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cast. This is chanel Bun with the Becker
Health care podcast, and I'm recording live at
the Becker Healthcare care 20 first Samuel spine
orthopedic campaign pain management driven As and plus
the future of Spine Conference.
And right now, I'm sitting with doctor Z
Tay, the medical director for the pain specialist
of Cincinnati, Doctor Tay. Thank you so much
for joining me today. Thank you, Chanel for
having me. Really appreciate the opportunity to be
here and to be able to put forth
a few.
Different things that we can consider going forward
for all of our features, hopefully. Perfect. Well,
to get us started, Could you please tell
us a bit about yourself and share
about your organization? Yes. Absolutely.
So again, just like Chanel mentioned, My name
is Ty. I've been practicing
the field I'm in, which is specifically in
Pm and R and pain
for
almost 50 years now,
and
I've been in private practice, specifically my own
practice now for
bought the last 7 to 8 years, and
we've been running a multi disciplinary clinic or
pretty much that amount the time. But it's
continued to grow in terms of all the
different services that we offer, and hopefully god
willing. We're gonna have a groundbreaking now in
in the next few weeks for our first
ambulatory surgical center.
Perfect. And
in recent years, health care costs have increased
dramatically.
Since the pandemic especially, how has that affected
your work? That's a great comment and question.
You know, the... I would like, right now,
probably with some of the biggest things that
we've been having issues with is cost of
goods. Right? So since the pandemic,
you know, we're trying to reign, say the
community in the society. And so a lot
of things now have just been costing a
lot more, including staffing. So a lot of
people's cost have gone out. A lot of
people's,
I guess, mental states and how do they
kind of view things maybe, like, post pandemic
at this point. They're starting to think.
So Well, maybe do I really need to
do this or I really need to work.
And people are thinking about, you know, work
in life balance. You know, after something big,
like the pandemic, You know, people start kinda
rethinking certain things. And then some people are
just in worse off situations. So I would
say overall now, with the increased costs of
good as well as the amount that it
actually costs to
maintain higher, and then,
retain people. I think has definitely been a
significant challenge.
Got it, and kinda shifting the conversation a
bit.
Based on your experience, how is the patient
provider dynamic changed over time.
Yes. That's
that's like a million dollar question.
You know, I would say that, I think
previously,
in medicine, it was more pate
in the sense that
the doctors or the different providers would kind
of know exactly what they were doing
or what they were putting forth, and they
were the only ones that really had access
to a lot of information.
Now in this day age, you could go
on to Google There's a whole bunch of
different social media platforms. And so now what's
happening is that there's a lot of people
coming in
with access to more knowledge, maybe not necessarily
more knowledgeable. There's but with access to more
knowledge. And so they're coming in with a
lot more ideas, questions and concerns.
And so it's not so much of...
But I'm gonna tell you you need to
do this. But here, let's see if we
can try to figure out if we can
kinda come to some type of quote unquote
agreement as to what, you know, care is
going to be.
Well, but the way health is now, 1
of the challenges that we face
is
seeing a lot more people
in a lot less time,
because it's become more of a volume game
than a care game in a sense. And
so
we have limited up opportunity or limited facetime
with some of our clients or patients. And
so I think a lot of them now
are feeling
in a sense,
it does what we have right now actually
work. And so
on top of that, we're also a lit
indigenous society. Alright? And so people are always
was looking for that quick or, you know,
oh, well, you didn't meet my needs or
you didn't meet my my level of concern
or care. And so then you could potentially
get sued. And so now we're looking at
that aspect of it. We're looking at the
different medical boards, pharmacy boards, the different regulatory
boards. So there's a lot of things out
there that have actually come into play in
terms of our relationships with all of our
clients and patients now.
Perfect. And you've kind of already touched touched
on this. But in recent years with social
media and, like, he increased boom of people
are taking help more into their own hands
and touched not seeking out as much professional
opinions. Why do you think that is?
Yes. So I think before when people used
to just kinda take it at face value?
They would just kinda go with the flow
and say, yep, this is what my doctor
said. And so this is what I'm gonna
do. Now since people are coming in with
a little bit more knowledge,
a little bit more ideas on, you know,
what they can do.
I think...
And then in tandem with what I was
putting forth before in terms of,
the limited time that you actually have with
a patient or a client.
I think there's
a little lack of trust or the trust
is being lost between
the patient and the provider.
And so I think that's that's a huge
thing.
I think that
overall,
if if time is not spent
in terms of developing that Ra rapport,
developing that relationship, I think we're gonna be
heading on the wrong direction in this regard.
And that kind of brings me to my
next point, from an organizational standpoint, do you
have any strategies in place aimed at helping
bring in patient to improve that retention? Yes.
So in this case, I would say, you
could do a lot of the basic fundamental
things. In terms of, you know, follow ups,
surveys,
satisfaction,
you know, requirements and things like that, you
know, follow ups calls, emails, text, there's a
lot of those simple things that you could
be doing.
But I think in this case, if you
go back to basics and fundamentals. You're looking
at, yeah, We're looking at them as maybe
patients are. Clients. But at the end of
the day, you know, we're all striving to
be like human beings. And so I think
if we just kinda start with that basic
principle of
hey, I'm here for you. I care for
you. I think that's gonna go a long
way. So kindness is something huge.
I believe
it was a theodore Roosevelt, 1 of our
previous private presidents that said, you know, they
don't care what you know until they know
that you care. And so I think that
goes that goes a long way in terms
of being able to hold on to people,
retain people and being able to develop that
that long term relationship.
Perfect then. You kinda just told us out
to retain people, but can you explain why
it's so important to have that retention? Yes.
Absolutely.
So a lot of the issues and challenges
and problems that we all face.
Didn't just kinda happen overnight. Yeah. Obviously, there
are some things that can happen overnight. And
usually there's... That's what acute care is for.
But a lot of what we kinda go
through and phase.
It could be
big traumas. It could be small traumas.
Could be things from our family of origin,
it could be a whole bunch of different
things. And I think that since problems don't
typically just happen overnight, In terms of being
able to kinda get to the root of
the issues or to the root of the
problems or the challenges that we all face,
we do need to try to develop that
long term relationship. And,
that is why if we're just there for,
like, a quick intervention here and there, we're
probably not gonna get that quote unquote win.
Absolutely. Well Doctor. Tay, I wanna thank you
for your time today, but before I let
you go, is there anything else art listeners
room?
I would just put forth that
when we engage in whatever we are doing,
we should probably just take a step back,
take a breath
and kinda come back to why we're doing
what we're doing and treat people the way
that we would like to be treated.
Got it. Well, doctor Tay. I wanna thank
you once again for your time today for
joining me on the Becker Health care podcast.
Thank you for the opportunity, chanel. Appreciate it.
Hey