Hi everyone,
and thank you for tuning into the Becker's Healthcare podcast series.
I'm Brian Zerman, a v p client, content and Strategy with Becker's Healthcare,
and today I'm pleased to be joined by Lance Mohay,
senior Director of Industry Marketing Healthcare Principle at RingCentral.
Lance, thanks so much for, for being on the podcast again.
Yes, it's great to join you, Brian. Thank you.
Excellent. And it's always a pleasure to speak with you, Lance,
but for folks who, who might not be familiar with you, can,
can you just share a bit about yourself, your professional background,
and you know a little bit about RingCentral and the work you do there?
Absolutely. So I've led healthcare industry practices at four major
communications focused vendors. And in that capacity,
I I focus on how communications and collaboration solutions can really have a
positive impact on health service delivery and also how it can
really elevate the patient experience. And then similarly,
as a leader within RingCentral's healthcare practice,
I direct all industry marketing and go-to-market strategy.
I do try to translate the,
the voice of the patient and the voice of the healthcare provider internally as
well by partnering with our industry solutions product team as we always are
developing new healthcare capabilities to take to market. Then I also work very,
uh,
very exclusively with our sales organization on just industry enablement and
all this just to get RingCentral's, uh,
cloud communications platform into the healthcare industry.
And we've got over 20,000 healthcare clients globally.
So really excited to talk to our D S O audience,
which is a critical part of that healthcare sector.
Yeah, and appreciate you bringing that, that sort of, you know, you,
you got a real high level view there,
bird's eye view of what's happening in the industry because you have a,
you work with so many different organizations. So focusing on, on DSOs here,
you know, obviously DSOs are, are seeing rapid growth right now.
Dentists are increasingly becoming affiliated with these organizations.
So with all this activity going on, what would you say are the,
the top challenges and opportunities D s O leaders are,
are facing amid this change?
So in the midst of, and, and,
and really the pace of growth in DSOs and dentists are
increasingly becoming affiliated, uh, with these organizations,
as you mentioned. I think,
I think there's several key things that come up as DSOs continue to grow
and acquire new locations. So first and foremost is,
is patient retention of the acquired practice and similarly staff retention of
those acquired practices that I think has a big part of
maintaining the culture of the growing and acquisition as well.
And then I think the, the,
the part that we address very directly at RingCentral is the integration of new
practices into the DSOs existing systems and technologies.
And I think that last challenge, uh, the integration of,
of the new practices into the DSOs is really the opportunity
to support the other challenges that we mentioned.
And it can be as simple as a single phone number, Ryan,
and it just builds from there as the technology creates opportunities for
improved staff and patient experiences.
And let's talk more, talk more about that technology, right? Uh, in, in,
in the role it really plays in supporting DSOs and in an environment of growth
and, and, and consolidation. You, you shared that example at at,
at the tail end of the year I to answer there,
but what are some more examples about the, the role technology plays here?
Yeah, so let, let, let's keep it simple for our listeners. So let,
let's talk again about just that, that single phone number.
So one of the critical d s o parent systems is,
is certainly gonna be telephony services. So it's, it's critical that,
that the D S O works with a cloud communications vendor,
but they have to be more than just a cloud unified communications as a service
application. Um, but rather like us,
we actually deliver the service and phone number assignments
from our own network. So we're our own carrier.
And the reason that's important is it's a completely different model and
separate and independent networks from most other vendors.
So we often refer to that as bring your own carrier.
And the reason that's so critical is,
is I think part of that retaining that culture and just making it
easy for, for patients to stay with their providers,
even if they become part of a D S O umbrella,
is they can keep their same numbers.
We just port them into our cloud carrier network and that
just allows them, uh,
the d s O to avoid working across multiple carriers as most of them have
national or at least regional practices that can span across different carrier
coverage areas. And I,
I think that creates immediate agility and as a carrier,
our D S O clients can retain those longstanding phone numbers of the acquired
practices. And I think in just real simple terms,
it just enables the practice to maintain the continuity of how patients reach
out to them. So just think about that tooth shaped magnet on your fridge.
It's got that number that magnet can just stay in place 'cause we're just gonna
keep using that same number.
And I think that's the real value of working with a cloud communications
vendor that is its own carrier rather than just a communication application that
rides on other carrier networks.
Yeah, I mean that, that sounds like a pretty seamless transition. And,
and I know sometimes when folks that adopt new services or,
or bring in new communications technology or any technology, the the change,
the transition can be a challenge,
but what you just laid out is pretty straightforward and,
and seems like a seamless transition.
But what are some other key considerations D S L leaders should really think
about as they they approach adopting new cloud communications technology?
Can you share any, uh, uh, you know, best practices there,
any additional recommendations sort of based on partner organizations
experiences you you've seen?
Yeah, sure. And I'd also, I'd also add too, and it's,
it's a bit of a teaser for our listeners to go back to episode two,
but I'd really encourage them to go back where you and I delve into the
technologies more directly the, the, the beauty and the,
the immense capabilities of artificial intelligence, you know, just to name one.
So definitely go back and check out episode two, but to your question,
in terms of considerations by D s O leaders.
So it's very critical to start with establishing a center of
excellence within the principle D ss o location that's going to manage the
cloud phone and contact center services for the DSOs multi-site
practice network. A C O E is where all the quality of service tracking,
new feature testing, and probably most importantly,
all of the analysis of the rich system reports call
handling analytics and just staff performance as they engage with
the cloud communication system and with patients. And so DSOs were,
will quickly realize, uh,
just really how much actionable insights and performance improvement data that
they can leverage to improve communication, service quality. And,
and this is then gonna have a direct impact on operational improvement across
their entire network.
Yeah. And, and, and we've talked about sort of, you know,
you hit on patient retention earlier and, and sort of,
and now hitting on improving step performance, improving communication,
um, you know, in your work with DSOs in this sort of en evolving,
evolving environment with a lot of consolidation, a lot of growth,
what is the the most important outcome you would say that you really hope that
that that your partners achieve? And,
and maybe give listeners a little bit of your reasoning why that is the most
important outcome as you, as you see it.
I think the most important outcome that our D s O clients have achieved is the
efficient and the successful growth of their network of dental practices.
Uh, a critical element of this is how our intelligent communications
platform supports faster acquisition and new location onboarding.
And I think that's so important because it,
it directly supports staff and patient retention of newly acquired
practices that we've visited about already. But most importantly,
it speeds up time to revenue of these practices as well.
And I think that's really at the heart of the whole D s O model is high
quality of service, high quality best practices,
and ultimately the ability to shore up and optimize,
uh, operations to ultimately drive faster revenue.
And everybody benefits, you know, from that model, from the practitioners,
their teams and the patients as well as the DSOs.
Excellent. Thank you. Thank you Lance. And, uh, of course, as you,
as you flagged earlier for our audience, uh, if, if folks want to hear,
wanna hear more about,
about sort of some of the insights you have into the technology here,
or even in the first episode, I believe we,
we focused on some reimbursement challenges that I definitely encourage our
audience to go back and check out episodes one and two. Um,
before we close out on episode three, though, I wanna check back in with you,
Lance, and is there anything else you you wanna share with listeners today?
Anything you wanna reemphasize or, or something new to share?
You know, the, the, the pace of D S O growth needs technologies that,
that scale just as fast and digital technologies like cloud-based
communications,
they're really designed for that very purpose and they also deliver a world
of new capabilities that in, in my experience,
most healthcare organizations candidly had no idea were available, um,
or the direct impact on, on the operational improvement that they can deliver.
So I'd encourage DSOs that are considering the move to the cloud and
standardizing comm services,
they really need to spend meaningful time within their organizations
across a, a real diverse set of stakeholders within their networks.
And they need to identify any possible comms, bottleneck,
breakdown in patient service levels, lagging AR cycles and,
and so much more, and I say this Brian, because really you think about it at,
at the heart of every operational motion is communications and modern
cloud communications can meet and improve most any related challenge,
but it also creates opportunity for D s O growth.
So I just encourage all of our D s O listeners really do the due diligence,
come, you know, come to the table with a, a,
a hard set of challenges to overcome.
And I think you're just gonna be really pleased and surprised at how
quickly this type of digital technology will transform your D s O networks.
Uh, really great point there, Lance, on our,
and sort of really being intentional with the technology, like really, um,
understanding what problems you wanna solve. Correct. And,
and you're gonna get a lot more out of it, I imagine.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think,
I think every organization, you know, fall, you know,
kind of falls into this, this definition of underutilizing technology.
Uh,
I think you just leave so much on the table in terms of operational performance.
If you do that with modern cloud communications,
including not just your phone system, but also your, your patient access center,
that's, that's empowered by a contact center platform in the cloud as well.
Just, you know,
use a hundred percent of it and you'll get 200% back on operational
improvement.
Excellent. Well, a, a great place to close out this conversation. Lance,
thank you once again for taking the time to join me on the podcast today.
Thanks again, Brian. Great to meet with all of your Becker's D S O listeners.
Thank you.
Yes. Uh, thank you so much.
And also thank you to RingCentral for sponsoring this episode.
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