Hatching Creativity: Conversations on Success, Innovation, and Growth
Welcome to "Hatching Creativity: Conversations on Success, Innovation, and Growth"! Join us as we dive deep into the world of creativity and explore the minds of remarkable individuals who have achieved extraordinary success in their respective fields.
In this podcast, we believe that creativity is not limited to the realm of art and design; it encompasses every aspect of life and business. Through engaging interviews and thought-provoking discussions, we'll uncover the secrets behind harnessing creativity to drive innovation and fuel personal and professional growth.
Discover the strategies, mindset, and experiences that have propelled our guests to new heights. We'll explore guests journeys, challenges, and breakthrough moments. Be inspired by their stories, learn from their failures, and gain practical insights to apply in your own creative endeavors.
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Hatching Creativity: Conversations on Success, Innovation, and Growth
The importance an effective compliance program and some disaster stories with Christopher Wolfington, Founder of FinPay
Ever wonder why used car salesmen get such a bad rap? Join us as we strip away the stereotypes and get to the heart of transparency and trust in sales, diving into an area that's murky for many—where value battles cost in the consumer's mind. We're navigating through the maze of customer belief systems that impact their purchasing decisions, and we're not afraid to shed light on industries that stumble due to a lack of business savvy, like the acute care sector. It's an episode that peels back the layers on why operations need to be sleek, compliance tight, and revenue cycles humming to successfully counteract resistance to change and operational blind spots.
This installment of Hatching Creativity is a testament to our dedication to guiding you ethically through your challenges—whether you're scaling the corporate ladder or bootstrapping your startup—all while keeping creativity at the helm. We're grateful for your continued support and encourage you to share our message. It's not just about this episode; it's about fuelling your journey with knowledge, helping you forge informed decisions, and ensuring that support isn't a luxury, but a staple for all.
Welcome to Hatching Creativity. This isn't just another behavioral health podcast. This is the place where thought leaders converge to talk about real-life challenges, breakthroughs and pivotal aha moments.
Speaker 2:So I have a question for you to support that. Why do you think the stereotype when someone says oh my god, you know, joe, you're like a used car salesman? Where do you think that sort of negative cliche against used car salesman comes from? Never tell them the price? Remember the day they'd never tell you the price.
Speaker 1:No transparency, no transparency, how much?
Speaker 2:does this car cost? Oh, don't worry about that, come on in, just take the test drive, like that's where it came from and you always felt there being shady and nobody. Right, you'd see their insurance salesman or car salesman. That's the usual.
Speaker 1:So it depends, right, Because I've been in sales my whole life, right? I guess we could kind of take a tangent on sales. I'll have people say to me from time to time, in the very beginning of a demo, they'll go what's the price? You go, look, let me show you what this can do for your organization. Let me show you the value, because really sometimes the price is completely irrelevant when you see the value. Right, and I've had conversations with people who will just interrupt you the whole time. They don't care anything about your product, what it can do for them. All they care about is what the cost to them is. And I've had conversations with people like that and I usually do wait till the end to discuss price and my answer at times will have to be hey, look, if this doesn't work for you, if this isn't valuable for you, it costs you nothing.
Speaker 2:When you're condominium, you try to sell me compliance. My brain is trying to find a bucket in my buckets of experience. That's in my head because I don't understand what you're saying. But if I can put you in a bucket that I understand, then I can associate. Oh, now I know what Mike's talking about. Well, people like you just described. They come into the meeting You're already in a certain bucket and that sounded like the bucket is compliance has a cost for me and the only thing it is is an expenditure.
Speaker 2:I don't give a crap about it any other way other than that, because my past experiences with dealing with compliance issues is it's never really becomes an issue and I just have to pay money for it. So to me, as you were describing that, you know I'm a big believer in human behavior and their belief systems. That guy's belief system was this is just about me saying I'm in compliance and I'm should have cost me, and I happen to know your business and clearly it's a lot more than that. Paired to the acute care world there's when it comes to business systems, automation, you know how technology is valued for what it can do for you. I find there's a lack of sophistication that's permeated through the industry, and I'm not saying that to pick on anybody, but a lot of these operators let's be honest, people that went through treatment themselves are in recovery and they have. They have the great luxury of being able to be in a business that they can provide for their families and help the people that were just like that. I actually think that's a cool.
Speaker 1:Cool, the right place. The heart is in the right place, but but they didn't come from business backgrounds.
Speaker 2:They didn't come from technology background. So when someone shows up and says, oh, you know this, compliance tools this much and where this patient financial management tools that much, getting claims and revenue cycle systems in place and clinical programs and continuance of care organized and streamlined and scalable, that has to be the first priority, I get it. But once you have those things nailed down and now you're trying to button up your business and tighten things up, I don't know. Easy motivator 20% of your revenue comes from a source you better know how much they owe a year. How much of it are you getting paid today? What do you think you should be getting paid? Is the process I have in place friendly to my alumni for referrals and readmissions, or is it a barrier? Am I compliant? You know how much money am I bleeding? Just, I'm just not being smart.
Speaker 1:They say stepping over a dollar to pick up a dime? Right, we see it on our side. A very common conversation that I have with CEOs is we talk about reducing administrative burden on your staff. Right, and they go what do you mean? I'm paying them 40 hours a week, why would I not have them do compliance on paper? I'm already paying them. It just gives them something to do at their time. And I go well, you're paying them to take care of your clients, not paying them to check the lights. Right, it just doesn't make sense, but it does. It's our responsibility as the experts to be able to give good education to the people that are coming into this with this perspective.
Speaker 2:You and I also have a similar problem. So why would somebody have a process in place the purposely create a barrier to the patient that the CPA zero conversion rates are really high and are more profitable? Why would you do that? It's because they can't see that lost admission. It's not like the phone rang and someone said, hey, I was gonna come back to you but I'm not coming because you guys sent me a bill for four grand. No one ever told me I owed that and I'm gonna go to Joe's recovery. I just called you to tell you you're not getting my business Like that's never happened.
Speaker 1:Similar Well, the other thing, too, is it comes back to we do it this way because we've always done it this way, and we're so busy that we don't have a chance to look at our operations and see where things are not.
Speaker 2:Or, but it's common to be fair to that population. Though I do get the basics. If you can't see a problem, how you're supposed to know that it needs to be attentive, like in your space? And I'm gonna ask this question because I don't know the answer, but I'm thinking it's a pretty high number. Compliance is an interesting animal in that and it applies to the compliance I was describing earlier that we match, but it's the same thing. I only find out it's a problem when it's too late. You could sit on the mountaintop. The British are coming. The British are coming right Like and everyone's walking around and going. I don't see any British. What are you talking about? By the time I see the British, it's too late.
Speaker 1:I got stories around that.
Speaker 2:Right. So the question is, how do you? Because I have a challenge like this for inducement compliance and for consumer protection Human nature is such that, especially if you're an entrepreneur and you're building a business and you're CEO and your place full with a bunch of needle moving initiatives, how do you slow down and go? Oh, mike's here. Yeah, I don't have a payer audit right now, I don't have any regulators at my desk or whatever, but I really need to listen to him. Right, the reality is, the consequences of not putting these things in place is literally catastrophic. I call it extinction level event. Right, like, my stuff isn't that catastrophic. Yeah, they well, to a certain extent, could be. Well, yeah, well, yeah, okay, the jail party, sorry, yes, the jail party, yes, the other, the consumer protection stuff has statutory fines. They're like five grand per instance. So, yeah, you have a lot of admissions times five grand, that's a lot of money, but your stuff is like, yeah, lights are out.
Speaker 1:See you later. I got a real interesting story for you. To your point right. Oftentimes people aren't interested in compliance until the shit hits the fan and they call us when there's a very big problem. There was a time we had an organization that didn't feel that electronic management of compliance documentation was necessary. They just they felt it wasn't important and till the DEA showed up at their at their office, turns out a disgruntled employee stole a med log book from a nurse's office. It was on a book, easy to do. Stole the med log book, called the Joint Commission and said that this nurse was diverting meds controls. Joint Commission doesn't show up. The shows up. They call Renee. Holy shit, renee, we need you. Not a lot of compliance consultants do stuff like this.
Speaker 2:What the hell, could you even do after the fact like that?
Speaker 1:They marched right in there, fired the nurse on the spot and she took care of it. Renee's the one that people call when something shit totally hits the fan. This was one you know. We've seen client round books get destroyed in a flood. Couple weeks later they haven't started doing their client round books on new binders yet and they have a sentinel event. They can't prove that they've been doing client rounds because it's on paper. Yeah, now what do you do when there's a big audit? These are the kinds of things that happen when you think that you don't need to address it because you've never needed to address it.
Speaker 2:Oh, hold on, I gotta ask this question. It's 2023. Are you legit telling me there are still people doing this stuff on paper?
Speaker 1:70%, 60% Still using paper Now. Perfect example. I talked to providers all the time. What?
Speaker 2:do you charge a billion dollars? Well, who wouldn't put that some?
Speaker 1:sir you. Here's another example you have an outpatient clinic. You have to bring one of your clients to the emergency room. You've got your policies and binders. How do you expect your techs or your operations people who don't have access to your binders to know what your Procedure is to take somebody to the hospital? You can't, so you wing it and you don't contact the correct people. It's not good. It's good if you want to. You know, start a dumpster fire. I'm really like these are things that happen so often and I you pull in. You know you you take a good consultant like you know one that we work closely with rule 62 or or circa behavioral health, or you know a reputable consultant who deals with compliance and they will have these stories that I have the left Dozens, renee. You pull Renee and she'll have dozens and people don't pay attention to it, to it.
Speaker 2:One of the challenges is so I look at this market by breaking up into three categories the good actors that really want to do the right thing and as they scale and grow and they can afford to do the right things, they tend to do it. On the far other extreme, they're the bad actors who don't give a shit about the patient. They look at the heads and beds it's like a puppy mill better metaphor and they're just trying to churn and burn the reimbursements. And then there's the middle group. That is a combination of people that some that just don't know any better like genuinely Authentically. They don't know any better.
Speaker 2:Just someone like you comes in and tells them or am I part of the business? I Commit and tell them. But I have this, I had this theory. So there's a was a saying in a where they say, when you relapse, there's nothing worse than a head full of a? A and a belly full of booze.
Speaker 2:That's also true in business. In this, when you didn't know any better, there's ignorance is blessed right, like you know. But then if someone like you walks in talking about a raw compliance, and we come in talking about what we thought about and Now you have this knowledge, but you're in this middle group where you don't have the money to do all these things that you need to do right? There's a lot of anxiety and anguish there, right, like they're. They're good actors, but they don't. You know, I've got, I've got a hundred hatches, a hundred fin pays, I've got a hundred. Whatever these other systems are out there, all of them are Crucial to my business. Where to bribe, prioritize and how do I? I don't know what Mike knows, so how do I know? Right, if now that's what we have, we?
Speaker 1:we've got a website. We've got a website we call dear compliance officer. It's dedicated to free information for people who have concerns. You know, hatch compliance, comm slash DCO. You want to know what to do in a situation like this. You don't necessarily need hatch, but you do need access to somebody who's going to be able to give you good information. You know because, yeah, maybe you can't afford hatch, but you want to do the right thing. You know people like you and me. We're gonna be able to help people who don't have the money for that but still want to do the right thing. That's what the podcast is all about. Thanks for tuning in to hatching creativity. We appreciate your support. Please don't forget to like and subscribe and tell all your friends about the show and remember it's never just about one thing. You.
