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Saul Marquez:
Hey, everybody! Saul Marquez with the Outcomes Rocket. Welcome back to today’s podcast. Today I have the privilege of hosting Eric Demers on the podcast. He is the CEO of Madaket Health. He believes we could transform healthcare delivery through the power of data and interoperability. With more than 25 years of global healthcare experience, Eric has built and scaled leading technology and services companies from early stage to Fortune 100. He is highly sought after her speaking and consulting on international health, having advised global entities and governments on critical issues facing healthcare. He’s an incredible entrepreneur, and I’m excited to have him here on the podcast today. Eric, welcome.
Eric Demers:
Great, so happy to be here. Thanks for having me on the show.
Saul Marquez:
Absolutely, so, at Madaket Health, you guys are doing some really interesting work. But before we dive into that, I’d love to know more about you. What is it that inspires you to work in healthcare?
Eric Demers:
Yeah, so I’ve been in healthcare pretty much my entire career. I’ve been through many different organizations, many different parts of the industry, both in the US and outside of the US, and what I’ve come to realize is I’m really interested in working in spots that are making a real difference in the market, and that can be quantified in a lot of different ways. But making a difference, whether it be improving patient care or reducing the amount of administrative time that physicians have to undertake in order to spend more time with their patients, or even just curb some of the crazy spending that we incur in the United States is, there’s so many ways to affect the industry. So when we look at the industry, when I look at the industry, it’s really about where can I get back and make a small difference along the way.
Saul Marquez:
Love that. Yeah, and that’s a really purposeful reason there, Eric, and I think it’s great in so many positions, but also, healthcare leaders are bogged down by the minutia and the detailed processes that it takes to run a healthcare operation. Talk to us a little bit about Madaket. What do you guys do, and how are you making a difference?
Eric Demers:
Madaket is a great company. It’s a mission-built organization that wanted to help tackle some of the administrative burden problem that the industry faces. Physicians and insurance companies have to do a lot of administrative work in order to really be in business with each other, and for a good reason, too. We want to make sure physicians are properly credentialed, have the right license, the right, appropriate people to see the patients are the members that they’re sending over to see them and vice versa, right? The insurance companies require a lot of information to make sure that the quality of care has been done, that the burden of proof of care and all that stuff has taken place in order to make sure they’re paid appropriately, right? So there’s a lot of things that happen between the two sides in order to help make sure the patient journey is a good one. Now, Madaket is doing is trying to help the two sides automate as much of that process as possible. Unfortunately, historically, a lot of this administrative work has not been automated, and it fell on the old ways of doing things, more manual ways I should say, fax, emails, in some cases, truly mail, right? So it creates an elongation of time in the industry, which then does impact both, all three sides, right? How long it takes the providers in order to be prepared to see patients and be on a proper schedule with the payers, making sure the payers have appropriate coverage in that area, meaning number of providers to see the members that they have signed up, and then, most importantly for the member/patient to be able to have access to the people they need at the time they need it, right? So we’ve taken the approach where we’re automating as much of that process as possible between the providers and payers, shortening those timelines from, in many cases, 6 to 9 months to weeks, right, in order for them to be ready to go to market. At the heart of it, that’s really what we are focused on trying to accomplish in the industry.
Saul Marquez:
Well, that’s fantastic. Any opportunity to be more efficient and do the things that providers have to do at less cost, I mean, sign us on. That’s just a huge opportunity. As you think about what you guys do differently than others out there offering these types of services, how would you explain that?
Eric Demers:
We’ve really taken a more encompassing enterprise view of all the things that the two sides need to accomplish, whereas many folks in the industry have historically taken a view of one slice and dive pretty deep into that particular area, which is great, but we recognize that a lot of the information required can be shared amongst multiple opportunities. So we’ve taken enterprise view, so if you want to be enrolled for financial transactions in order to receive electronic payments, that’s one focus area versus enrolling to be on different versions of health plans, offering, right, in order to see the different patients that they have, their different offerings they bring to market versus being licensed, credentialed, tracking their continuous medical education credits, etc., etc. So those are all different tasks that many other organizations would do, 1 or 2 or dive deep into, and we’re doing them all, and then underneath that, we have our provider directory, which is all the provider information that they store and share there to help manage their particular practice and business, then can be shared on their behalf to any of these endpoints that they need to send information to. So it allows them to scale and do a lot of tasks at once as opposed to having them do very linear, manually-based process, right? Just as an example, so one provider, on average, works with 20 to 25 different insurance companies, and they all require all the same information, sometimes with slight variations. So being able to extract most of that information on their behalf, automatically send that information on their behalf, automatically receive that stuff back and answer questions on their behalf. The system manages the majority of that process until they’re ready to sign going forward. So it really takes a huge burden off of the organization as well in a workforce savings as well for them.
Saul Marquez:
So does it become a marketplace in a sense where you’ve got the providers all on it, and then you’ve got the payers all on it, and there’s a bidirectional exchange?
Eric Demers:
Yeah, 100%, and that’s really how we view ourselves in the market. We are really trying to be that middle player in that space where they can come in and exchange their information from both sides. We work equally with the payers and the providers, and then we also work with the folks they work with. So we work with the clearinghouses and other third parties. So ultimately, all endpoints could work with us in the middle as an exchange marketplace.
Saul Marquez:
Love it. No, that makes a lot of sense, and this is where the power is, it’s the network effect. And for a lot of folks listening, engaging with platforms like this, like Madaket, that leverages the network effect, can really create optimization and huge benefits to the organization, and with everybody getting so burned out like it’s just critical. So really cool, Eric, thanks for explaining that to us. As you think about maybe things that have happened in the business or, in general, your career, what’s a setback that you’ve encountered that you feel you’ve learned a lot of?
Eric Demers:
We’ve found a lot and spent a lot of time on that conversation, Saul. I think everyone goes through a lot of setbacks in their career, and you learn from it and try to move forward. For me, I’ve been an entrepreneur and side-CEO of multiple companies for well over a decade. So if I think back to when I first took on those roles, I think just moving from more of that Chief Operating Officer role into your first-time CEO role, it’s very different, and I believe we could spend a whole series on probably people becoming CEOs for the first time and the expectations, particularly in a private equity-backed companies. I think for founders who move even themselves to working with private equity, they really don’t understand some of the challenges and expectations that are bestowed upon them, I know from working with those organizations, but I would say the biggest thing is understanding that when you first move into that role, that everything the organization demands, but also the people, and making sure every decision that you make has the best intentions of the people who work in your organization. And I say that not facetiously, because there are times when you are making decisions that you know are best for the company that may not always be best for the people, and those things can be counterintuitive. And sometimes, you make the decision that’s best for all going forward, but if those two are indirectly opposing each other, but taking the direction that’s best for your employees is always the best way forward for the organization. And I think there are small examples you see along the way where you make little things say, oh, I think this is best for the company, and you realize, well, that wasn’t best for everyone, and you make an about face and you go forward, so you learn from those things really early on, so make sure that you are making the best decisions for the organization as a whole. And typically, if you’re making the best decisions for your employees and your clients, you ultimately are making the best decisions for your company because that will pay dividends in the end. So those are some of the things that I learned well over a decade ago that I always think about every time I make those decisions, are in my face. And I have to say, okay, what do I do here is to make sure I proceed with the right thought process on those.
Saul Marquez:
That’s fantastic, Eric, and when you’re in the middle of it, it can be difficult. You’re in the middle of these decisions, it could be difficult calls, but if you have a North Star, do what’s best for your people and your customers. Sounds like you could do a good job and make some strides.
Eric Demers:
You can. I mean, sometimes financially, it’s not always the best thing for the company, but you know, it’s what’s best for the company, we’ll say it that way, so you try to proceed along those lines as best you can.
Saul Marquez:
Love that. Appreciate that so much. You’re making a huge impact on the market with your solution. What are you most excited about today?
Eric Demers:
I’m just excited about where some of the stuff’s headed in the market. I think the work that we’re working on is I feel like has so much potential, not just for the network exchange effect, but next steps, right? You know, as we look at how will some of the machine learning and AI functionality influence all of us going forward? You know, we’ve already started to look at ways to indoctrinate some pieces of that into our own platform to help us manage business better, but if you think it’s more scale. I mean, in healthcare, we have a lot of problems, but two large ones are workforce to support the healthcare environment, and then the practitioners themselves having enough to support the number of people who need their attention; two kind of really main problems for us going forward that need to be solved. And I think this is where sometimes as we evolve into the future, some of this technology will build to take bits and pieces of that off the plates to allow them to be more, the folks who are in that role, they, to be much more highly effective and efficient with their time because some of these other things that might distract them now potentially could be solved through technology on their behalf, right? So really giving the power to them to go see the patients and help dive deep into those acute problems that need to be solved and not be distracted. So I think those are some of the things I’m most excited about. I mean, it comes with some caution of for sure, securing the AI space, but I think the benefits going forward for that industry will be huge.
Saul Marquez:
Love that. Yeah, it’s impressive what’s been taking place with AI, like you said, things like ChatGPT and the commercial products that are spinning out from those types of technologies. It’s definitely exciting, and I think going to be a huge impact to the work that companies like yours are doing and really helping our providers do better with less. So yeah, go ahead, Eric, do you have a comment?
Eric Demers:
Yeah, I was going to say, I just think forward to the future. So much of where it can healthcare best be delivered, and there’s only so much that is probably beneficial in the most acute settings, and then you get to a point where you want to have more of that care delivered in a home-based setting or community setting. And I think in those areas, those technologies can have a huge impact and supporting what’s going on there and keeping people in their homes without an overreliance on loved ones to be there all the time to support them.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah, totally agree. And it’s exciting times. Well, look, Eric, I love the work that you and the team at Madaket are up to. Thanks for sharing it with us here on the podcast today. I’d love to just conclude with you sharing a closing thought and then the best place for the listeners to get to know you and the company better.
Eric Demers:
Yeah, no, I appreciate the time today. It was really fun talking. I love the fact that we offer the opportunity to talk about what’s going on in healthcare. I think it, this can be, for many, can be a confusing and challenging space, particularly when they think about their personal health, but the impact we have on the industry is tremendous. And I think, so many people are really working very hard to improve it every day. So I love the opportunity for us and others to be able to talk about all the great work that we do. So with that, if you’d like to hear more or see more about what we’re tackling industry, check us out at www.MadaketHealth.com, and I’m happy to answer any questions for anyone who shoots us an email, and I’ll always get back to them.
Saul Marquez:
I love it. There you have it, folks. MadaketHealth.com, you’ll see that in the show notes of today’s podcast. So make sure you get in there and click on that. Learn more. If something today resonated with you, make sure you take action because that’s where it happens. Eric, thanks for joining us today. It was fun.
Eric Demers:
Thanks for having me, Saul.
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