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Looking for a solution that helps alleviate administrative

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tasks for your staff and also helps your

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patients cover their out of pocket health care

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expenses?

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Find what you're looking for from CareCredit because

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CareCredit is a credit card and more. It's

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a helping hand for staff and a flexible

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payment solution for patients. For over thirty years,

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CareCredit, a Synchrony solution, has offered patients a

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credit card with promotional financing options to get

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the care they want while helping staff do

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what they do best, provide care. To learn

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more, visit carecredit.com

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forward slash beckerspodcast.

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This is Gracelyn Keller with the Becker's Healthcare

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Podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in

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to the podcast series.

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Today, we're going to be talking about how

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financial transparency helps transform the patient and patient

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experience.

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Joining me today to discuss this is Claude

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Royster, who is the vice president and general

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manager, health and wellness at CareCredit.

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Claude, thank you for being here today. Thank

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you for having me. I appreciate it.

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Wonderful. Well, let's jump right into our conversation.

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To start us off, can you please share

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a little bit more about yourself, your role,

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and your organization?

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Absolutely.

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I'm the vice president and general manager of

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the health and wellness for CareCredit.

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It's a Synchrony solution.

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I've had more than thirty years of sales

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and operation experience, and my primary responsibilities are

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to work with our partners in the wellness

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space to provide,

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company strategies

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and ways that they can introduce our market

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leading health care health and wellness, financial solutions

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to their patients as well as identifying health

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care market expansion opportunities for for our business.

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Wonderful. Well, thanks for being here. And I

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kinda wanna start off broad strokes. So what

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trends or shifts are you seeing right now

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in orthopedics that you think are most important

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for industry leaders to pay attention to?

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I think the most important thing that we've

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we've paid attention to is

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some of the stresses that are, affecting the,

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orthopedic

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space and as well as staffing issues, turnover,

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you know, anesthesiologist

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shortage. Those are things that we we

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want to watch very closely because they have

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impacts on whether a patient will be able

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to

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get the cure. Our job is to ensure

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that we are trying to make

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that process as frictionless

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as possible,

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giving patients the choice of,

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being able to offer different financial solutions, but

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more importantly, also trying to educate the orthopedic

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space and that the administrators, the doctors on

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the importance of having that financial conversation

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with patients to ensure that they understand some

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of the options that they have, before they

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get the care.

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And let's talk about staffing and workforce challenges

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as these continue to be a concern across

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health care. So how is your organization navigating

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these pressures, and what strategies have you seen

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work well?

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We do a lot of extensive studies in

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this space to truly really try to understand,

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the workforce challenges. And one of the ways

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that we try to

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educate,

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and,

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bring awareness

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is by

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really bringing forth

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capabilities

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that are going to allow

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the practices, the administrators to be able to

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focus on the patient and focus on the

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care.

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Examples of that are, you know, through our

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financial solutions, we try to offer digital products

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which are frictionless.

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You can use them from your your instead

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of using your computers, you can use the

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the patient can actually

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complete the information,

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at their fingertips, which,

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eases the burden.

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We also, within our our CareCredit credit card,

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have a prequalification

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process, which helps to ease the burden because

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patients will will know that they are prequalified

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for the CareCredit credit card, which they can

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use to make monthly payments and be able

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to afford the care.

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And many organizations are exploring new technologies,

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partnerships, and care models to improve efficiency outcomes.

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So are there any innovations or

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initiatives you found particularly promising?

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Yes. I I there there are many,

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what we call ISVs in in the marketplace

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right now that are really integrating in with

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providers,

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PMS or EHR.

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And that is a that is a great

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way

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for CareCredit to partner

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and provide innovative solutions.

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And with within that platform, it allows us

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to be able to integrate and have our

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financial products,

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sitting on that platform. So, therefore, when patients

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and or the practice are having that financial

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discussion,

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the the ease of that, the the user

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experience is excellent because they're using their their

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their their software, their platform to be able

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to support,

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having those conversations and and getting customers financial

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solutions.

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And what role does financing, whether in house

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or through a third party like

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CareCredits

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credit card play in how patients seek care

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and view their care teams?

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It's it's very important. As we all know,

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one of the biggest burdens with getting care

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is cost.

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There are a lot of out of pocket

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patient responsibilities

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associated with getting health care. There's the understanding

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of, you know, cost can change whether you're

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in network or out of network. So where

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the CareCredit credit card comes in is it

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allows patients to be able to get the

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care, but it's also the utility of our

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card because

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we have providers in our network that patients

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can go to and within 50 different industries.

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So whether it's orthopedic, whether it's, the dentist,

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or

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taking your pet to the vet. We have

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solutions, and and our car creates that utility

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so it eases the burden for patients to

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know that they can get care by using

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the CareCredit credit card.

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And for practice leaders aiming to improve financial

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transparency and patient communication, what role can CareCredit

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play in making those cost of care conversations

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easier and more productive?

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Absolutely.

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One of one of the ways that we

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try to help support the practices in in

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transparency

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is we provide everything

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from payment estimators.

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We provide our promotional financing

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and we provide the tools

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that help the providers and administrators explain these

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products to the patients so that they're fully

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aware, they have full understanding of how these

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products work, and it helps them to make

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financial decisions.

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We also,

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really focus on having that conversation earlier in

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the in in the patient journey.

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That way it eases the burden.

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It's always a difficult decision to decide to

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have care, but the one

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area that we wanna ensure is is that

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patients at least understand some of the financial

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options that are out there for them to

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get the care.

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And as we wrap up our conversation today,

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we've heard a lot in this series about

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administrative burden. So how can CareCredit help address

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those day to day pressures

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for front of office and billing teams? Totally.

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I I think we try to focus

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on, again, digital capabilities

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ensuring that we can provide a better user

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experience so the the practices can focus on

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the patient.

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So

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by using those capabilities,

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it's it's going to help

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expedite some of the,

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the conversations with that patient and ease that

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burden.

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Well, thank you, Claude, for your time and

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insights today, and we also wanna thank our

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podcast sponsor, CareCredit. You can tune in to

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more podcasts from Becker's Healthcare by visiting our

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podcast page, beckershospitalreview.com.

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Thank you for being here.