DISCLAIMER: Today’s Advertiser helped make the production and delivery of this episode possible. But the themes expressed by the guests do not necessarily reflect the views of Inside Reproductive Health, nor of the Advertiser. The Advertiser does not have editorial control over the content of this episode, nor does the Advertiser's sponsorship constitute an endorsement of the guest or their organization. The guest's appearance is not an endorsement of the Advertiser.
Since 2019, Inside Reproductive Health has conducted over 220 interviews, featuring prominent physicians and executives from numerous fertility companies.
Among them, nine CEOs continue to lead their respective Fertility Clinic Networks or chair their network’s board.
Together, their networks have overseen an estimated 1.6 million IVF cycles and other reproductive treatments that have resulted in over 2 million pregnancies,
This is an episode you don’t want to miss as we showcase:
Gina Bartasi and the only three things she believes matter in healthcare
Dave Burford sharing his battle-tested sales advice
TJ Farnsworth’s entrepreneurial journey and his perspective on the necessities of field wide collaboration.
Dr. Kshitiz Murdia’s reasoning on why doctors make good CEOs
Marc Segal’s perspective on private equity and its place in Fertility’s future
Francisco Lobbosco’s first 100 days as CEO and the power of listening
David Stern’s steps to finding the right financial partner (Hint: It’s like a marriage)
Lisa Van Dolah’s philosophy of transitioning nurses into executive leadership roles
Andrew Meikle discussing the power of perspective (Both patient & entrepreneur)
Dave Burford, CARE Fertility
Website
Transcript
[00:00:00] Griffin Jones: Since 2019, Inside Reproductive Health has conducted roughly 230 interviews and counting featuring prominent physicians and executives from numerous fertility companies across the world. Among them, nine CEOs continue to lead their respective fertility clinic networks or chair their networks board.
Together, their networks have overseen an estimated 1. 6 million IVF cycles and other reproductive treatments that have resulted in over 2 million estimated pregnancies.
Sponsor: This episode was brought to you by Organon, Organon is committed to championing care equity in fertility. By elevating education, expanding resources, and investing in innovative solutions, Organon stands with aspiring parents on their unique journeys. Learn more at FertilityJourney.com.
Announcer: Today’s Advertiser helped make the production and delivery of this episode possible. But the themes expressed by the guests do not necessarily reflect the views of Inside Reproductive Health, nor of the Advertiser. The Advertiser does not have editorial control over the content of this episode, nor does the Advertiser's sponsorship constitute an endorsement of the guest or their organization. The guest's appearance is not an endorsement of the Advertiser.
[00:00:28] Kevin Ali: Hi, I'm Kevin Ali, CEO of Organon, and at Organon, we're committed to engaging with leaders across reproductive medicine. I'm proud to help introduce the best of Fertility Network's C Suite.
For the Inside Reproductive Health podcast.
[00:00:43] Griffin Jones: Thank you, Kevin. Our best of reel begins with the CEO of Inception Fertility and the Prelude Network, TJ Farnsworth's vision emphasizes the power of collaboration among networks and clinics to advance the fertility field.
[01:00:00]Now you're at the head of one of the largest fertility networks in the Western world, and it didn't exist five years ago, and so talk about that speed.
[00:01:07] TJ Farnsworth: Yeah, so I think that, you know, we opened our very first practice from scratch. We didn't want to inherit, you know, ideas, not that ideas from established practices are bad. We've got some fantastic practices as part of our network that have been around for 20, 25, 30 plus years that bring a ton to the table.
But we wanted the opportunity to be able to experiment with things and ask the questions of why are things being done the way they are? And the answer being that's just the way they're done is always a bad answer. There may be a lot of great answers, but that's just the way it's always been done is never a good one.
So That allowed us to challenge what we can do and experiment. And then we also have the, we look at it as the best of both worlds. And then we have practices as part of Zora Network that have been around for, you know, with Eastern Fertility Specialists in Houston, which was our first acquisition practice.
They've been around for 25 plus years, you know, to the President's Network with RBA and TSC and NYU, bring a ton to the table. And the idea that we can bring the knowledge base From all of these places, people that are challenging the norm and saying, why can't we do things differently with de novo development from scratch operations to establish practices that have been doing it in such a way that really does work and those work for a really great reason.
And that way we can take the best of all worlds and combine them together. It's sort of been a unique approach. To how we grow the business, it's allowed us to grow into, you pointed out, you know, one of the largest networks in the world, and we're very proud of that. And mostly we're very proud of the fact that the way it came together, because it came together in such a way that lots of different people bring a lot of really great talents, really great experiences and really great processes to the table that we can blend to create the best of all worlds.
I'd love to see a whole lot more collaboration with our industry. You know, I think that coming out of a different specialty, I am surprised at all a return at how the lack of collaboration that exists between all of the big national networks and the independent practices in terms of sharing best practices, what can we be doing to make them successful?
You know, to the extent that the other national networks are successful to the extent that other independent practices are successful. That's good for me. That's good for inception. That's good for all of us as an industry. We want to see people be successful. And you know, we need to focus less on our competition amongst ourselves and more on our customer as our patient.
And that can be done through greater collaboration.
[00:03:39] Griffin Jones: Rather than dictating from the top, our next guest engaged with staff across all levels, gathering insights to guide future life's growth. Hear how Francisco Lobbosco spent his first 100 days as CEO of FutureLife.
So that leads you after your 100 days to recommend changes, and you said that they accepted all of the changes you proposed. What were they?
[00:04:01] Francisco Lobbosco: So listen, so I went on by having, let's say, Um, one strong mandate, which was not imposed by anyone, but I could read it through my first a hundred days. Future life from a medical perspective is very well positioned and our medical outcomes are it. Fantastic. Francisco. Now you know that don't touch that.
Right? So let's, let's make sure that whatever you do, you don't mess up with the medical excellence that we're having in the business because that is what describes us. But then I went on and said, okay, so one of the things I'm asking is why are you here? And I'm getting different, different views, all great views, all great answers.
Um, and especially when I go around clinics, the purpose is there. What I was missing was this little trick on asking the same question around support center and saying, why are you guys here? And perhaps we were missing that, you know, to verbalize the, the purpose, the mission, the vision, the values of importantly, the values of future life.
So I went on and asked, why are we here? And then I went on and asked, what are we, uh, what are we setting ourselves to achieve? I, what our strategy is going to be in the next five years. And then finally, how are we going to. You know, just go through that strategy. So the why, the what, and the how. Um, so quite simply after my 100 days, the first thing I did is to grab, um, collect a number of associates across clinics, different roles, support center, different roles.
And we set ourselves with support of a, um, of an agency to define the future life purpose. Why is future life here? What's our vision of the world? What's our mission? And most importantly, what are our values? Um, and obviously we have clinics, as I said to you, that were quite independent and they are still independent for many years, very successfully.
And some of those clinics have strong statements in place. And my purpose is not to, my mission is not to change those statements. But to have a united voice on future life and why is future life here to, to, to drive that core identity. So we've done that. And actually, I'm not sure when, when this podcast is going to go live, but I'm flying to Barcelona tomorrow to the first global leadership summit, where we're going to introduce those.
Those statements to everyone, to all our leaders in clinics. And then obviously we're going to introduce the strategy. And the strategy, as you can imagine, is something that together with my management team, tapping into the medical advisory board, tapping into some key opinion leaders from country, we developed and we put on a paper.
And that strategy went through my supervisory board, of course, in June, and that was approved. And now we're going to introduce you, introduce a strategy into, into the FutureLife Society again at the end of this week. Um, and that is how we're going to go through that strategy and what is important for us to achieve.
And this question of why do we have a group? What is group going to do different than the clinics we're doing until now independently? That's a very important question that needs answering quite fast. Um, the synergies that we'll have a group. Those roles and responsibilities between, okay, clinics are doing this, fantastic.
How can groups support the clinics on, on being better at that, you know, at that quality of care? How can we help the clinicians in particular, the, the EMTs, the embryologists, the nurses to have more time with patients? Instead of having, you know, non value added activities or non value added time. So that's the purpose of group.
And that's what we're setting here to, to, uh, to achieve through the how. And finally, and with this I finish, um, it's all about, as I said earlier, to keeping that medical excellence in place. And therefore we introduced. Literally two months ago, our medical advisory board to the CEO, uh, which are 10 of our 10 of our great, uh, associates, you know, medical doctors, embryologists.
Um, and we'll get together once a month, um, and they have three different topics in the agenda that they need to help us, um, drive just as a final thought from my end, which is something I said to my team quite often. Um, I know that people like you Griffin, most of your listeners, if not all have been, have been in this sector in this space for, for quite some time.
And you're very familiar with it. Um, but sometimes it's good to have someone external timing, uh, reminding On how powerful it is to work that you guys do on a daily basis. And I'm talking about everyone working in clinics, right? So um, this goes for everyone working in a clinic, MDs, embryologists, nurses, receptionists, coordinators.
It's just fascinating what you guys do on a daily basis. I mean, your job is to put smiles on people's faces. Um, so my last words would be encouraging you to continue going. Um, I think what you're doing helps the sector in particular Griffin, uh, and for everyone else out there, just, just keep going. I think, um, we, or you in particular, uh, are changing the world one baby at a time.
So big thank you from my end.
[00:09:16] Griffin Jones: Boston IVF says that in order to take good care of patients, you have to have a business model that takes good care of their providers and staff. Listen to David Stern discuss the vital steps to finding the right long term financial partner.
[00:09:28] David Stern: And you know, one of the important things, it sounds a little corny, um, but the Boston IVF, our model is we want to do what's right for the patient first and foremost.
So we believe, and this is instilled because the physicians founded the practice and I'm not a physician, I'm an MBA, but I can tell you, I don't mess with the lab and I don't mess with the physicians. because those are the two most important assets that we have in our company. And I'm never going to tell an embryologist if they want to use a certain media and they want to use a certain microscope or an incubator because they get better success rates.
It's in my interest as a business person to make sure we get the best success rates that we can because our patients are going to be happy. Our referring physicians are going to be happy. Everybody's going to be happy. So I'm not going to cut corners and say, Hey, I got a great deal on this media. From A, B, C media factory, and it's not the same quality as Irvine or Cooper, but you gotta use it because we're saving money.
Same thing with catheters. We have physicians that choose different catheters. We don't have one catheter. We let the physician who's doing the transfer use the catheter they feel comfortable with. It costs us more, but the physician feels like they're doing a better transfer and they're more comfortable doing it.
So who am I as a business person to tell a physician how to practice or an embryologist how to practice? When you're dating someone, your first date is not about getting married. You have to date someone, see if it's a right fit and then get married. And I think we approach it the same way. We want to date our practices that we're going to partner with, see if it's a good fit, see if the culture is right.
See if we have, you know, commonality and an IVF center that's being approached by anybody, a strategic, a private equity, venture capital, whoever. Should be doing the same kind of due diligence. Is there a cultural fit? Do you agree on what the midterm and long term goals should be? Where do you see yourselves in five years?
And having a very open discussion about what that looks like and, and talking about who makes the decision. Does business trump medicine or does medicine trump business? And those are important discussions to have before, you know, on those dates, um, before you get married. I was, you know, with COVID, we've gone out and it's very important.
We go out and we do site visits. We want to look at the IVF center. We want to talk to the physicians. We sit down with them. I can't tell you the number of deals that we haven't won, where the other party that wins has never set foot in an IVF center that they're buying. They've never met the physician face to face.
It's all been on Zoom and they do a video tour. And if I'm spending that kind of money, Now, granted when private equity is doing it, it's not their money. It's someone else's money, but it's kind of like going in to buy a house and doing it on a Zoom video and never walking in that house. That's kind of scary.
Um, and so if a physician, if I'm a physician selling my practice and I never get to meet the person and they never come to see what my practice looks like, I would think long and hard about, are they the right partner for me?
Sponsor: Organon is dedicated to delivering impactful medicines and solutions for a healthier tomorrow. Guided by its mission of being here for her health, Organon proudly recognizes fertility providers around the world focusing on care equity.
We believe everyone should have access to fertility education and treatment. By collaborating with providers, advocates, and communities, Organon is working to elevate fertility awareness, expand resources, and invest in innovative products that help more aspiring parents access the care they deserve.
Every journey to parenthood is unique. Organon stands with you. Learn more about Organon’s resources at FertilityJourney.com
[00:12:39] Griffin Jones: Here, Chairman of U. S. Fertility, Mark Segal, delve into the enduring presence of private equity in the fertility sector, emphasizing the significance of aligning business goals with a genuine passion for solving critical issues in the fertility field.
[00:12:52] Marc Segal: Private equity is no question. Private equity is here to stay, right? It's not going anywhere. Um, and it will, there will [00:13:00] always be this need for capital and equity. Um, and I also, I also believe, you know, These innovative, uh, in physicians want to be something part of something larger than than themselves, right?
Um, and so finding the right fit. Yeah, is is, of course, paramount. Um, I would say that I've seen in my career again, uh, private equity. make very poor decisions and very poor business decisions and in some cases, you know, destroy practices, um, and, and, and the culture that they may have created. Uh, but I've also been very fortunate to be part of a group, be part of groups that I think have driven real value and innovation that's benefited both just both physicians and patients.
I believe, you know, the group that we are affiliated today called Amulet Capital is exactly that. I've been very, very impressed. And as I said, I've been involved with many different private equity groups. Um, I think there's this misconception about, uh, uh, that private equity, you know, what the does is.
drive down, drive costs and it's, uh, and therefore that impacts quality of medicine. I think that's a, that's actually a false. narrative. I think it's a false assumption.
[00:14:34] Griffin Jones: You think it's false that it drives them up or because they're seeking profits or, or drives them down for efficiency? Which one of those do you think is a fallacy?
I think it's, I think
[00:14:43] Marc Segal: it's a false narrative that, that driving down costs, driving down costs drives down quality of medicine. Um, Where I think private equity and again, maybe larger groups succeed is in the ability to drive to drive costs in an efficient through efficiency. Right. And, and, uh, and to me, driving down costs, which hopefully at the end of the day implies driving down price to patients or driving or driving access through increased payer contracts, etc.
Leads to better access to patients. And in fact, if you look at the larger groups, you look at, you look at the, you know, pregnancy rate outcomes, it completely validates the point that the larger groups are driving, driving innovation, driving pregnancy rates, doing different things that I think others are taking note of and trying to learn from.
Um, so, um, I, I do think it's, you know, at the end of the day, yes, you should do your homework and you should pick your right partner. Um, because not everyone's the same, not every private equity is the same. Um, but I, I, you know, I am a believer they're here to stay. I'm a believer, I'm a firm believer that they will, That they will continue to add value and make change in a positive way, not a negative way.
What is it that I need to do to kind of grow my, my practice? in order so I can maximize the valuation, uh, or potentially exit that type of thing. And, um, and what I think, and I would say this is actually all businesses in general, this is not specific to physicians or even healthcare, but, but, you know, when you've got, uh, when you've got a founder and entrepreneur that has started a business, it may be a family owned business,
If they are, if they start or have started having the conversation, you know, if they, if they're thinking about, I want to sell my business in a year's time, or even two years time, it's probably too late to have that to start thinking what I need to do. To maximize value, the conversation or the thought process about maximizing value has to occur much earlier on because it's part of a strategy.
It's part of a mindset, you know, of this is what I'm after. This is where I think I can build it. This is what I and so it's really to maximize value. It's a five year process. Now again, here's the calculus. Do I, do I spend, uh, do I spend the next five years building, hopefully, you know, doubling the size, tripling the size of the business that I have today and will valuations remain where they are today, right?
That's the big question. Because no one knows what tomorrow brings. No one knows what, what valuation, what interest rates and valuation and how much it's private equity will want to participate five years from now. Um, and so I think the calculus you have to make in all of this is, I'm either in it for the long term, if I'm only focused on, I want to figure out what the exit and how to maximize value so I can exit at some point, I actually think it's the wrong conversation to be having with yourself, right?
If I'm that entrepreneur, I think you've got to be driven by, you What are you trying? What problem are you trying to solve? What? What motivates you? What gets you to get up? You know, um, out of bed every morning. I want to do the kinds of things that you do. And you've got to love it. You've got to have a passion for it.
I mean, I know that I wouldn't be doing this for 25 years. If I didn't feel excited and passionate about it.
[00:18:43] Griffin Jones: Our next leader, CEO of Care Fertility, Dave Burford, sheds light on the imperative of enhancing business processes to improve the patient experience. One of the biggest criticisms about so much external finance entering this field of medicine is the that there is a financial pressure and sometimes an oversight on operational quality.
There's operational improvements to be made for days in this field. There's, there's no shortage of those, but there is also the reality that there. It's a way of looking at things where it can be just looked at from a spreadsheet without the consideration of actually making the operational improvements.
And you had to at least experience some of the other sides. So what were a few of the surprises that awaited you?
[00:19:37] Dave Burford: I think first and foremost, um, finance is very good on spreadsheets. Operations is very bad on PowerPoints and spreadsheets. Operations is about people and it's about process. And you only really can deal with one when you understand the other.
And so if I take us back to cares challenges at the time, it was very much around, um, a business that was geared up to, um, serve the clinic rather than the patients. And that's okay. When you've got a lot of demand and not much supply, but when, when that dynamic changes slightly and you've got more competition in town and you've got other people that are doing things in a more dynamic way, and actually.
The challenge is bringing in, um, supply or patients, then you've got to change your processes to adapt to that. And you've got to be more patient friendly and you've got to be more, um, Uh, adaptive and fluid in the way that you deal with things. And so, yeah, you can only really do that by talking to the people on the ground, talking to the staff, understanding what their challenges are, and then adapting the processes to meet the demands of patients and the needs of staff.
Um, So it was, for me, it was nice to get away from the, the laptop and the, and the, and the, and the PC and to actually talk to people and understand what is it that is the challenge here and that's best supported by a bit of data, if I'm honest as well, because sometimes anecdotal conversations only take you so far and you need to have a bit of skepticism about what you hear and then you need to look at the data and say, well, actually, look, we've got a thousand people calling us at The seven o'clock at night, you're telling me that patients don't have a demand for late night calls.
But why have I got a thousand, why have I got a thousand people ringing me when the lines are closed and it's just tweaking then some of those operational processes to meet those needs. Um, generally not that challenging, but, um, involved, yeah. Sales side device is critical and these advisors do an amazing job, but it's when it's a very fast six week process and highest bid wins kind of thing.
It might be perfect for some sellers, but in my experience, what you'll find is that there's sometimes a misalignment after the sale because you didn't really get chance to talk about what it is that you want and what it is that they want and how can you, it was a very quick, it was a very quick process.
And so this is. Quite often somebody's lifetimes work, right? They spent 20 years building this business. Why not spend a little bit longer just getting to know who it is that you're going to be partnering with after the, after the deal would be my main advice, really, to, to people. And then, as I say, my passion and, and cares passion, having done lots and lots of these acquisitions over the years is to really understand what it is that people want, uh, and then to try and tailor that deal to suit them.
[00:22:38] Griffin Jones: Dr. Kshitiz Murdia, CEO of Indira IVF's CLIPS, revolve around the importance of standardizing protocols across the entire network of doctors, emphasizing the need for consistency and quality.
[00:22:50] Dr. Kshitiz Murdia: I think that brings me to another important point, Griffin, is around the doctor recruitment, as to how we have done it.
Because. Ours is a B2C brand and patients are coming to Indira IVF and not to a particular doctor. I mean, patients don't come with a mindset that I have to go and meet such and such doctor or get treated by such and such doctor. They just see Indira IVF, they would come to Indira IVF, and then they would get to know who is the doctor treating them.
And every other day we have a roaster, so somebody is consulting today. Their pickup might be done by a separate doctor. Their embryo transfer might be done by a separate doctor. It's as per the schedule or the roster in the clinic. Uh, so it was our responsibility to ensure that we have similar protocols, similar outcomes across all the doctors because that's what we were doing.
One patient could be meeting two or three doctors in the clinic at different points of time during the same cycle and the protocols should not differ. The language that they speak should not differ. And that's why we started this Indira Fertility Academy back in 2016, which is one of the world class setups in training in fertility.
Our training center has been recognized by, recently by British Fertility Society. Our training center is recognized by Merck Foundation in Egypt. They regularly send, uh, uh, African and Indonesian and Malaysian, Vietnam, all the Asia Pacific doctors for training. We run a fellowship program with them for three months.
And 99 percent of the doctors who are working with us, I've been trained through our own fertility academy and same with the embryologist also. And once we got a hang of it, uh, we understood that, you know, IVF is not so difficult. It's not a rocket science. You know, every gynecologist and a life science, uh, a postgraduate could be trained into either being a IVF doctor or an embryologist.
Uh, either ways. Uh, we developed a structured program and we understood that there are 15 or 20 steps during the whole IVF cycle. Once you have an SOP around each and every step, you just hammer in the training that you just need to follow the SOP. Don't bother about the final outcomes. Final outcomes are bound to come.
And we've been very successful. I think the average age of our doctors is 35 or 36 in spite of, you know, a few doctors being with us for almost 10 years now. Uh, so that gave us a very good handle on expansion because. See, expansion, the major limiting factor for any clinical enterprise or an organization to expand rapidly is not funds, it's not infrastructure.
You, everybody has deep pockets, everybody has private equity money. You can fund a hundred centers in one year. You have the infrastructure available. You can buy spaces, you can rent them, you can do. I think the critical bottleneck for any organization could be having skilled manpower, you know, and then there's always shortage of manpower in whichever field you go.
And we decided that we would not struggle with this part. Let us create our own skilled manpower and let us not depend on the market, uh, uh, to get skilled manpower. The idea was to select somebody working with the company for, for, for last few years, because. You know, when DA invested, we were only at 50 center, we were the largest in the country in terms of number of centers, in terms of doctors being trained, in terms of business and, and the overall top line.
I think the idea from DA's side was, uh, nobody has done, uh, good work in the country in India in the IVF suite apart from Indira IVF. Let us have somebody from the group internally, uh, and promote them to the, to be the CEO. And I think because of, uh, uh, some of the diligence is being done on the company before DA invested.
Uh, so there were a couple of private equities, uh, looking at us and in all the big force coming and doing diligence. So I got exposed to many more financial aspects, many more HR and marketing aspects as well. And, uh, so I think, I think it was. Because everybody, all these shareholders thought that I had a very broad based idea about the business and not just the medical function.
Uh, and, and, and obviously we are very strong believers that a medical organization should always be headed by a doctor because that gives you much more leverage. In terms of talking to the doctors, because ultimately all these, uh, businesses are built on the ground in the clinics and not sitting in the corporate office in your air conditioned chambers and working on excels or laptops or you can't build a business.
Their business is actually being done at the clinical level by the clinicians, by the nurses, by the embryologist. So you would need somebody who could have that wavelength of talking to these doctors who the doctors would also respond to and respect. Uh, and it's not just about number, number, number that you need to clock certain revenue.
You need to clock certain number of patients being treated. It's always more to do with the medical outcomes and how do you treat and how do you excel in, in the overall outcome. So I, I, I strongly still feel, uh, that a non medical person, uh, one sounds very commercial to the doctors. Uh, doctors would not give that much of respect because.
Again, they feel the other person has no knowledge about medicine and is just come here and just telling us all the numbers on Excel. And we feel it's not like that. And, you know, Patients are different. The actual clinical life is different. So I think a good balance, uh, uh, between the medical and the financial work is required when you want to control the doctors.
And when I say control, because ours is a very different culture and DNA, it's not doctors independently practicing in their own. world and they have a different protocol and they have a different business mindset. All of us, uh, all the two 50 plus doctors run on a single platform, run on a single protocol.
Everybody, uh, is, is, is in very. Close touch, I would say, and everybody's using the similar protocol.
[00:29:13] Griffin Jones: How many nurses, what percentage that you've worked with over the course of your career, which is a lot, do you think have it in them to be an executive? And do not say a hundred percent, do not say all of them. I don't want it. I want any kind of fluffy millennial feel good answer. I mean, if you work with a ton of people, ballpark, what are the percentage, uh, that you feel like really have it within them that they could be not manager, not director, but top C-suite?
[00:29:47] Lisa Van Dolah: Anybody that sets their mind out to do it can do it, but you have to be willing to, to learn, um, and step out of, uh, Kind of a comfort of a clinical based mindset. And I think, um, many nurses don't want to have anything to do with that. They went into the profession, um, to be a clinical focused expert and they should, that's amazing.
Um, and they should continue to explore that, how they can continue to contribute there. Um, you know, there's only so many individuals that went into nursing originally that then look at organizational, um, Uh, you know, goals and organizational, you know, success as being something that are even interested in, in being responsible for.
So, you know, we all can contribute at every level of nursing, um, to that organization success, whether or not you want to be the one that's. that's thinking about that 100 percent of the time is, you know, it's only an interest of certain, certain individuals. And, you know, but I don't think any nurse should limit themselves, um, to that possibility if that's something they're interested in doing.
If this is a role that you want to learn, we'll be here to support you. And so if it's something that you want As a nurse to step into something that maybe is outside of what you perceive to be your training. I think you need to seek that opportunity, um, and ask for those around you to support you, um, in learning things that maybe you don't have any experience in yet.
Um, and I think nursing, um, has tremendous foundation to offer you the skill set. Uh, in a variety of roles, whether it's administrative management, leadership, um, or, you know, like you said, project management, sales, marketing, business development, all of those things are, are, are ways training, teaching, um, for nurses to, to advance their career.
And so it's not just one path, but I think nursing has tremendous foundational, um, value that, that you can build on if you're interested in.
[00:31:58] Griffin Jones: The three things that matter in healthcare are patient experience, patient outcome, and cost, according to our next leader, Chair of KindBody, Gina Bartasi. Here, Gina stressed the value of team collaboration and employee well being in delivering exceptional patient care.
[00:32:11] Gina Bartasi: Really? Only three things matter in healthcare? Any kind of health care, but specifically fertility, um, patient experience, patient outcome and cost. It's the only thing that matters to the patient, patient experience, patient outcome and cost. And by the way, it's the only thing that matters to the employer.
And what I have found after building and running the largest care navigation firm as a care navigation or middleman or an insurance company, um, Um, you cannot effectuate change in those three areas. An insurance company or care navigation firm cannot affect member experience. They cannot affect outcomes and they cannot affect costs.
Only the doctor's going to set his reimbursement rate. He's only going to decide how many embryos to transfer. Only he can decide how to give that patient bad news, whether that's, um, uh, diminished ovarian reserve diagnosis or a failed IVF cycle. But in order to really effectuate change. And really change kind of how patients go through the process.
You have to be in the doctor business. So today the employers are issuing RFPs. Um, I think in the beginning, uh, large tech companies on both coasts are really in the Valley kind of started this fertility benefit. But today you see requests coming in from very, very large employers in retail and manufacturing and automotive.
Like again, it's moved from kind of a nice to have to a must have benefit. Employees always come first. They have to because the employees will take care. If you take care of your employees first, they will take care of your customer. They will take care of your patients. And that's when we're talking to doctors, you know, and doctors say, well, I used to do that.
You know, we want the doctors to know that we can train and teach. nurses and front desk managers and practice managers to be just as kind and just as empathetic to that patient that the doctor can. So again, employees always come first as it relates to the lab.
[00:34:11] Griffin Jones: Talk a bit about how you use the brand for culture.
[00:34:15] Gina Bartasi: Yeah, I think, um, a lot of it starts with humility, right? The brand is humble. It's not anybody's last name. It's not, you know, um, and our culture really starts with this humility, right? So those two things are ingrained. I think, um, it's not just humility to, it's a vulnerability to it. Um, you know, uh, It's also our brand and our culture.
We do embrace risk. You know, we tell our doctors, we're like, embrace risk, do something crazy on TikTok. Can you tell a doctor to, or a scientist embrace risk? They're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm a doctor. I don't embrace risk, except that if you teach them, we're not talking about embracing risk when it comes to, a prognosis of an onco patient.
We're talking about taking risk as it relates to the brand, as it relates to culture, allow yourself to have fun, allow yourself to smile, giving devastating news. Another failed pregnancy test is hard. It's hard. And we're so glad you're empathetic to your patient. But outside of that, how can we make you smile?
How can you be cheery and yellow and optimistic? And so we believe that there's a lot of similarities that brand and culture do go together. And I don't think our brand would be as successful if our culture wasn't so strong. And I don't think our culture would be so strong if our brand wasn't so strong.
And there's a, I think the other thing that I would say about culture and brand is team. Right. Um, I think too often, you know, healthcare people and doctors in particular may think solo first, like I'm a doctor and hierarchical and solo. And those are not things that belong in our brand or our culture. We don't do anything singularly.
Not any of us. And, and Dr. Beltsos would say the same thing. And Beth Eschbach, Greg Poulos, none of us do anything by ourselves. And that's intentional. We make group collaborative decisions and same thing with our brand. It's, it's, it's, we invite feedback. We invite constructive feedback, constructive criticism, because we want to get better every day.
And again, that goes back to our brand and our culture.
[00:36:25] Griffin Jones: Andrew Meikle, Executive Chairman at The Fertility Partners, challenges traditional paradigms as he advocates for financial awareness and entrepreneurship in clinic management.
[00:36:33] Andrew Meikle: I think that, um, you know, the typical practice owner is not an entrepreneur, and they're not typically very business savvy.
Some are, and they're doing exceptionally well. This space has grown 10 percent compounded forever. And, and, you know, No disrespect, but almost anyone can do well in that sort of a setting, especially when supply is not meeting demand. So everyone's doing well. Um, almost everyone's doing well. I think there's another level.
It's not just about revenue and EBITDA, you know, our mission and, you know, I'm a healthcare provider at heart is to drive clinical outcomes to use science, collaborate with stakeholders and our group to, to drive clinical outcomes, to be more successful for our patients. And as well to improve, dramatically improve the patient experience, the patient journey.
So it's pretty simple. All of our decisions are made, um, You know, based on those two things. And I think there's a tremendous opportunity to professionalize some of the areas in the space. Um, when you look at, at management, for example, I think there are a lot of people doing a lot of great things, but it's, it's sort of doctor first, it's not patient first.
So we're flipping this, um, profession on its head and looking at the management and the operational efficiency and effectiveness of, of clinics. We're looking at Uh, you know, lean processing from a patient perspective. We're looking at, um, sort of value innovation from a customer perspective. It's gotta be driven by, um, by the patient.
We have to serve the patient. Um, and I, and I think it's largely the other way today. So we, we have a completely different lens and I think most groups, um, we're investing for the longterm. Um, we can get into private equity if you want. I am now. Back. We are now backed by private equity. You got to be careful who you choose, who you partner with.
You got to be careful who you marry. You got to spend time. You got to do your diligence. You got to go on dates. Um, and you have to be, um, ruthless in your due diligence because it is a life sentence. I don't know how to turn a physician into an entrepreneur per se. I think you have to have the fortitude for it.
You have to be able to delegate tremendously because you need to see everything from 60, 000 feet and not be too in the weeds. Um, I think an absolutely critical element and some Something that I see as a weakness generally in the space is a lack of, um, financial, um, awareness, a lot, a lack of operating the business, uh, with financial metrics.
Um, people in the space seem to look at it in the rear view mirror rather than in real time. You know, our organization, we provide a full P and L every month. Month by the eighth day of the next month. So our partners can see what they've done in their business and and uh, How it relates to the strap plan that we've worked on them for going forward.
Um, so I think you know We don't have enough time, but I you know, I mean a start would be Definitely start reading some, some books, you know, um, there's a ton of great information on entrepreneurship out there. Gerber has a whole series. Uh, uh, you know, those things are very helpful, but, but you really have to take yourself out of the day to day equation, be able to see it from 60, 000 feet, have the best, most independent.
You know, brightest people you can working for you, um, actually, you know, executing on things. And I think that's a big first step. There are tremendous opportunities out there to, um, to partner with various organizations if it, if it suits you. And I think it's just really important to, you know, Have your house in order before entering into that do your due diligence find the right fit um, and look this this profession right now, is it incredibly, um, is that an inflection point it is changing and If you want to change, you might, you might look to join an organization that, um, aligns with your values and they can help you.
They could support you, um, to implement changes in your clinic, to drive patient flow, to, um, to make your life easier so you can provide the best possible medicine.
[00:40:56] Kevin Ali: In today's episode, we learned how various leaders are working to evolve the landscape of reproductive medicine. Working together, we can drive innovation to help improve the aspiring parent's experience.
I'm Kevin Ali, CEO of Organon. Thank you for listening to the Inside Reproductive Health podcast.
Sponsor: This episode was brought to you by Organon, Organon is committed to championing care equity in fertility. By elevating education, expanding resources, and investing in innovative solutions, Organon stands with aspiring parents on their unique journeys. Learn more at FertilityJourney.com.
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