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visit carecredit.comforward/beccarspodcast.
This is Gracelyn Keller with the Becker's Healthcare
Podcast, and we are live at the business
and operations of ASCs.
I am pleased to be joined today by
Claude Reusser, who is the vice president
and general manager of wellness at CareCredit. So,
Claude, thank you for being here today,
and would love to jump into our discussion
by first having you take a moment to
introduce yourself and tell us a little bit
more about your work with CareCredit. Absolutely. Thank
you for having me. Again, my name is
Claude Royster. I am the vice president general
manager in our, health and wellness business supporting
the wellness space.
I've been I've had over 30 years of
experience in in sales, operation, account management.
And my focus right now is really to
drive, growth strategies for the business as well
as our practices
and,
assist them with, helping with the patient experience
and and using our platform to be able
to assist with,
any financial needs that are related to,
patients looking to get care, that they need.
Wonderful. Well, thank you for taking the time
to join me, and let's start our conversation
today talking about ASC volume. So this is
expected to grow by 16%
countrywide by 2032.
So with this growth, what is the most
pressing challenge to maintaining a positive patient experience?
Absolutely. There's there's really three things that I
I I spend a lot of time focusing
on in the AOC space. The first is
staffing.
As we know, there's been a tremendous amount
of pressure on the ASC space around,
being understaffed,
not being able to care for all the
patients.
And it it's important for us to really
help find ways to
digitize and use technology to streamline some of
the operational processes that will ultimately assist,
the the ASCs
and practices
to be able to
manage their their caseloads.
The second, again, I just alluded to is
is really technology. And
as as the industry evolves, it's important to
understand
the different types of technology out there, whether
it be, you know, just something as basic
as appointment setting all the way through back
end collections.
And,
one of the responsibilities that we have is
is looking at ways to integrate CareCredit into
those,
into those platforms so that we're enabling an
an easier process so that the,
the staff can really focus on patient care,
healthy outcomes,
and still be able to give them accessibility
to,
financial options to be able to pay for
care.
So going along with that, what strategies have
worked for your organization as you tackle these
challenges, and what is the recommendation you have
for health care leaders trying to stay ahead?
Absolutely. So so one of the one of
the,
biggest things that we've done, and really coming
out of the pandemic is we stress the
importance of digitization.
And what I mean by that is, for
example,
patients who are interested in getting care
are looking for financial means to be able
to pay for that. So one of the
things that we've done instead of our traditional
paper applications, we've created QR codes.
And, essentially, what that allows us to do
is streamline the application process,
allow patients to get prequalified
for the care that they need, which is
gonna help make,
help them make better decisions on when to
get the care that they need,
as opposed to, you know, the sticker shock
of some of the costs related to some
of the, health care and
either not getting the care they need or
postponing care. So that digitization of the QR
code and and having a prequal process
allows them to make decisions faster and hopefully
get the care that they need sooner.
Other opportunities are we've we've worked with what
we call strategic technical partners.
And there are many of them out there
in the space that really focus on the
revenue cycle within a practice or an ASC.
We we work very closely with them to
ensure that,
CareCredit
is integrated and aligned with their platform so
that when patients are making decisions on how
they're gonna pay for their care,
we we give them the ability to have
CareCredit as an option alongside of other options,
to be able to afford the care that
they need.
And thank you for your insights on those
topics.
Shifting gears slightly to financial
literacy
and the financial side of things. How can
leaders ensure that their staff are well equipped
to help patients navigate the financial aspects of
care? And how does this benefit patient and
provider relationships?
Absolutely. It's a great question. And,
the the important
for us, for CareCredit, the important thing is
we want to ensure that we are providing
adequate sales training,
for the staff,
and really make sure that they understand
what CareCredit is, not just from a patient
perspective, but how it benefits the practice and
and really benefit the staff to try to
alleviate some of the the strains that they
have in in their work environment. So they
really do need to understand how how patient
financing works.
They need to understand how to position it
and when to position it with the patient.
And the sooner you do that and have
that financial conversation,
the the better it is for the patient
because they are able to make decisions sooner
around the care that they need. So it's
important for us to provide education to the
practices,
which will allow them to further educate patients
throughout that,
patient journey.
We will periodically,
we try, again, we try to simplify
how we integrate,
financing into those those patient solutions. So,
we provide lots of scripts and tips. We
provide information through our platform,
to be able to help,
practices,
or staff answer questions related to
patient financing
as well as the optionality that they have
because it's not a one size fits all
solution.
Every patient has different needs, and to be
able to facilitate that with a plethora of
options
will allow for the proper outcomes and and
be able to allow patients to select the
type of,
financing they need for the care that they
need.
And how do you train your staff to
handle conversations around health care costs and insurance
coverage with patients, ensuring that they do feel
informed and supported?
I, there's there's 2 ways that we do
that.
There's an opportunity cost of not getting the
care that you need,
which can lead to other
type of health care risk or issues. So
it's important for patients to understand that,
you know, we want to take the friction
out of that decision by offering them options
on how they can pay for the care
that they need. So that's that's number 1.
Number 2 is,
we we wanna make sure that they understand
how to use it responsibly.
And and being able to offer
some of our promotional options and be able
to afford those and and and get the
treatment you need and still
not overburden your your your your,
your household expenditures
is very important. So we try to provide
that, education to not only the patients but
also the practices.
There's an again, there's an opportunity cost for
practices as well because
if someone,
again, is shocked if a patient is shocked
by the cost of a procedure
or their deductibles are too high or they
wanna use a NANA network which becomes very
expensive to them,
the opportunity cost is if they don't have
the care that they need. So that's lost
revenue for the practice. So it's important for
us to, again, position,
CareCredit or patient financing as a way for,
patients to really give serious thought into the
care that they need and then also ensuring
that they have a way to pay for
that responsibly
and and,
have have satisfying outcomes.
And going off of that, as a leader,
how are you creating a culture that integrates
that patient centered care and financial literacy, and
why is that important to the current ASC
growth environment?
It it it it you know, for me
as a leader, I I think it's it's
important to,
make sure that,
we understand
the the the, the the ASCs and how
we can help them. They are under tremendous
amount of pressure right now.
While we do see that they will be
growing over time,
staffing is a huge problem.
And, you know, it starts with, you know,
whether it's an anesthesiologist
who works at, who is coming to assist
with the procedure
or just staff in general that they don't
have enough staff. It's important for us to
educate them on
on the the solutions that we have that
can help reduce their expenses,
but also help generate revenue, which is obviously
important for any any type of facility.
But, offering these solutions
is a way for us to,
ease some of that burden in the ASC.
So it's important for me to continue the
education,
continue to explain the brand and how we
are able to use,
CareCredit in in a in a way that
is going to be, responsible,
but most importantly, in a way that's going
to provide positive outcomes, not just for the
patient, but also the,
the ASCs.
Wonderful. And that was actually a great segue.
Let's shift gears one more time toward,
patient satisfaction.
So what are some best practices or strategies
that you recommend to leaders striving to align
staff both with organizational goals and patient satisfaction
rates? And what has worked well for you
in this space?
Sure.
Again,
asking
asking having the financial conversation
earlier on tends to lead to better,
patient satisfaction.
And,
because it it takes some of that friction
out, and it it takes some of the
emotionalism out of having a major procedure being
done. Because one of the things that many
patients worry about is
not having a good understanding of their their
health, their insurance,
their financial picture, and they underestimate
the cost of some of these procedures that
are being done. So having this conversation early,
having information that you can share with patients
that explain
how they can responsibly use patient financing to
to cover the cost of the care that
they need is extremely important.
But most importantly, you know, once they have
that, they they they tend to be very
satisfied because we've offered solutions
as opposed to,
complicating their lives with with with heavier financial
burdens.
And as we wrap up our conversation here,
are there any parting words you'd like to
share on the podcast today? Absolutely. First, again,
I, thank you for having me. And,
you know, CareCredit is,
we're we're a leader in this space, and
we we are always looking for ways to
work with our partners. We wanna listen to
our partners,
understand some of the things that they are
experiencing in in in the,
in the ecosphere. And, we are constantly striving
to improve the things that we do,
so that our our practices can be satisfied,
but most importantly, the patients will be satisfied
as well. So, we do appreciate,
all the support of our partners, and we
we look forward to serving you here in
the future.
Wonderful. Well, thank you, Claude, for your time
and this great discussion today. I really appreciate
you joining me on the Becker's Healthcare podcast.
Thank you for having me. And I'd also
like to thank CareCredit as well for sponsoring
this episode. You can tune in to more
podcasts from Becker's Healthcare by visiting our podcast
page.