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This is Laura D with the Becker Healthcare

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care Podcast.

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I'm thrilled today to be joined by Troy

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Williams Vice President of Health

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Partnerships at First Choice Health.

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A pleasure to have you on the podcast

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today?

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Laura nice to be here thanks for having

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me.

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No. I I'm looking forward to our discussion

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in learning more about First choice health and

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what you're doing and how you're thinking about

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the future, but before we dive into those

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questions, can you tell us a little bit

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more yourself in your background?

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Absolutely. Well, I I've been in healthcare a

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long time, probably a little over 3 decades

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now.

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But I've seen a variation of really what

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our industry looks like because I've worked on

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the provider side.

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I've worked on the vendor side.

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I've kind of worked on the services side.

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And

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there's so much that can be accomplished in

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healthcare as far as ways that we can

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improve what's going on in areas we can

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focus on. And having that perspective,

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in working through those roles. I I think

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it's giving me a pretty well rounded perspective.

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But I may not be a subject matter

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expert in anything specifically, but I seen a

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lot of our industry?

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Look, fascinating to hear and know, certainly,

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really an important context for this conversation now

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first and foremost, what are some of the

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big trends at headwind that you're following right

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now?

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Well, the trends I think are pretty consistent

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of what I hear amongst my industry colleagues

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and what I read in the press.

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Transparency for me is probably 1 that floats

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to the top because I think there's been

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a lot of legislation and focus on that.

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Forward looking, we're going to bring greater transparency

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into

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the pharmacy lines of business,

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the healthcare lines with the machine readable files

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and those surprises has been a step in

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the right direction.

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But I find that

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partnerships in healthcare, which is my focus with

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first choice

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that transparency is incredibly important because it allows

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to have a platform

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doing business

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moving forward and also appeal to your clientele.

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That makes a lot of sense. It is

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really interesting and cool to see it. And

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when you think about that transparency piece of

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it.

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How do you see that continuing to grow

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and evolve? What do you see health systems

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needing more of as health care and the

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data information becomes more transparent?

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I think you, ultimately our client our patients.

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So really what we want from the patient

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is to feel comfortable

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and

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really

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aligned with the goals of their health system

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and their health care. And I think when

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they feel more comfortable that the information is

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accessible that the information is true and accurate

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that the information is digestible

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so that they can actually see that and

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feel confident in it.

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They're going to feel better about that relationship

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that they have with their healthcare care provider

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to get on the right journey for improved

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health. So

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I think the consumer really is at the

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center of everything. And it matters very much

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how simple it is for them to interface

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with transparency,

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how trust worthy they find that transparency to

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be and really how do we create low

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friction environments to engage those folks and keep

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them engaged in their healthcare journey.

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That's great to think about it. And I

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really appreciate you going a little bit deeper

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there now looking ahead, how are you thinking

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about growth for the future?

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There's been a lot set about the digital

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transformation happening in healthcare and I saw study

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this morning that was kind of interesting serving

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200 healthcare executives,

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basically stating that the millions of dollars that

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have been invested

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in digital

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transformation

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doesn't really get a vote of confidence,

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75

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percent a time. So

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while we know that there's up to 3

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60000000000

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dollars

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in net savings that can be driven through

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this digital transformation,

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most healthcare executives don't feel like they've really

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realized that as of yet that they've really

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realized that putting these things together

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as

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appropriately driven the right efficiencies that's driven the

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right

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access it's driven the right user face going

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back to the consumer once again

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that they can see those realized savings. So

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I think we have some work to do

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there, But I think that it's a huge

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focus right now

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in how we can grow. We need our

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processes to be more efficient. We need them

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to be simplified again, we need them to

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be transparent.

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But we we can

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introduce digital

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transformation into some of these aspects without saying

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you need to have an Ai

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physician,

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but you could have a Ai

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digital front door of sorts that helps triage

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where those patients need to go better

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so that we're allowing

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practitioners to practice at the top of their

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license, right? And they're not essentially

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getting bogged down in the emergency department or

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with a specialist when really they could have

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appropriate

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designation or referral

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into primary care or urgent care or walk

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in or even

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tele or telehealth.

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Such a great point. And definitely all of

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those different areas where you ask with healthcare,

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can be really meaningful. I know some are

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newer than others, but

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certainly, all coming together to create that journey

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in that,

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ability for patience to access carrie is so

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important. Now From your perspective, could you tell

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me about a project or initiative from the

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last year, so that yield is the best

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results?

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Yes, because my focus really involves clinically integrated

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networks and large system network partners

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in my role,

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we've been focusing on growing our geographic footprint.

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So while our company has really

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traditionally existed for the 35 years in the

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Pacific Northwest. We're finding that some of the

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methodology, the process and what we've been able

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to bring into the industry has appealed kind

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of middle America.

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So we've been working on new system partnerships

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in Middle America and they've been going very

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well

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I think it's largely focused around health plan

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incubation.

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There's a lot of infrastructure

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and business process. That happens in improperly and

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effectively

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generating a health plan and basically a network

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of providers that will be

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utilizing the health plan take care patients.

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And

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the appeal that we have found and large

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projects we've been launching outside of the Pacific

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Northwest

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have really

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introduced new growth patterns for us.

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We found that we have new clients in

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basically the mid south.

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That are engaging us for health plan incubation.

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They're doing certain things and they're doing certain

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things very, very well, but there are broken

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processes orders there's poor efficiencies

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in some of their business process,

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their network management,

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their ad

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of claims

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and really their

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infrastructure with other entities so that that clinical

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integration is really important for them to have

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operating at highest efficiency. And so some of

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those

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internal

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infrastructure projects and processes or what we've been

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bringing to these

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mid state

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healthcare care systems and clinically integrated networks.

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And there over long

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a long runway, these are 10 year projects

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really

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but they started a year or 2 ago

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and they're going very well and we're growing

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into those states the way we had planned.

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That's great to hear. You know, I'm really

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impressive to have that kind of foresight and

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ability

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to look at, you know, what patients are

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needing in in really where you can generate

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the best value. So

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Troy, Thank you so much for joining us

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on podcast today. This is really a fantastic

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a discussion, and I look forward to connecting

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with you again soon.

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Yeah. I I've appreciate it very much. So

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thank you more.