Today’s episode is paid content from our feature sponsor, who helps Inside Reproductive Health to deliver information for free, to you! Here, the Advertiser has editorial control. Feature sponsorship is not an endorsement, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Inside Reproductive Health.
In today's episode, we delve into the crucial aspects of selling a fertility practice, egg bank, surrogacy agency, or pharmacy with two industry experts: Dr. Brijinder Minhas and Robert Goodman from MidCap Advisors. MidCap Advisors is a leading middle-market investment bank specializing in the sale and acquisition of fertility centers and other businesses.
Dr. Minhas, a former fertility practice owner and lab director, and Robert Goodman, a seasoned health systems administrator, share their extensive experience in facilitating successful transactions. They provide valuable insights into what buyers are looking for in today’s market and common pitfalls that can impact a sale.
What You’ll Learn:
What buyers seek from fertility businesses in the 2024-2025 landscape.
Essential preparations and potential oversights for practice owners before selling.
An example from Dr. Minhas's own practice sale, highlighting an overlooked issue with accounts receivable/deferred revenue .
Strategies that sellers might inadvertently overlook, which could weaken their negotiation position.
Please note that this episode does not constitute legal advice or establish a consulting relationship. These insights are shared by seasoned professionals who have helped numerous practice owners navigate the complexities of selling their businesses.
Griffin
P.S. If you’re going to ASRM and think you might sell your practice, this is someone you want to talk to. Here’s Bob’s email.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Robert Goodman: Because you're giving up leverage. You have no leverage in that case. You're competing against yourself. You're leaving money on the table. You're leaving deal structure on the table. You're not going to have a good outcome
[00:00:08] Announcer: Today's episode is paid content from our feature sponsor, who helps Inside Reproductive Health to deliver information for free to you. Here, the advertiser has editorial control. Feature sponsorship is not an endorsement and does not necessarily reflect the views of Inside Reproductive Health.
[00:00:26] Griffin Jones: Millions of dollars and your legacy with your patients and employees are on the line if you're thinking of selling your fertility practice or your egg bank or your surrogacy agency or your pharmacy. So I brought on two people that have helped many practice owners sell their practice, many business owners sell their businesses, and one of them was a fertility practice owner and sold his own.
He was a lab director and practice owner for decades.
The other was a practice administrator, health systems administrator for many decades.
They're Dr. Brijinder Minhas and Robert Goodman from MidCap Advisors. MidCap is a middle market investment bank that services fertility centers and other businesses on the sell side of a merger or acquisition.
Brijinder gives us an idea of what buyers are looking for from fertility businesses in a 2024 2025 world. Each of them get into specifics about what practices have to have in order before they sell, and where practice owners might think they're prepared, but something's been overlooked.
Brijinder gives an example of something that he thought that he had on lock, an example from the sale of his own practice.
That turned into something that his advisors help him catch.
An example coming from accounts payable.
Bob shares examples of strategies that sellers overlook that give their negotiation leverage away.
Nothing in this episode is legal advice.
Nothing is consulting that establishes a business relationship.
These are just insights from two seasoned experts.
I take conflicts of interest very seriously, so you should know that I have a financial relationship with MidCap Advisors. Part of the reason I like their model is because they have skin in the game. They do not charge any fee until and when a transaction is completed.
You might take advantage of that. If you're not going to ASRM or if you're listening to this episode after ASRM 2024, you might reach out to Bob and Brijinder for a chat. If you are going to ASRM 2024, take advantage of the timing. We'll link to Bob and Brijinder emails and put buttons in the places where this podcast episode is delivered.
Or go to midcapadvisors. com or find Bob and Brijinder on LinkedIn or just ask me and I'll make the introduction.
But my suggestion, whatever you do, do not sell your fertility practice or any fertility business without first talking to these guys.
The upside could be massive.
And the downside is 20 minutes gone at ASRM.
Enjoy this conversation about mistakes to avoid when selling a fertility practice or any fertility business with Dr. Brijinder Minhas and Robert Goodman from MidCap Advisors.
[00:02:46] Griffin Jones: Dr. Minhas, Brijinder, Mr. Goodman, Bob, welcome to each of you to the Inside Reproductive Health podcast.
[00:02:53] Robert Goodman: Thanks, Griffin. It's great to see you.
[00:02:55] Brijinder S Minhas: Thank you, Griffin. Wonderful being here.
[00:02:58] Griffin Jones: You have both seen a lot of deals in the fertility space, both working in them and observing the market over the past few years. Let's start from just what's happening in the market. What's happened in the last year or so that might be different from previous years? What's the state of the marketplace in terms of fertility business transaction?
[00:03:21] Brijinder S Minhas: There's been a lot of consolidation in the fertility industry. Number of deals done in the last year are pretty much on track compared to the previous year. Consolidation has been not only in the clinical arena, but it's also happening in the suppliers of equipment and disposables utilized in the fertility industry. I think Griffin, you've been highlighting that as well with your IVF heroes. , if we take a broader perspective, the fertility clinic is a fully boiled machine that performs really only as good as the various contributors, namely the REIs, the embryologists, the nurses, the medical assistants and the admin. visit a fertility clinic. With the goal of walking out with a healthy baby, hopefully sooner than later, nine months, nine months to a year. IVF really is the most effective therapy that leads to a baby And IVF therapy is expensive.
There is a shortage of REIs and embryologists. Demand of services is greater than supply. And hence, this makes it a very fertile ground for private equity interest.
[00:04:43] Griffin Jones: We haven't seen consolidation slow down. I would have thought that after 2022 or 2023, maybe we would have seen less mergers and acquisitions because fewer, bigger practices to buy, but is that not been the case?
[00:05:01] Robert Goodman: I think what we've seen, Griffin, is that a lot of the larger practices, yes, have been acquired, been merged. Not all of them, but a lot of them. And I think there's been a lot of attention paid to some of the smaller practices. That's some areas of interest for us. We think that's, for the large part, where some of the new opportunities are, and so we focused a little bit of our attention in that arena, where it's one doc, two docs, three doc kinds of practices, and I think what we've seen with respect to the buyers, provided equity back platform companies, is that some of them have opened their eyes to that as a market for future growth as well, and whether they look at them as add ons to, existing practices they might have in the general area, or they look at them as, new geographies for growth opportunities.
It falls into both of those categories.
[00:05:58] Griffin Jones: What's going on the buyer side? Are they being more selective? Are they going back on LOIs ever? Are they revising deal estimates. What's happening to them?
[00:06:09] Robert Goodman: The buyers are, being cautious, I think everybody's being cautious. The interest rates, although we've recently heard from the Fed that, that the rates are going to maybe start coming down that has had an impact on, borrowing power and that sort of thing.
So that's helped to slow a few things down but that's starting to loosen up. There's definitely still a lot of dry powder out there and, one of the things that we try to do is present as all humanly possible on our end, a clean practice that can withstand the rigors of due diligence so that when we have an LOI that we think on behalf of our client is a solid one, that it can stand up to, again, the rigors of due diligence, and that shouldn't change theoretically. That shouldn't change the terms of the deal. , obviously, that's not going to always be the case and so we have to remain diligent in how we manage expectations of our clients and of the buyers.
[00:07:10] Griffin Jones: Tell me about what it is that you two guys do.
[00:07:13] Robert Goodman: I'm both involved on the
Client acquisition side of it, as well as the relationship development on a continuing and ongoing basis. Play that role, I always have, because life is about relationships and I enjoy that. For the most part that's where I sit at the outset with respect to going through the process of getting a deal done, there's a lot of relationship and hand holding and other kinds of things that take place and we both tend to do that sort of thing.
[00:07:47] Brijinder S Minhas: We both have been operators all our lives, operators, owners so I think my role is again on the relationship side as well as having a deeper knowledge of the, and inner workings of a fertility practice, having been a partner for 20 plus years that I can walk through a practice and fairly get a good idea of, what's what, what's really going on. Bob and I don't get too deep into the number crunching. We leave that to the quants in our group who are much better at that, but we're a team of four professionals that are operating in the fertility space.
[00:08:38] Robert Goodman: Brijinder. He is being modest. He's been in the fertility industry a long time. He knows a lot of people and his ability to open doors and make connections and that sort of thing because of that experience is extraordinary. And let alone the credibility that he gives us.
As investment bankers, to having someone with his qualifications on our team those are great attributes.
[00:09:04] Griffin Jones: Brijinder, you owned a practice, didn't you? You
were an owner in a practice
as the lab director, is that right?
[00:09:11] Brijinder S Minhas: Yes I was owner, I was lab director and chief operating officer. In a partnership, with my partner, and for a long time. Covered the science, the clinical, and the operation and the business side of things as well keen eye to the P&L, to make sure that we were on the right track.
[00:09:32] Griffin Jones: You know what those things in the P& L really mean, because that was your P& L for a long time.
[00:09:41] Brijinder S Minhas: Absolutely. Yeah.
[00:09:42] Griffin Jones: Can you give me some examples of common mistakes that practice owners make when they're getting ready to sell?
[00:09:50] Robert Goodman: First of all, you need to have your house in order. And not having it in order, and I'll describe what that means in a second, I think that's a common mistake, and having your house in order means that you know your numbers, you know what your expenses are, you know how money's being spent you know your clinical data.
And that whole plethora of things, you understand it and it's not just left to some administrative person on your staff and an accountant who you talk to once a year. So I think that's really important and a sometimes a common mistake. And I think more true probably in smaller practices because capturing new patients, you're working with new patients, you're doing all the cycles and retrievals, etc.,
etc., and you're trying to run the business at the same time. Very difficult to do. Doctors haven't traditionally been trained in business and in being entrepreneurs, which is what these practice owners are.
So you can't blame them for that. I think some of the other things is that you need to be realistic.
About a whole variety of things, some of which you don't necessarily fully understand and can often manifest itself in when we start to talk about earnings before taxes and interest to taxes, depreciation, amortization, EBITDA, the phrase that everyone knows, and that's The the value of a practice.
And then how that dovetails with the multiples that are being paid by what the market dictates. And there are a lot of folks that don't understand completely what those things mean and how they interact with one another, and that's our role, is to help them understand all that. And to help them become realistic about what their expectations are.
And sometimes they're way out of whack from what the reality is, and sometimes, most of the time they're not. Most of the time they're really looking to really understand better what they're talking about. But also, we've run into a lot of physicians who have been through this process a couple of times, had failed circumstances for any one of a number of reasons but they do know what EBITDA is, they do know how multiples work And that sort of thing
[00:12:04] Griffin Jones: Meaning they
had tried to do for their current business and they hadn't gone through?
[00:12:09] Robert Goodman: Yeah, that's happened, I think along the lines of common mistakes, is that, going this alone without an advisor that really understands these deal structures and how to make these things work, I think that's one of the issues, and why.
Deals fall apart. Not the only reason. But that's certainly one of the reasons. And you don't maximize your value. You're leaving something on the table because you don't have any leverage,
[00:12:35] Griffin Jones: And
Is that when these deals fall apart? That someone thinks that they have something in order that shows a higher valuation for the practice and then the buyer sees it a different way? Is that what's happening when the deals don't end up going through after an LOI is signed?
[00:12:55] Brijinder S Minhas: Yeah, The age old saying is that you can't always control your revenue, but you can always control your expenses. Revenue minus expenses gives you your profitability, which leads to everything else. It leads to your EBITDA and to , what turns you're going to get and what the enterprise value is going to look like. To add one more thing to what Bob said is having a realistic expectation of what your worth is, in the marketplace is very important because differences between expectations and reality can cause some heartache, it is our role, it is our job to bridge that gap and, bring the client clinic closer to reality. Not just closer, but to reality, and execute on the deal.
[00:13:57] Griffin Jones: I want to ask about what having one's house in order really looks like, because just phrased that way, most practice owners would say, of course my house is in order. So specifically, what do you mean by that?
[00:14:10] Brijinder S Minhas: Practices that have strong, Quality control programs and constantly are monitoring their expenses, their revenue, the employee satisfaction, and provide patient centric care with excellent clinical outcomes are much easier to get ready for sale. They're basically ready, if those things lacking? It takes a lot of work to get them to that point, someone who hasn't focused on their outcomes on a constant basis, constant improvement, getting that implantation rate up, up, you you want to be in the , top 5 percent in the country, and in reality, what we see is that folks that are doing really well clinically. The reason they're doing that clinically is because it's the intense focus. And if they have that focus on the clinical outcomes, there usually is focus on other aspects of it. Just for an example, you cannot run a practice with good outcomes, good patient satisfaction, and have unhappy employees, come through. It just won't work. So you see how these monitoring of all these things really is the key metric that one needs
[00:15:41] Griffin Jones: did you discover? I imagine that when you sold your practice that there were things that you thought you really had a handle on, but when you got to the process, there might have been something you discovered that, no, this is something we need to improve or get a much better handle on. If I'm not assuming too much, what was that?
[00:16:02] Brijinder S Minhas: In our own experience, the biggest shock. Was when we finally came to the true up and everything, there were balances out there 50, 75, 100, When, after due diligence came out, that was owed to patients, or owed to the insurance company back.
And suddenly coming up with a big chunk of money was a rude awakening and embarrassing, think you're really on top of things, but that due diligence is a tough process, and that's our job at MidCap is to make sure that we find this stuff ahead of time and it's not once the deal is coming to, close that the other side's due diligence finds it.
[00:16:52] Griffin Jones: Who helped you find that?
[00:16:55] Brijinder S Minhas: Scott, our managing director, he's, really the one who, Cape, looked at that and then it was sorted out. It was sorted out,
[00:17:05] Griffin Jones: I don't know if we established this earlier in the conversation, but when you sold your practice, you did not work for MidCap Advisors at the time.
[00:17:12] Brijinder S Minhas: Scott Yoder and Bob Goodman were our investment bankers. After we sold Scott and Bob came to me and said what do you want to do now? And I said, I haven't figured that out yet. So they said we're going to turn you into an investment banker. So that was it. And so it's been, two, two and a half years now. So a new career for me after being on the bench for, 35 years, making thousands and thousands of babies.
[00:17:43] Griffin Jones: And as an example of something that even though you had a lot of experience and you thought that was something that you had locked down, something that someone else can help you find if they know what they're looking for Tell me more about what buyers are looking for now, Bob.
What things are they looking for in terms of key financial metrics? What do they walk away from?
[00:18:05] Robert Goodman: I think they really look at the key clinical metrics. Success rates and things like that, I think that's a big part of it, even up front, even though you think they're always finance, they're always looking at the financials, they're not.
With respect to the financial KPIs, it runs the gamut of, , cash collections and, maintaining certain benchmarks with respect to that charge capture clean claim and denial rates when we're talking about third party payers, and especially in the states, days outstanding and receivables bad debt bad debt rate benchmarks and things like that pretty traditional kinds of things that you would see in any sort of practice.
[00:18:49] Brijinder S Minhas: The other thing that the buyers are really looking for is an upward growth trajectory, your performance. In all aspects it's going up, you're seeing more new patients, you're doing more procedures, there's a growth trend. They're always looking for a growth trend.
[00:19:08] Robert Goodman: Yeah, and when we were doing this post, during COVID, primarily post COVID, we, we'd want to say, all right, let us see what were your numbers before, through 2019. Let's somewhat ignore 2020. And what's it look like 2021 2022, and did you recover from, if you will having been closed in many instances for a period of time?
Did you recover from that and where are the projections going? , we're past all that now, to a large extent but that was certainly a factor, and we also factored in those days too the PPP money and that sort of thing, but,
[00:19:50] Griffin Jones: has been had on this show before if people should be continuing to make sure that, new patient numbers are still going
up or if they should take their foot off the gas a little bit more because it's too late to make those investments.
how do you view it?
[00:20:05] Brijinder S Minhas: No, I think the upward trajectory is important because it really shows the buyer that, you've kept your eye on everything. And you're working hard. the desire is to work hard. You're seeing more patients, you're doing more procedures, and then think of it. The buyer can come in with a larger infrastructure with more capital and can help you grow further. That's the best side of it.
[00:20:36] Robert Goodman: usually better marketing and being able to reach to a broader audience, perhaps, and that sort of thing, or come up with some unique maybe financing strategies for patients who are paying cash. Those kinds of things can come out of that sort of, the think tank of the buyer, so to speak.
And best practices, when you start to have conversations with, whether it's REIs at the other practices, or your practice manager with the other practice managers, they all face the same kinds of things, and some have overcome a lot of those things and have got some great and unique stories about how to make that stuff work.
[00:21:12] Griffin Jones: If
people aren't going to ASRM 2024, or if they are listening to this episode after ASRM 2024, then they could always do a phone call or a video meeting with you both, but If people are listening to this and going to ASRM before it happens this year, then maybe they could meet with you for a little bit of time. What do you usually talk about when you meet with someone for the very first time? Is it just getting to know you? what's that conversation usually like?
[00:21:47] Robert Goodman: It's definitely getting to know you because again, as we said earlier, this is very much a relationship based kind of thing, and so you need to try to establish a relationship. You look for things in common, people in common, perhaps certain other experiences perhaps in common and then we want to know , why are you talking to us?
What is it you're looking for? What are your goals? What are your objectives? And if there are things that we can help them with, that's great. So maybe there's opportunity. , and we do talk about , the reality of things, the house in order kinds of things.
And if it's more than a one physician or one REI practice. We want to make sure that all the REIs have the same mindset about what the next direction is. Because the worst thing that can happen, and we had this happen not in a fertility transaction, but in another one, and there were four owners, and everybody was on the same page, allegedly, up front.
And as we were getting closer and closer to close, one of them just went haywire and it almost cratered the deal. And there were a couple of tweaks that were made, and that person was satisfied, I guess is a good word, and so we were able to get the deal closed. So having everybody on the same page is important , as well.
[00:23:13] Griffin Jones: So that helps to engage early because it takes a while to get people on the same page sometimes. Are those conversations really only fruitful if someone is dead sure that they're going to sell their practice? Is it a waste of time if they're on the fence or they're thinking, maybe that's something I do three years out, four or five years out?
[00:23:36] Robert Goodman: No it's never a waste of time from our perspective. We're patient bankers. And so all that means is , we need to stay in touch. We need to keep involved. We need to understand, what are their hot buttons?
at what point When they reach, what kinds of milestones for themselves might they be ready to do it? And so we continue to stay in, in touch with them and maybe educate them to some degree. The way we work by the way, is we only get paid when a transaction closes.
We don't charge upfront retainers. We don't charge monthly fees. And so it becomes very important to us that we have very committed people to a transaction who at the end of the day makes it worthwhile for us to do this, because we do this work for free, so to speak
[00:24:31] Griffin Jones: And that's
not the case for everyone, is it? Because I had one practice owner tell me that they had some sell side representation from an investment banker that they were not particularly happy with and felt that they had paid that person quite a bit already and that there was a sunk cost.
So that isn't the case that people are only paid upon a successful sale Is it?
[00:24:56] Robert Goodman: that's correct. We've seen other deals presented by, common competitors of ours, where there's an upfront retainer, there's monthly fees, and then there's a success fee on top of that. And in a couple of instances, some businesses, those upfront fees and monthly fees get credited towards the ultimate success fee.
And others, it's, you add them all together. And but that's just not how we work. MidCap Advisors has been around for close to 25 years. We've done five, six billion dollars worth of business. Healthcare is just one of our verticals. Maybe not the newest, but close to it. That's just been the company philosophy.
[00:25:40] Griffin Jones: Tell me about some more of the lessons that you've learned doing these process. Brijinder gave the example of his own practice. Bob, you gave an example of someone that was outside of the sector but could have just as easily been in the fertility space. What are some other lessons that you've learned either from doing deals in the fertility space or they are similar enough that could have Just as easily happened in the fertility space that each of you have learned over the years.
[00:26:12] Robert Goodman: It was a surgery center in this case and they were doing very poorly, and I was brought in by an attorney who I knew, who represented me in a company that I was a part owner of and we had just sold it, and, and I said, thank you to me, He got me involved with this and what we found was that the partners, in one case it was a management company, in another case it was the doctors, they couldn't get along at all and it was going downhill fast and I worked with a lawyer who was a workout attorney, bankruptcy attorney. Doctor said it was the management company's fault, the management company said it was the doctor's fault, and then within the doctor group, they were fighting among each other, and they were, they broke up, and whatever. It was just a mess. Can that happen here? Yeah, it could. It certainly could.
[00:27:05] Griffin Jones: What's the moral of the story, Bob? What's the lesson learned there?
[00:27:09] Robert Goodman: The lesson learned is that you keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
[00:27:14] Brijinder S Minhas: I think balanced expectations and an understanding of how life is going to change post transaction is really important and it is necessary to prepare someone for a smooth transaction. From being an owner to becoming an employee. It's a mindset change.
It's a philosophical change, and you have to be ready for that,
[00:27:40] Griffin Jones: how did you prepare for that?
[00:27:42] Brijinder S Minhas: I did not have much trauma thanks to Bob and Scott because the day I walked out. I was working with Bob and Scott doing deals.
[00:27:54] Griffin Jones: To think about what you want to do next? Is that part of preparing for the transition?
[00:28:00] Brijinder S Minhas: Absolutely. Being the boss and calling the shots is very different than someone telling you what to do, one's got to then keep one's ego in check when you join a much bigger group and someone's going to tell you, hey, this is the direction we're going to take.
[00:28:17] Robert Goodman: I think another element to this is when you're in a larger group and you've got older physicians and younger physicians, the older physicians, tend to view this as an exit strategy and the buyers want to understand how much time are you willing to commit to this in transition. Until we have to find another REI or whatever it might be.
And then on the younger physician's side, and they don't have to be part of the same transaction, I think there's just a comment about the younger ones are saying I'm not looking at this as an exit strategy, I'm only 48 years old or whatever and so the dynamic is different in terms of what they're looking for and they say to themselves, is this a company that I can grow with in some way, shape, or form?
Do I want to? And, what do I want? You begin to rethink what your career goals are, if you will. And I think that's always important. And we try to spend time with everybody. To understand those things, because at the end of the day, we've got a deal, everybody's agreed to the terms and we're in the documentation stage and the lawyers are working and creating documents, we're in the middle of that as well, not only helping to review the documents from a business standpoint and a consistency with the letter of intent but we're also involved with negotiating the employment agreements
The spirit of those terms , that our doctors are looking for getting those codified in these agreements. And so that's, important for us. 'cause a doctor who's 65, who's gonna stick around for five more years his or her agreement is gonna look a little different than the guy that's 48 and .
Their career is not ending in five years as an REI or someone involved in the fertility industry.
[00:29:57] Griffin Jones: What strategies for improving practice evaluation, particular ones, do you find are often overlooked?
[00:30:06] Robert Goodman: I'm going to answer that in a self serving way. you use an advisor, and there have been studies done on this, so this isn't us making this up. If you use an advisor, you have the advantage of making it a competitive process so that you, by yourself, aren't negotiating with just one potential buyer.
Because you're giving up leverage. You have no leverage in that case. You're competing against yourself. You're leaving money on the table. You're leaving deal structure on the table. You're not going to have a good outcome. and working with folks like us that represent you and based on our compensation arrangement where we don't get paid until the end, until the deal closes, our interests are completely aligned where the more money you get, the more money we make and, it's not just about money because we want to make sure that as best we can that the right operators that are buying your practice, if you will are the ones you can get along the best with.
And you talked a little bit about this before Griffin one of the things that we do is we hold management meetings and we do our best and insist that the people who are going to be helping , you, To run your practice, not necessarily a day-to-Day person on site. 'cause that's usually someone that stays in place.
But someone who's your day-to-day regional manager, for example. Or we have those people involved and we make sure that we marry those two together, the practice owners with those people so that they know who they're getting and so they can see who they're gonna work with on day one for the transition and everything else.
We're going to work with you to hone your your profitability, to hone your EBITDA, and to work through a process such that we're going to, in all likelihood, improve your true tradable EBITDA.
And it's been shown in studies that working with advisors like us, and I don't mean business brokers, I'm talking about real investment bankers like us, is that we can increase your EBITDA by as much as 25 percent by working with us there are certain expenses that buyers aren't going to get, or there are certain, you may be compensating yourself dramatically, and it's way over market, and so we pull that back And that gets into the bottom line and improves the EBITDA.
The other thing we do because of the competitive process where we're, at least at the outset talking to five, six, seven, eight different buyers, we're often in a position to, at the end of the day, compare and contrast one versus another. And sometimes, and many times, the multiples, instead of being an eight or a nine, might 8 1/2 or 9 1/2 or even 10.
And so we improve on that. Again, there have been studies that show that.
[00:33:02] Griffin Jones: What would you add as strategies that are often overlooked?
[00:33:06] Brijinder S Minhas: I buyers come in different flavors, and when I say different flavors, not every platform, not every buyer has the same sort of modus operandi or how intrusive they're going to be in your practice, how much they're going to want to change. One thing that they all want to change, basically, is they want to get their network on the same EMR. And the reason for that is Data so if they've got 20 clinics on the platform, then they can easily co mingle that data and with, this is the age of AI, big data that can lead to a lot of improvement.
There is no perfect EMR, We, as practitioners, we all have struggled, until you get really comfortable and fluent with the EMR. And the very thought that, here you're going to do a transaction and, you're going to, six months down the road, you're going to have a new EMR that usually does cause a hit to productivity, because it slows you down, and then some other platforms, want other changes or more intrusive changes. So it's very important that the seller and the buyer have a fairly good idea of what those changes post transaction are going to look like, you may not want to go with, just because someone is offering you more money, But, once it totally remodel your life, practice is your life, it's going to remodel your life, you may not want to do that. And that's also where we come in and say, hey, from our experience, this is the trademark of this organization and this is the way they go are you comfortable with
[00:34:56] Griffin Jones: Not having an advisor during a process like this. This sounds like trying to sell a house without a real estate agent or trying to defend yourself in court without a defense attorney. It sounds and we know how well each of those examples go. I will say with regard to you. The relationship building is, now that we are engaged, not in selling my business, but just through the marketing that we do on Inside Reproductive Health, that didn't happen overnight either, and I think both of you were very good at building a relationship. We've known each other for At least a year, maybe closer to two, I don't know exactly
how long, but it's always been about building the relationship, I never felt like you were trying to sell me, I never felt like you were trying to convince me of things just, you're both good at it. I'm not at actually investing in a relationship and it cost me nothing to say that. If people want to meet with you at ASRM or if they're not going ASRM or they're listening to this afterward and they want to get on a call or a Zoom with you, are you okay with me sharing your E mail addresses in, in the page that this goes out, in the e mails that this goes out.
Are you okay with me doing it? People can always also ask me to make an introduction, and I will if they're more comfortable with that, but would you be alright with that, with people reaching out to you?
[00:36:18] Robert Goodman: yes yeah, Email addresses and cell phone numbers are fine.
[00:36:22] Brijinder S Minhas: cell phones.
[00:36:24] Robert Goodman: And you have both of our cell phone numbers too.
[00:36:30] Griffin Jones: so if people want those, they can get a hold of me, but Bob and Brijinder, I hope people take advantage of that. It makes a lot of sense, too. And there's no downside to it especially if they're going to ASRM, or it's about that time.
I look forward to having both of you back on the program and digging into some of these topics even more. Thank you both for coming on the Inside Reproductive Health podcast.
[00:36:55] Robert Goodman: Thank you,Griffin.
[00:36:57] Announcer: Today's episode is paid content from our feature sponsor, who helps Inside Reproductive Health to deliver information for free to you. Here, the advertiser has editorial control. Feature sponsorship is not an endorsement and does not necessarily reflect the views of Inside Reproductive Health.
