Transcript
David Ezeobinwa (00:00) hey, Stephanie. How you doing? You’re on mute by the way, if you are speaking?
Neil Sullivan (00:09) I am. Yes, I am. I was on mute. I am not, I am no longer on mute?
David Ezeobinwa (00:15) Hey, Neil. How you doing?
Neil Sullivan (00:18) Good. How are you, David?
David Ezeobinwa (00:19) I’m doing pretty good. Appreciate it. How was the week?
Neil Sullivan (00:24) It’s going well. Yeah, it’s getting warmer. So that’s good. How about you? How’s your week going?
David Ezeobinwa (00:31) Nice so far? So good. Monday, of course. But yeah, pretty, I’m in Texas. So, yeah, we’re pretty much at the point right before it hits like 100 degrees. I was.
Neil Sullivan (00:40) Going to say you don’t have much of a spring in Texas, do you? It’s like winter and then summer?
David Ezeobinwa (00:46) Yeah, pretty much winter less hot.
Neil Sullivan (00:51) Yeah. Whereabouts in Texas?
David Ezeobinwa (00:53) I’m in Austin right now. Yeah. Oh.
Neil Sullivan (00:55) Well, very cool. I have been to Austin once… that’s kind of a hotspot these days, a lot of startups, a lot of exciting stuff happening in Austin for sure.
David Ezeobinwa (01:06) Exactly. Yep. It’s how I found myself a medallion. We’re a startup. So, yeah, a lot of great stuff going a lot of great food. So, yeah, I enjoy being here. Cool. Yeah, but yeah, no, cool.
Neil Sullivan (01:19) Well, we had, I reached out to you because I briefly, I was at so quick introduction. My name is Neil director of revenue, cycle management here at dentology. I’ll go on mute and let Stephanie introduce herself real quick.
David Ezeobinwa (01:38) Oh, I think Stephanie, you’re connecting to audio. Okay. You’re good now? Oh, Neil, are you hearing her for some reason? I’m not.
Neil Sullivan (01:52) I’ll it’s… your laptop, giving you problems. Okay?
David Ezeobinwa (01:58) Okay. I’ll just.
Neil Sullivan (01:59) Use mine. I can hear you. So I’m the front end manager for RCM. Okay?
David Ezeobinwa (02:08) Perfect.
David Ezeobinwa (02:09) I appreciate that. Yeah, just introducing myself. My name is David I’m on the partnerships team here at medallion. So kind of just having these type of conversations, prospective customers, people interested in learning a little bit more about medallion and, you know, how it could potentially fit into their organization. Yeah, just the main purpose for this call. I know it’s only 15 minutes but it’s really just a needs assessment kind of just getting a better understanding of your organization. And then from there kind of like, hey, this is something that, you know, does medallion make sense for you? You know, at this moment? And then from there, we’ll get, you know, for sure scheduled with additional calls, potential demos, pricing, they’ll get you all that down there. But yeah, this call just needs assessment. So, yeah, I was just kind of curious like kind of what is pushing you to take this call now? Sure?
Neil Sullivan (02:53) So a little bit about dentology, you know, to kind of I guess set that up. We’re a 17 location dso. Right now, we’ve kind of hit the pause button for 20 26 to just wrap up some operational to do’s before we hit the gas pedal again in 20 27 adding more locations. So a high growth dso. We are at 50, well at the height where we filter between say high forties and mid fifties in terms of provider count. But as we grow and as we scale, we’re looking at several solutions for our credentialing right now, we use a company called unitas, you’ve probably heard maybe heard of them. I don’t know. But unitas is a, you know, they follow more of a bpo paradigm in terms of like assisting, you know, assisting providers with their contracting credentialing, all that sort of thing. We’re looking at several options we’re looking at… delegated credentialing with a company called fluent that’s on the delegated side. So it’s a little bit of a different, you know, a little bit of a different animal there. But we’re exploring options that’s kind of like the call it tier one of what we’re looking at tier two is like, okay, well, let me look around it and full disclosure. I used medallion when I was at tend dental for a little while. Thomas Merritt, who’s the VP of RCM there at tend, you know, moved to your platform for a little bit. Some of the options I’m exploring along with you guys. And like modio, you know, some of the others in the space medallion modio is like, okay, tier two would be if we keep the contracting credentialing in house? What are some of the solutions out there that could make that a more efficient and better process not just for the dso but for the providers themselves, automated reach out and cadences with like, okay, we need this from you automated reminders, being able to reach out to, you know, just get their caqh login and get all the information they have, reach out to state agencies and pull in licenses and things where the software can do it. And that way when we do reach out to a provider, we’re just asking for the things we need, not the things that we are, that we’re already able to get electronically. And so we’ll call that kind of the tier two of the solution we’re looking at. And so that’s really, I guess kind of the basis for why we’re reaching out is we know that as we scale. Our onboarding and credentialing and contracting processes isn’t scalable right now. It’s very manual, very bpo oriented. There’s not a live dashboard, you know, unitas sends us, they send us updates weekly. Stephanie has heard me, heard my ire about the color coded PDF that we get every week that I’m just like, you know, so like real time dashboards, you know, really making this process efficient is kind of where we’re at.
David Ezeobinwa (06:15) Yeah, no, 100 percent that’s a, great feedback and insight. Anil, definitely we’re going to get you away from that excel spreadsheet. But yeah, no, that’s perfect. I’m just also curious like, so, what does the process look like today? Is it mainly just through that unitas or is there kind of like a, you know, a secondary thing kind of going on?
Neil Sullivan (06:37) Very much. So, it’s very much for me. It’s it’s disjointed, and it ultimately, so the credentialing and the contracting piece does ultimately wind up with unitas. It’s very disjointed, right now, it starts with, our recruitment team. We recruit, say a dentist, we sign the paperwork to onboard them. The recruiter will initially reach out and say, well, we need this documentation by X date. And then it goes to a person right now in finance that is actually getting and managing all that documentation. And, you know, folders in onedrive on in Microsoft, you know, like their liability insurance, their state license, it’s passed off to, that person gets all that information. But at the same time, we start like the packet with, unitas will also reach out for all of that sort of stuff. But I think that’s where it’s disjointed to me. And that’s my question for the org. It’s like who’s the owner? Is it unitas? Is it, you know, the person in finance that does this? Is it the recruiter? In other words, who’s I’m sorry to be so blunt about it. But if things don’t work out who’s the ass in the sling at the end of the day to say, hey, what happened with this onboarding experience? And so that’s when I say it’s disjointed that’s really what the process is. It starts in recruitment. We ask for some documents, there, it goes to finance. They ask for some more documents and then it goes to unitas and they’re asking for more documents and it’s like, okay, well, that’s not really a process that’s not really a clear owner. That just kind of sets it up for, well, I asked for it, but Chauncey said she asked for it too and they said they gave it to Chauncey, but when Chauncey got, it wasn’t what we needed.
Neil Sullivan (08:31) So we had to reach out back out to the provider because Chauncey told us something that wasn’t and it’s like, yeah, anyway, you get where I’m driving with it. So that’s kind of the process that we have today.
David Ezeobinwa (08:41) Gotcha. No, 100 percent. That makes sense. Yeah, something honestly we typically hear as organizations are like kind of growing to a certain point in scaling. It’s like, hey, we’re using this. Maybe we’re having someone follow up here, follow up there and, it’s just not making sense.
Neil Sullivan (08:56) So,
David Ezeobinwa (08:57) that’s kind of where they start kind of looking like, hey can, who can kind of own it? As you said, like actually, you know, to take ownership, actually commit to like outcomes. Yeah, we see that medallion. And I have one more question and I’ll kind of give you a bit more detail. I know you used it previously on medallion, but I was curious like you’re currently at 50 providers or you’re scaling to 50? And then also how much do you foresee yourself like adding in terms of provider count and like within like I guess the next year or so?
Neil Sullivan (09:26) Currently at we’re currently, let’s just call it 50. Like I said, that’s where it kind of fluctuates between the high forties and low fifties at any given point in time. So we’re currently at 50. We’re always, you know, I would say throughout the course of this next year, like we’ve got to add at the very least, we’ve got to add seven more providers because right now, this point of year, we should be net positive four, right now we’re at net negative three, which.
David Ezeobinwa (09:56) means just.
Neil Sullivan (09:57) right now, in March baseline, we’ve got to add seven more providers. And then throughout the year, you know, we’re probably looking at 10 more providers. So I’d say through 20 26. We’re looking at like, you know, call it 12 to 17 providers. And then when we start adding new locations in our new market, you know, we’re adding 20 30 more throughout the course of the year.
Neil Sullivan (10:20) Then you’ve got the re, credentialing piece. You’ve got the constant turnover and I think, you know, of course, this isn’t my first rodeo. And one of the things, that I’ve learned is that it surprises people at which point it becomes unmanageable when you do it, you know, just manually exactly. It sounds like, well, it’s only 15 providers. I should be able to do this. The office manager should be able to do this and it’s like, no, it gets to that point a lot quicker than people think it does.
David Ezeobinwa (10:50) Exactly exactly. I would agree with you. I would agree with you there. And then, I was also curious, lastly, just payers, like how many payers are these providers like, you know, enrolled with… it’s? A rough number eight or seven that.
Neil Sullivan (11:05) We’re in network with, we do a combination of direct contract and umbrella contracts. So we like umbrella, we have connection zealous, and then direct, we have cigna, all the deltas, blue cross, blue shield of Illinois, unitedhealthcare principal, you know, so call it Aetna, you know, call it eight eight nine. I think direct contracts. Okay. So, yeah, yeah.
David Ezeobinwa (11:34) No, that makes sense. I appreciate all the information thus far and I guess just diving into medallion, I would say it’s kind of literally everything you’re listing like, we take that over. So medallion, we have a unique approach in the sense that we’re software and services. So in the sense of like you’re going to be able to house all your provider data and information in one house that’s like, you know, if you have 50 providers, all 50, you’ll be able to house them in that one data management platform and have visibility into what’s going on. So, you see statuses, expirables, tracking, pull, reports, you can create custom reports. So a whole number of things within there. And then we kind of approach in the sense of like, hey, we’re going to take this on help you take this on you’re running strategy. So like you literally just have to have maybe a person to kind of manage the, oversee the strategy and like manage things. They’ll be able to go through the medallion platform, click on what they need to like, hey, we need X amount of providers enrolled here, X amount there or, you know, so on and so forth. And just send that over. And then medallion team in the background takes that on and takes that over for and that’s across a 900 payers across the us. They have processes mapped out, that allow us to get people enrolled. And, you know, recredentialed on a very efficient manner. And that also comes with our contract to outcome. So we’re slaing essentially in our contract saying, hey, we’re going to get this credentialing done in X amount of days.
David Ezeobinwa (12:57) We’re going to get this PE submission done in X amount of days. We’re going to get, you know, par status, you know, X amount of days. So that’s kind of where our approach kind of comes with it. And that’s with a number of also things like AI and automation too. Like we have phone call follow ups, AI, you know, AI, phone call follow ups. We have, you know, direct, you know, contacts with payers and being able to push things forward as needed. And we also help with delegation as well. So, you know, there’s a number of things you’d be able to if you want to work on delegation, we help you get that set up. We take on that, you know, I know it’s I know it is a task to get delegated, but we’d help you take that on. Yeah, and get you down to, that delegation piece which is crucial overall if you’re talking time to bill overall, you know, one day versus X amount of days it’s taking, you know, across a number of payers. So, for.
Neil Sullivan (13:48) Sure. Yeah. And what is, you know, outside of the delegated piece, you know, just like the traditional contract, what do you typically see as your turnaround time and kind of how do you set your SLA there?
David Ezeobinwa (14:00) Yeah. So turnaround times, we, so it can vary across our average across, you know, all the payers we work with currently is 52 days that’s average across, you know, 900 plus payers, but, you know, obviously it flexes depending on, you know, medicaid versus New York, this and, you know, so on and so forth. So that’s average across all payers. And then from there, it can be tricky with slaing 100 percent to that full turnaround time because a number of factors do come into play, but we do like to, you know, at least push towards our average. It is 52 currently. And then from there, if we’re able to get a list of your payers, and then a list of like, you know, what you’re kind of working with, we can tell you the direct like, hey, we work with these payers. This is what we’re seeing for those eight or nine payers you’re working with right now and kind of like, you know, giving a good idea of where you’d be at with it for those payers. So.
Neil Sullivan (14:49) Yeah. And with the delegated piece, is that something that you, well, I guess I’ll just ask the open ended question if we still want to move towards delegated, what does that look like? And how do you help us through that process? Yeah.
David Ezeobinwa (15:11) So, the process we’d help you through the process of getting delegated. So I know with delegation, they want to see that audit piece, they want to see a certain provider account. They want to see a history. They want to see that you’re working with the cvo which we are. So all those pieces kind of adding up together. And then from there, we’d help you get everything set up. We’d be able to show them that you’re working with the cvo, show them that you have the audit trail, all those types of things. And then help you get the direct access to the payers. There will be some work on your end in terms of speaking to the payers getting certain information. But we’d help you with a large proportion of that setup and those conversations and get you in the right place and what you need to do. So, you know, what you need to do and we’ll take on a large proportion of the actual back end work of send this here, do that there type of thing. Yeah.
Neil Sullivan (16:02) No, that sounds great. And in terms of the, you know, the product itself and kind of the, I guess the capabilities there that make it more efficient, kind of walk us through what that looks like, you know, like what, you know, what agencies do you guys hook up with electronically? How does a product like this like medallion? How does it make it more efficient versus just, you know, filling out paperwork and faxing it in or emailing it?
David Ezeobinwa (16:32) Yeah, 100 percent. So I would say a large even key proportion of it is that initial onboarding piece of like, hey, you just got a new provider. What do we need to do? So we’re we have a special contract with caqh, we have a special integration with them like we’re the only vendor that even has that. And essentially, we’re able to pull that provider data like about 80 percent of it immediately if they have a caqh profile which most providers, at least the younger ones definitely do at this point.
David Ezeobinwa (16:59) And we can pull all that data, get it into the system 80 percent. And then from there, we can task it out. Your team will be able to task it out to them and be like, hey, we need just these couple of pieces. Can you go in and sign in real quick? And, you know, make sure you can upload that. And from there, there’s a number of ways for them to upload it, you know, they can send in a PDF. They can use their phone to scan it and so on and so forth. Just make it, we try to make it as simple as it is for providers to just get it in. So they don’t have to sit there and worry about, I need to fill out a whole 14 page file. And this is a waste of my time type of thing. So that’s a big benefit there. And then from there, we have a number of processes like robotic processing automation, OCR technology that’s you know, being able to check certain websites and pull certain information for that’s oig, Sam, you know, all these organizations making sure, you know, the provider is in good standing for certain things and so on and so forth depending on the state and the information needed. And then from there, that allows us to get a full profile, get a full information. And then from there automation. And like I said, we still have people in place making sure things are correct, things are accurate before submitted. So once things are submitted, from there, you know, automation kicks into place like we have a process, our automation process mapped out. Hey for X payer, let’s say, for example, united for united, we know on this day, this is the best day to follow up. We know on this day, this is the best day to send an email. We know this contact is more likely to pick up or this person is more likely to get us pushing through versus just sitting there and just waiting and hoping and praying that they’ll get back to us, you know, in three months. So that’s kind of what kicks in and allows us to overall turn it around and around that. 52 day mark. So, okay. And.
Neil Sullivan (18:47) if you guys on your end, do you see measurable? One of our pain points is the, I guess getting the providers particularly younger providers to understand why it’s important to get this stuff in timely and what their role is in this?
David Ezeobinwa (19:05) Have you?
Neil Sullivan (19:06) Guys seen an increase in efficiency in the provider getting that information to you or is that still kind of a pain point? You know, regardless of what solution we look at, no.
David Ezeobinwa (19:19) We’ve seen definitely a lot of efficiencies there like that’s. Like I mentioned earlier, that’s one of our biggest points like value points is making it easier for the provider to upload the information or get the information they need into the system. And that’s why we typically see like a one day if less than a day turnaround time of providers getting their information because it’s like, hey, most of this is already pulled. We just need you to check out a couple of things you’re good to go, you know, versus, and they love that honestly from like conversations I’ve had and calls I’ve been on like from people who’ve been able to onboard and implement medallion their providers have seen such a turnaround versus like a piece of paper or a ton of follow ups and it’s just like, you know, they’re not getting to it. They’re not, you know, they’re not responding in time. So just making it seem as smooth as possible is like where we’ve found like that’s just the initial step, you know, that’s just the first step and it’s going to get smooth sailing from there, so.
Neil Sullivan (20:12) Okay, Stephanie, did you have any questions? Nope. Okay. In terms of next steps, I mean, I guess one thing I would love to do is and full disclosure, it’s been years since I’ve logged in or looked at medallion. You know, I’d love to get a rundown and full disclosure. You guys were like a startup whenever we.
David Ezeobinwa (20:33) Were a startup, we definitely were a startup.
Neil Sullivan (20:38) Yeah, I’d love to, you know, kind of get a demonstration of the application itself, you know, get a sense of, you know, just from the outset, you know, at least. So I get a frame of reference like, yeah, and I’m not going to hold you to it. I know that this is not, you know, but just off the shelf pricing. Yeah, you know, if I could just get some sense of what we would be looking at from that perspective and then some kind of walkthrough on the, you know, in the application itself and, you know, that would be a great next step for me. Yeah.
David Ezeobinwa (21:07) No, 100 percent. I’d love to schedule that. A couple of questions for me. Was just, is there anyone else who’d like to be included on that next step? Is there just kind of you and Stephanie kind of running point for this?
Neil Sullivan (21:19) Let’s yeah, it’s Stephanie and I, to begin with. And then as needed, we’ll pull in current slash future stakeholders, you know, as we move through the process.
David Ezeobinwa (21:29) Okay. Yeah. No worries there. And then, and I don’t know if you’re on a timeline kind of thing like is there a timeline you’re working on? Okay?
Neil Sullivan (21:38) As soon as we find the right solution as soon as humanly possible? Okay?
David Ezeobinwa (21:41) Okay, perfect. Okay. Yeah, no, no worries there.
David Ezeobinwa (21:47) Yeah, would love to get you scheduled with the next steps. Let me see what does your calendar kind of look like? Let me see. I.
Neil Sullivan (21:56) Am, you know, honestly, I’m wide open. You know, this may be too soon, but I’m open tomorrow except for two PM… and 10 a M. And then Wednesday, you know, I’m fairly wide open. Probably just pick a time then.
David Ezeobinwa (22:15) Gotcha. Let me, let me just pull up calendars real quick for myself. The account executives. Okay? Wednesday, you said you’re wide open. Okay. And then in terms of next steps, we typically to get pricing, we do a little scope of work. So like, I know we discussed a little bit on this call, but they’ll probably ask you a couple more questions to fully get a full scope on pricing and then probably a couple of little, it would more be like a slightly in depth discovery session. And then from there, they’ll be able to build out and get you that demo as well. So like, yeah, that’s more, it would probably be like a similar session to this for the next step. And then from there, they’ll get you a demo for sure. So, okay. Yeah, how does Wednesday at like, where are you based? By the way? Chicago? Okay, Central Time as well? Okay. How does Wednesday at like two 30 PM work?
Neil Sullivan (23:12) That works. Good for me. Does that work for you? That works for us? Okay?
David Ezeobinwa (23:16) Perfect. I’ll shoot over that invite right now. I’ll add you as well. Do you want to send it to Stephanie or Stephanie? Do I add you to the invite? You?
Neil Sullivan (23:23) Can add her to it? Okay?
David Ezeobinwa (23:25) Okay, perfect. I’ll add you as well. And, yeah, perfect. Two 30 this Wednesday, the first. Yeah, no, looking forward to it. If you have any questions in between then, and now, just let me know. I can answer as best as I can. But yeah, looking forward to the next conversation.
Neil Sullivan (23:41) Thanks. We appreciate it. Thank you.
David Ezeobinwa (23:43) Got you. Thank you so much. You guys have a good rest of your day.
Neil Sullivan (23:45) You too. Bye.