus some of the other ways we do work outside of the Podio system and some of these other systems, we , we, we see some of the bills and they're kind of high to the ongoing and it's roughly the same outlay. So it's like, well, yeah, you might, it probably is not without its limitations. We're very upfront about that. You know, the price point is, is fractional. If something like a Salesforce or service now , um, yeah, it has its limitations too . It's much more grassroots on the path that we see a lot. And I don't know if you've considered this or not. Uh, we did this with another client , uh, impact pro we did a whole series on them, way back when we first started this podcast, you know, they , they were on Podio for a number of years. And then now they're a nonprofit . So they were able to, to raise some grant funds using the system as a model. And then they moved on to a custom system, which we think is a perfect path for young companies. You know , this keeps you down to three to five-year road, get you out of the survival stage , right . Where you need those monthly bills to be low so that you don't get a lot of cash burn. So , um, cause you gotta make the software on point. You're gonna have to lay the cash, why continue to throw money into the fire. Right . So

Speaker 2: 28:36

That's right. And, and you know, when you're early and young, you think you've got a solution and you think, you know, what the problem is and you think, you know, how customers are going to respond to it and then you build something and then six months later you figure out, oh wow, 80% of that was garbage. We need to throw it away and, and redo it using a system like Podio. You know, it's, it's sort of out of the box, even though it's modular and very customizable, it gives you the ability to sort of get something up quick and be able to get in front of customers and then adapt very quickly because it's not custom built code. You know, you sort of, you can go out with, with what's minimally , um , needed to service that customer and then learn as you, as you get more interactions with your customers. And as you get more interactions with your internal processes and it's very adaptable and you can adapt quickly and inexpensively over time, as opposed to having , uh , an army of , um, software developers on staff that are constantly fixing , um, miscalculations from a business and strategy perspective , um, because Podio is so modular and inexpensive, it gives you the flexibility to do that , um, and do with, and still keep your staff , um, small , um, and lean. Um, and you can utilize ,

Speaker 1: 29:50

Um , for the biggest cost savings. Is that right there, you know , um, developers, aren't cheap, we're , we're a development agency . So I know that's very, very personal to us. Um, and it's good to be able to pay by , uh, for, for a young startup. It can be a quite hefty one. And even those big cardboard checks get you down very, very rapidly .

Speaker 2: 30:12

Yeah. Especially since banks, won't cash

Speaker 1: 30:15

Got to get to chop them up and stuff, all those pictures. We'll , we'll use that as a banner for the spot . I just love those big cardboard check. Um, anyway, so a couple, a couple points I'd like to make and , and, and get your feedback on. Um, so workflow automation that comes with Podio, I , and correct me if I'm wrong, have you been able to get in and see that? Or have we shown you that stuff yet? If we have .

Speaker 2: 30:40

Yeah. So we use actually a lot of it has been built to do a lot of the things that we're doing within the system. So there's very little that we do manually anymore. Almost everything is automated from the payment collection. Um, all of the communications to the patients. Um , we send , um, we don't inundate them with communications, but you know, when somebody enrolls, we let them know, Hey, you've been enrolled. Um, we send them payment reminders, 11, and we're going to collect payment on this date. Um, you know, if payment fails, we send communications around that as well. Um, so it gives us the ability to communicate with our customers as they continue to grow. Um, as we continue to add hospitals and pick up more patients that are enrolling in our accounts, it gives us the ability to communicate with all of them equally , um, in the same way in an , uh , in an efficient and effective way without having, having to add staff to do that. Um , so it allows us to stay lean , um, you know, utilize our capital for , um, more value added tasks, like going out and landing more hospitals , um, going out and investing in the growth of the company because , um, at the end of the day, the best investors you're going to get are the customers because you're going to generate revenue from them. Um, so, you know, if we can invest our capital in those things, as opposed to having to invest it in , um, technology upfront, especially when you're, you're still learning a lot of things about your business , um, to not have to invest a bunch of money in technology that may or may not solve the problem for the market , um, is a big, is a huge benefit for us.

Speaker 1: 32:16

Uh , it's easy to put stuff together and get it in front of the customers with the system. It's the reason why we recommended it . And , uh, you know, last point on this, when a company is so young and , and early it's , it's sometimes money out of your own pocket that you're risking or you're free , you know , what is it, the friends, family, and fools , or, you know , maybe , maybe if you're lucky and you know, some angels that might come in, but you don't want to those bridges either, right? So, you know , this get in, it's affordable, you can try it. You can, you , we use a couple of plugins with years , gravity forms to make it look a little better , um, and , and interact with Podio a little bit better. Um, I think you guys are using Stripe for payments

Speaker 2: 32:56

Stripe for payments. We use a click send for the email and texting occasions and , uh, we use , um, the wow portal for our , uh , patient portal. So our customer portal , um , where folks can log in and they can see their, all their account information in real time .

Speaker 1: 33:14

And I'll put a , I'll drop a link for that. Wow . And it's Debbie AAU portal , Google that I'll drop a link in the show notes for those that may not be familiar with that. I totally recommend it. It's a great way for third parties to access Podio based data without actually signing into Podio or having a Podio account. So perfect for what you're doing. Hey , I need to go look at my statement and I think they do it by basically volume per month. So if you don't , if you don't have a lot of people logging in, you don't pay them all a bunch of money. If a lot of people logging in. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 33:40

I think there's tears . Yeah. I think there's a price for like up to 10 and then as it tears up, I think it goes up a little bit, but it's been very affordable for us

Speaker 1: 33:48

Again, you know , it's kind of page you go, right. So it's super affordable hopefully. And based on your model, more people walking in, and that means you're, you're collecting more fees and revenue in those accounts. So it makes sense. Right? Like as your sales grow, your expenses grow, that's going to naturally happen, but you don't want your expenses to grow in those sales.

Speaker 2: 34:10

Yeah . Yeah. And you don't want them to grow in parallel lines. You want them to start to diverge , uh , at some point,

Speaker 1: 34:16

Okay. Hopefully with the revenue , uh , in the upwards direction. Uh, um , and this isn't your first company and , um, you know, we , we've , again, we've known each other just to be full disclosure to listeners. We've known each other for a little while. So , um , yeah , it's hard. It can be, it's, it's really hard and it is to get something going. So , uh, very, it was very inspiring. I was so happy to see that actually , uh, one of the employees, one of the, one of your developers , um, sent that over to us and say, Hey, look at this. We didn't know you guys were even in there. So there's a nice surprise to see that. Well , good . So congratulations, once again, from half of us , um, as well as your , uh, your team here at port bridge , I know we're starting to run thin on time. Uh, and I appreciate your time so far. I hope to listeners, this is a little , uh, we wanted to bring in some like entrepreneurship and business content to the podcast, along with the technical content and really show a great business case. And I think you guys are , are, are a wonderful example of that. Um, for those that out there that are interested in re patient and just want to know more about it , um, how , how can they get in touch with you if they're , if their it staff at a hospital , um, you know, how do you get what's the , what's the web address so that they can write that down? Yeah . So it's a

Speaker 2: 35:29

Www.re patient and that's R E P a Y T I E N t.com. There's a contact form on there. Um , folks can submit any inquiries through that and we'll get it. We'll get back to you.

Speaker 1: 35:43

Fantastic. Um, I'm trying to think if I got any other questions. Oh, yes. There was one. I got it . I got it written down here. So , uh, I don't know if you noticed my voice, a little different, I had a major dental surgery and without a tooth until January and it's of course, dead in the front. So I definitely looked like I'm from Kentucky right now. So ,

Speaker 2: 36:03

Um,

Speaker 1: 36:05

Yes . Yeah . I did play soccer and I had some damage in the area, so I had additional bone graphing , but I , I shared a tooth off, not that get into the gory details, but , um, do you guys, I had to pay cash for that cause they did only implant and not covered and it was not cheap. So do you guys have any plans extending out into specialists? Yes.

Speaker 2: 36:24

So our current focus is on hospitals. Um, seventy-five plus beds , um, with about a hundred million dollars in pay annual patient revenue a year up to about , um, five or 600 million. We sorta think that that's our sweet spot. We can also go up into larger hospitals. Um, but our focus right now is on the hospital space because that's where the biggest need is. And that's where the fewest competitors are. Um , there's a number of competitors that play in this specialty in dental space, especially dental surgery and veterinary space actually , um, to help pay for your pet care. Cause there's not really a lot of great solutions there either. Um, and most of those are interest bearing , um, though that provider space , um, is not ready for an interest-free , um, account yet. Um , but they'll probably get there at some point, just like hospitals have,

Speaker 1: 37:14

I guess you got a few more alternatives in the specialist, you know, I could have got a partial God , us , this, that, or the other crown snapped off. So that was out of the question, but , um, yeah, I just wondered about that. I , I , you know, they offered me financing and it was like all this interest stuff and I was like, you know, Chris, are we patient ? They don't really charge all those kinds of fees. So, you know, I was wondering if you guys had a , had an eyeball on that. Cause I think that would be ultra competitive, but uh, I , I saw the financing there and I was like, okay, I guess there's some, there's some businesses already in there probably , uh , it looked like , uh , uh, some of the bigger ones might be in there as well, but uh, you know, interest free hospital. Uh, yeah , that's pretty. That would be pretty killer over there. Uh , oh, go ahead please.

Speaker 2: 37:58

Yeah, no, I, yeah , I , that's something we will look at as we sort of establish ourselves and get a strong foothold in the hospital space. Um , we think that's where the most upside is now, but there's a huge market in the specialty space , uh , surgery centers, surgery clinics , um, large physician practices. Uh, we think that there's a , a big opportunity there as well,

Speaker 1: 38:20

Thoroughly. Interesting Chris, every time we talk, I'm always fascinated with what you got going on and , and, and just your approach to things. So I think you guys are really solving , uh, it's people's hospital visits. I mean, it's such a great need. I mean, it's a humanistic and I just think it's so cool and, and really, it really made us very happy to see, see that render had selected you guys as a part of the finalist . Cause I think this is something that , um, and not just here in the United States, but a lot of other places too in the world, I think it could eventually use something like this. I mean, it's really hard, you know ,

Speaker 2: 38:55

We've had some folks talk to us to say that the Indian health care space is not that much dissimilar from the U S healthcare space. So

Speaker 1: 39:02

I believe that. And it's not like you, I think you hit the nail on the head when you said it's not like you plan to get sick. You're like, I'm going to go, I'm going to get this disease or illness or whatever. What have you, you know, here in six months, I better start saying it was just, it kind of happens and it's, it's never a good time. Right. Uh , and even people that might be a better means, you know, it's still the own expense and, and there's a lot of bankruptcies around it, you know , you're absolutely correct. When I was, I said , I used to do collections in a former life and , uh , you know, when I was calling for the credit cards, we'd get the credit reports and on the bottom down there, there'd be some big old medical bill and go, that's why they're not paying the credit cards. Right. You already know. So Chris, thank you so much for coming on. So re patient.com. Uh , do you guys have any LinkedIn social media, anything of that effect?

Speaker 2: 39:56

Uh, yeah. Repayment , uh , on LinkedIn, which just re patient , um, on Twitter at re patient. Um, so you can follow us on either of those.

Speaker 1: 40:08

That was a wonderful conversation with Mr. Chris brightly of re patient. I know we went in through a lot of different topics, but ultimately a Citrix product really helped launch his company. And it's exciting that we were able to work with him and continue to work with him throughout his successful adventure. Chris is a great guy. I've known him a little while, full disclosure , um , uh , not, not personal friends, but uh , just business acquaintances. And I was so happy , uh , when we were able to join him in his journey and , and be able to, to really highlight , uh, his ability to bring something very valuable and very needed to the marketplace. And I also think it's so cool , um, that a business solution , uh, can really help here in healthcare when, when we have things like COVID going on. And , uh , people are just really trying to find a way to pay for these procedures , uh , without having to pay an arm and a leg, no pun intended. So , uh, again, thank you so much , uh, for your listen today. I hope that delivered a lot of value to you. Uh , reach out to us if you like more of these end user stories, we have more available. So do hit us up on our Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Tik, TOK , uh , carrier pitch-in , whatever it takes to , uh, to get ahold of us. We we'd love your continued feedback and engagement , uh, with that. Uh, we'll go ahead and wrap up for today. Apologies for the, a bit of a blank. Uh, you may, if you , if you've seen me recently or , um , uh , you might be able to hear it through the podcast. I had some severe dental trauma and I'm just recovering from that. Uh, so really hard to be a podcaster , uh , when something like that happens . So I appreciate you guys following through with the rest of the season during this break and definitely like, and subscribe, thank you so much. We'll be back shortly. We're going to be touching on some virtualization topics as well as what's going on with our converge hackathon team. And , uh , we want to get more right. Content I love, right. I'm not a big Wrike user yet. We're starting to implement it here at Bradford . So be on the lookout for virtualization and right content along with our updates throughout the hackathon . Thanks.