Outcomes Rocket Podcast_Eugene & Marina Borukhovich: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Saul Marquez:
Hey everybody! Saul Marquez here with the Outcomes Rocket and today I have an awesome treat for you. I have two beautiful, amazing people, health leaders, and you’re going to have a treat in listening to what they’re up to today. First I’ve got Marina Borukhovich, she’s a senior entrepreneur, a serial entrepreneur, a cancer survivor, passionate health coach, and transformative tech CEO who’s made it her mission to kick start the health coaching revolution. She’s the founder and CEO of the premier home for all things health and wellness coaching YourCoach.Health. We also have Eugene Borukhovich, he is a serial intra and entrepreneur, you guys probably recognize his name. He’s been on the podcast before. He’s an executive venture builder, speaker, and board advisor with a focus in digital health. He is the co-founder and chief operating officer at YourCoach.Health. And previously Eugene headed up Bayer’s Digital Health unit, ran the health care consulting practice, and prior to that he was CIO at Intermountain at Medco Health, now Evernorth. So a fantastic opportunity to connect with some amazing health leaders and get some insights in today’s podcast. So Eugene, Marina, welcome to the podcast!
Marina Borukhovich:
Thanks Saul, great to be here.
Eugene Borukhovich:
And great to be here again.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah, and it was so great.
Eugene Borukhovich:
I know, that’s two for me being on your podcast.
Saul Marquez:
It is.
Eugene Borukhovich:
Of course, yeah.
Saul Marquez:
It is, very few have been on here twice, and if you’re on here twice, that means something. So, and today Eugene is with his better half. Marina. So a great place to always start, guys, is the why behind it all. So why don’t you guys share with us, what is it that inspires your work in health care?
Marina Borukhovich:
Yeah, in health coaching in particular, I mean, Eugene has been in health care for a really long time, I’ve just been an observer of what Eugene does in health care. But it was not until my battle with cancer in 2014 that I discovered health coaching, and that led me to where I am. I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I was 37 years old, living a healthy lifestyle, you know, beautiful family, we were living in Amsterdam at the time, completely came as a shock, of course. And I owe my life to my amazing, amazing doctors, I will never stop thanking them every single day. But when they were done with my surgeries, and the chemotherapy and radiation, and reconstructive surgeries, I, and I say this, I was broken. I was so broken because everybody expected me to live my life how it was, and my life was so different after that point. And by hacking away at my own body at realizing what it is that I needed holistically, I discovered health coaching. And that is my why, and it’s funny that you ask that because every time there’s new coaches that join the platform, every time we talk to amazing people, I always ask them their why. Because I always want to know, because everybody who is in the industry, everybody’s so passionate and there is always such a good reason of why people do what they do, so I love that you ask that.
Eugene Borukhovich:
Yeah, now, I’ll just add maybe very quickly, I mean, I’ve been in health and health tech for two decades or so, prior to that in other industries, but there’s no industry that’s more rewarding because literally every day everything that we do helps individuals, right, on their journey back to health. And this was when I first entered the PBM industry, that was I think, I came home the first day and saying, wow, there’s actually people getting their medication on time, there’s pharmacies that are helping their, you know, I always say this, I don’t think I will ever leave this industry and we’ll make as much impact as I can and as long as I can, so.
Saul Marquez:
That’s awesome. Well, you know what? You guys are both tremendous people, and yeah, you’re right. The thing that moves us all is that, that helping people directly. There’s just no industry that helps us do it in such a unique way. Care coaching in particular, I’m really excited to approach this, right? I mean, the problems are big, the limited number of doctors, the increasing need for nursing, there’s a huge gap. And they really, you know, they do such a great job. How can we help them? So talk to us about your business and how you’re adding value to the health care ecosystem.
Marina Borukhovich:
Yeah, everybody is overwhelmed in a health care ecosystem. Doctors don’t have enough time, nurses are leaving in droves because they’re doing things that they did not go into nursing to do. You know, they’re filling out tons of paperwork, they’re changing bedpans. I mean, there’s a place for everything, but they went in there to nurse. And it’s interesting how you mentioned before, it’s about the person, it’s about the patient. And we forget that, like a lot of times that just gets lost in a process because everybody is so worried about the process, right? And we forget that there is somebody on the other end of it. And this is where health coaches come in because they work as part of a health and care team to aid the doctors, and the nurses, and psychotherapists, and physical therapists to work together with all the professionals to make sure that the individual gets what they need. Health coaches are trained in behavior modification techniques and the science behind it, and they help people reach their health and wellness goals, goals that their doctors discuss with them, goals that their nurses and therapists discuss with them, and health coaches have the time to go really deep into it and to help people reach those goals.
Eugene Borukhovich:
And I think, I always add to, to the comment, aside from the description of the health coach and how they fit in, I myself, as I joined Marina in January 2020, I myself took a nine, nine-week kind of shortened course, which normally I think is 18 to 20 weeks, but it was much more frequency. And I kind of announced to the class at the end of that nine weeks that what I took out of it, because I don’t plan to actually practice health coaching, but it was insightful, it’s a non-clinical psychotherapist. It is somebody who is there in your corner that can help you identify, set, and achieve your goals, right? And yes, coaches specialize in other things, we have, Marina was talking about nurses, we have hundreds of nurses on the platform that left the practice and became, got their certifications in coaching, etc.
Marina Borukhovich:
There’s doctors on the platform as well. There is physicians who are, sometimes they’re still practicing and they want to add health coaching to it, but sometimes they leave and they just do health coaching because they want to try a different approach, something that they’re really not taught in school, that they maybe, just gloss over with 5 minutes of training.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah, super interesting, guys. So question for you, what would you say the health coach and this solution, this business that you’re building, what’s the biggest problem that it solves?
Marina Borukhovich:
Health coaches so, we solve, besides being there for the client, for the patients and providing them with health coaches, so that’s first and foremost and we will not forget that, but the problem we’re solving for health coaches are, they’re really great at what they do, but sometimes they’re not the greatest business people, they’re not the best marketers of themselves, and we provide opportunities for them. So health coaches come to our platform, we have a full practice management platform, they bring their own clients, they practice with them, they can bring a couple of clients, right? So just to consistently practice, and then with the help of our algorithms, we identify the coaches that help clients reach their goals and we match them with new opportunities, and these new opportunities are our clients. So these are companies who are looking to surround their offering or to help their talent or members or clients with health coaches, and this is what we do, we provide those health coaches.
Eugene Borukhovich:
And for those B2B clients, the challenges with, I think, with any profession, right? It’s everything from recruiting to onboarding to training to quality management, right? And health coaches are becoming a key part of a health and health care team, right, as part of that. And so that’s kind of the problem that we’re solving there is that what we found is about 60 to 70% of the health coaches out there are very much in this great reshuffling, moved out of one job to another, they like being entrepreneurs, right? So they run their own businesses, but they always need more work. And so this is kind of a perfect match between our B2B clients as well as this new gig economy of health coaches.
Marina Borukhovich:
We’re also doing a lot of education because Health Coach has become such a buzzword, and everybody knows they want one, they think they need one, but not many people actually know what a health coach is and what they do. And this goes both for individual clients and this goes for our B2B clients. And we do a lot of education, what a health coach is and it’s spoiler alert, it’s a lot more than a nudger. It’s a lot more than somebody that says do this or do this or do that. No, a health coach is so much more than that.
Eugene Borukhovich:
And your audience gets to learn the real definition by speaking with us or listening to us, right?
Saul Marquez:
Yeah, so summarize that. I know we touched on it at the beginning of the podcast, but what is a health coach? And we’ve actually what’s interesting is we had a meeting, a couple of interviews with Natera, they’re doing cell-free DNA testing. A core of what they offer is coaching, which makes them successful. They have their definition, but I want to hear from you guys.
Marina Borukhovich:
Yeah, it’s somebody who helps individuals identify, set, and achieve their goals. It’s somebody who is in their corner every step of the way, supportive mentor, supportive guide, sounds really good, doesn’t it?
Saul Marquez:
Okay, but you’ll…
Eugene Borukhovich:
And it’s interesting, right? Because for the core health care system, we always talk about reimbursements, and that was one huge thing that also happened at the end of 2019 as I was sort of getting ready to join Marina, the National Board of Health and Wellness Coaching, which know huge shout-out to the team there, they’ve been at this from 2012, putting jobs to be done, standards, accreditation components, in 2019, together with the AMA, they issued CPT level-three codes, which are ….
Saul Marquez:
Very cool.
Eugene Borukhovich:
I don’t remember, in April of 2021, there’s now a health coaching taxonomy code that can be chosen. This year, earlier this year, there’s a real-world data collection that started between the National Board of the Wellness Coaching, as well as UC San Diego’s going out to practices and hospital systems, and then more so to the digital health companies to understand what’s the impact of coaching. So yes, we knew there is science, there’s quite a huge compendium of science going back ten-plus years and we are looking for these reimbursements that will be coming towards our health care system hopefully in the next 24, 36 months.
Saul Marquez:
That’s awesome, and that’s a huge evolution and as we all know, a huge lever for adoption for these types of programs. So, okay, fascinating and a great opportunity. Employers, providers, health systems, this is the market. The coaches is the other side of the market. You guys are marrying them and providing a platform to then empower the consumer that uses it.
Marina Borukhovich:
Yeah, what we’d like to, well what, we’re creating a new category. It’s the operating system for behavior change powered by the gig economy of health coaches.
Saul Marquez:
Hmm. Let’s unpack that a little bit more.
Eugene Borukhovich:
Well, so from an operating system, right, the beauty of this is we really have built in a little over two years a full system from coaches being able to use it with their own clients, technology to identify and level up those coaches, and then the matching component to match those coaches with the end consumer. And then what we’re launching this summer are a set of APIs and widgets that any business can actually embed health coaching into their workflow, into their process, into their product, into their service, into clinical trial, into patient support program, you know, devices, remote patient monitoring. We’ve had all kinds of use cases coming our way inbound, and so that’s the full operating system. Underlying all of this, and part of why behavior change is, coaches, that’s what they learn, right? That’s what they study. Motivational interviewing is a key component of that behavior change, right? It’s helping human beings extract their own intrinsic motivation and act on it, right? That’s a key component of behavior change. And so you literally get with your coach a full operating system that is not only technology, but also human beings, and that’s part of our logo. Our logo is hito, it’s a Japanese kanji for human, and we all need a human to lean on.
Saul Marquez:
That’s beautiful.
Marina Borukhovich:
Really listening in that nine-week class.
Eugene Borukhovich:
I really was.
Saul Marquez:
Yes.
Marina Borukhovich:
Motivational interviewing, I love it.
Saul Marquez:
That’s awesome, that’s awesome. Well, this is fascinating, guys. You know, just thinking through, a lot of people are listening to this message right now who, obviously this is for everyone, but who are you guys looking to partner with? Who are you looking to have conversations with? Who can benefit from what you offer the most? Let’s give them a shout-out right now.
Marina Borukhovich:
Amazing, it’s progressive companies who are looking to surround their offering with health coaching, with real health coaching, with people who match their clients, their members, for those ongoing sticky relationships.
Saul Marquez:
Marina, thank you. Give us some examples, right? Some use cases so that, bring us home with this, so we know who can benefit the most.
Eugene Borukhovich:
Yeah. So the broader, we’re starting with a broader digital health, right? And I do put under digital health kind of virtual care companies that are targeting specific individual cohorts populations, right? And primary care companies that are going to market with a different proposition, right? And very sort of centric focused or human-centric focused digital therapeutic companies that are discovering that the digital therapy itself also requires, that I keep using and hating that term, but it just seems to resonate in the industry unfortunately, adherence to their products and a human can still help. And we just had some conversations about remote patient monitoring. Well, how can we improve it? Because we keep nudging people, but they’re not really responding. And so instead of nudging, let’s understand, help them extract and set their goals, and remote, and the remote patient monitoring device is only a component of that goal. So clinical trials, we’ve had inbound from pharma, can we insert health coaches and clinical trials?
Marina Borukhovich:
Caregiver support, yeah, health coaches, they’re there to augment. They’re not there to take over the product, they’re not there to replace the product, they’re there to augment and to make the product or the service more successful.
Saul Marquez:
That’s awesome. Thank you, guys. So, folks, if you’re listening to this, obviously, the opportunity to collaborate is huge. And so you might be thinking to yourself, man, is this for me? And what would you say to them? Eugene and Marina, is this for them?
Eugene Borukhovich:
The short answer is yes, but we want to know how impactful it would be to their population.
Marina Borukhovich:
How can we work together? Yeah, our mission in YourCoach, we want to make sure health coaching is accessible to the projected … population by 2030. That’s our mission, that has been our mission from day one. How can we help you get there? How can we get there together?
Saul Marquez:
Awesome, so it’s YourCoach.Health. YourCoach.Health. We’ll leave a link in the show notes. What’s another way for them, for everyone listening that’s interested, to learn more and explore the opportunity, is this for me?
Eugene Borukhovich:
I think YourCoach Health on pretty much all of the social media. Drop us a note at team@yourcoach.health.
Marina Borukhovich:
We, two years ago when we were just babies, we came out with a health coaching report and it’s been downloaded thousands of times, and we’re working on version two which is coming out very, very shortly, we’re targeting end of May. So we’re super excited because even in two years so much has changed in industry. So if you want to learn more about health coaching, sign up to be updated when that comes out because that’s going to have a wealth of information in there.
Saul Marquez:
I love that, and that’s a good point, right? So if you’re a health coach right now and you’re looking to take your health coaching to the next level, this is the platform for you.
Marina Borukhovich:
Absolutely.
Eugene Borukhovich:
Absolutely.
Marina Borukhovich:
No doubt.
Saul Marquez:
I love that. Well, listen, Marina, Eugene, this has been a ton of fun. Such a pleasure to see you guys and to hear about the impact that you’re making. Leave us with a closing thought and then we’ll conclude.
Marina Borukhovich:
We all need somebody to lean on, and why not a health coach?
Saul Marquez:
Beautiful, and why not a health coach? And with all of that said and the lack of care that’s being provided just because of bandwidth, this is the opportunity. So I’m going to look into this. You should look into this. Take action because that’s where the magic happens. Eugene, Marina, appreciate you both being on with us.
Marina Borukhovich:
Saul, thank you so much it’s been a pleasure.
Eugene Borukhovich:
Thank you very much.
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