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.
Lynn Mason, CEO of IVI RMA North America, provides an inside look at how dyad leadership—integrating physician leaders with business leaders—drives innovation and collaboration across IVIRMA Global, Boston IVF Trio, and other key partners. She discusses how their in-house EMR system is used for patient triage and emphasizes the importance of collecting the right data.
With Mason, we explore:
Leveraging vendors beyond cost savings (Making them extensions of the clinic’s operational system for continuity of care)
Innovative approaches to time-lapse incubation and pharmacy care
Collaborations in genetics and clinical AI (Who they’re working with and why)
Mason also hints at potential geographic expansions, providing clues to where IVI RMA might be looking to open or acquire more practices.
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[00:00:03] Lynn Mason: it's about communication and partnership, not abdication. And that's when I see vendors become partners is when you're working together to say, I didn't just hand that off to you.
We're in partnership and communication on this thing. Yes, it's your responsibility and accountability to get it there and to do these things. But if we just let it go, all those cost savings are going to come back in some other kind of way because they're going to be spent making corrections to mistakes.
[00:01:00] Griffin Jones: Lynn Mason is the CEO of RMA. She's a Stanford MBA. She's been the president or regional president of a number of health systems. And according to LinkedIn, she recently got her doctorate in healthcare administration. I wish I knew that because I would have addressed her as Dr. Mason. Now she finds herself as the CEO of the RMA network at a time shortly after KKR, one of the world's largest capital risk firms, purchased EVRMA and.
That was only weeks after RMA bought Boston IVF and Trio from Mugen, or right at that same time. Lynn talked about dyad leadership, integrating physician leaders with business leaders. She talked about how they integrate with EVRMA Global, Boston IVF, Trio. And how they use their in house EMR to triage patients and what data is important to collect for triage.
Lynn talks about how fertility networks can leverage vendors not just for economies of scale but to be partners that, to paraphrase her, are extensions of the clinic's operational system to ensure continuity of care. She talks about RMA's network approach to time lapse incubation and pharmacy care. She mentions who RMA is working with for genetics and clinical AI.
Finally, Lynn Mason gives us some clues as to what geographic areas RMA might be looking to open or acquire for more practices. After this conversation with Lynn was recorded, RMA announced their partnership with Gaia. I speculate on what advantages RMA hopes to get from Gaia with regard to patient experience and growth.
And who you should contact if you want the same. In the meantime, enjoy this interview with Lynn Mason, CEO of the RMA Network.
[00:02:21] Announcer: Today's advertiser helped make the production and delivery of this episode possible for free, to you. But the themes expressed by the guests do not necessarily reflect the views of Inside Reproductive Help, nor of the advertiser. The advertiser does not have editorial control over the content of this episode, and the guest's appearance is not an endorsement of the advertiser.
[00:02:41] Griffin Jones: Miss Mason, Lynn, welcome to the Inside Reproductive Health Podcast.
[00:02:46] Lynn Mason: Hi Griffin, it's such a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.
[00:02:50] Griffin Jones: The pleasure's mine. I look forward to getting to know you. Big organization, big role, and the timing was, I want to say, October, November of last year when big things were happening in the IVI RMA world. What was happening? Why that timing?
[00:03:05] Lynn Mason: Yeah, so for me I'd been in a really interesting spot of looking for my next adventure. So my career for the past about 18 years has been in health care and going to places where I feel like I can truly make a difference. And providing access to care, business folks supporting our great physicians, and really changing and transforming healthcare in North America.
We just exited a transaction with a previous company that was owned by another private equity. And as I was looking for where's a place that I can go and really make a difference, IVI RMA came on my radar screen. And I must say, I thought I understood, at least a little bit. About the infertility world, but this has been about an 8 month, just mind blowing journey of joining an organization that has, gosh, over 60 years of combined experiences with various different doctors and executives that are there and thinking about how are we really going to impact this infertility world.
So I came there as I was of thinking about what's next for me and it's been a great journey ever since.
What selling, or KKR had bought into IVI RMA global at that point, and then they acquired Eugen abroad and then, so some things were being sold off elsewhere. And then, so IVI RMA comes into acquisition of Boston, IVF. In Trio, were you being briefed on this as it was happening and what was that like?
I was really interesting is I came into the interview process, call it summer of 2023, and I was told about Colorado Conceptions, which was very exciting, and IVI RMA expanding, so KKR had already purchased. I joined around November and that's when I was told, Oh, guess what? We have a wonderful gift for you.
[00:05:17] Lynn Mason: And it is it's been a amazing, but I think what's been such a a great happening for IVI RMA and now the EV network that includes Boston IVF and includes TRIO in Canada is that these are like minded organizations. So when KKR was thinking about what are the organizations that we really want to bring together into a global platform of IVF that's focused on transformation, on Ongoing great science and innovation, patients at the center of the care, physician led with great business people running the organization.
Here are these companies, these providers that fit really well together because the overarching philosophy is the same. So the transaction closed in February. I had a few months to get my feet underneath me at IVI RMA and we are bringing Boston IVF and TRIO into our global network and our global platform.
[00:06:18] Griffin Jones: want to talk about what it's like to be at the head of an organization that also encompasses other organizations, but let's stay on physician and business leadership together. How do you view that dynamic? There are some that say it doesn't happen. The business people run the show. There are other people that say, no, this is very much a vollaboration and it works well no matter what organization we're talking about. How do you view it?
[00:06:44] Lynn Mason: So Griffin, I have been in organizations in my healthcare career where it's been the three different philosophies. The business folks make the decision, the business folks are in the lead, operations calls all the shots, the end. I've been in organizations where it's been on the very other end of the spectrum.
Providers are there to run, to lead, to do everything, business folks stay back. And then I've been in organizations where there is dyad leadership. When I think about what creates a wonderful experience for patients, what helps physicians to do what they do best. And business folks do what they do best and for us to drive the most value throughout the organization, it's dyad leadership.
And it does work when we've got those key elements of trust, credibility, and the joint ideas around what we want from a vision, mission, and values perspective. I, what do I mean by that? I think there's a lot of organizations in which they are provider run and provider led. And the providers ultimately say, okay, I'm juggling every single world right now.
And frankly, the time I'm spending doing things that are accounting related, finance related, business license, you name it, I really could be spending creating a fantastic patient experience. Let me bring in some folks this is what they do. But those business leaders must recognize that they come in without credibility yet.
The providers have gotten their practices a really long way without a whole bunch of business folks sticking their noses into it. So it is always my first mission and my vision that we come in together and say, how do we build credibility as business leaders to show physicians that, hey, you can trust us.
With your practices, you can trust us to help you lead in a way in which we're now going to be partners. You're not in this by yourself, we're not trying to come in and make the physicians irrelevant. What I'm trying to do is build and create capacity for you to do what you went to school to do, for you to do what you did all of this training to accomplish, and for me to do what I enjoy, and what I enjoy and love, and hopefully what I do best.
But when we do it together, so that next piece, when we do it together, what does that look like? Thank you. Constant communication, barely a day goes by, and I'm talking about even a weekend day, where I'm not touching bases with my Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Molinaro, because I see us as partners in this together.
So he's talking to me about things that are on on the medical side, not for me to solve that issue, but for me to think about what's the business approach that I can take to help him with this, and then vice versa. I am talking to him about all the things going on within the organization and how do we solve these together.
And when that dyad partnership is built and there's trust and credibility, there's so much more headroom we have. To grow and then lead that throughout our organization. I want to see regions that are led by dyad partnerships, practices that are led by dyad partnerships so that we are maximizing efficiencies, effectiveness, and the patient experience.
[00:10:12] Griffin Jones: As specifically as you can be, what are specific examples of how dyad leadership looks like between the medical leadership and the business leadership at IVI RMA?
[00:10:23] Lynn Mason: Yeah, so we've got a wonderful IVI RMA North America Chief Operating Officer who has come into the, to the business and she and I have worked together previously, and She's a great advocate of these dyad partnerships and I'll give you a very recent example of she and Dr. Molinaro working very closely together.
We are trying to expand into some various areas because we want to continue expanding access. And there are some challenges that come with markets. mean, The United States is 50 states, but sometimes I feel like it's 50 different countries. So we're running into. Various challenges that could in any way, shape, or form be seen as a business issue.
Or could be seen as a clinical challenge, but the two of them working together on what exactly is the problem? How do we root cause it from our various different perspectives? And then let's come up with something that says, okay, how do we get our physicians on board? How do we our business folks on board?
Because they're going to be the ones that operate in this market and solve these challenges together. So it's not, we're having a challenge. With opening a de novo. So clearly that's an ops issue. No, if there's a challenge with opening a de novo, I 100 percent guarantee you in the root cause, we're going to find things that belong on both sides of the house and solutions are going to be better by solving them with both sides of the house coming together.
,
[00:11:51] Griffin Jones: So in the case of a de novo example where would issues be coming from both sides of the house?
[00:11:56] Lynn Mason: it. Patients and patients trying to truly understand what is the differentiated product that you're bringing to this market. Differentiation in the way that we service a patient along their journey includes how we hold their hand through all the financial process because we don't make it easy in the United States financially to access care.
How their journey through how they would deal with each of our departments is going to be easier and better and more helpful for them, how their clinical care is differentiated because our outcomes and how we deliver on those outcomes are the best in the country. How do we create a value proposition in a market that is holistic around what it is that we do at IVI RMA and in our network?
And that comes from what we do from an operational experience, financial experience, medical clinical experience, after follow up that requires both sides of the house.
[00:13:01] Griffin Jones: And so tell me a bit about how We expand access to care while you're bringing these two of leadership together. We're not serving nearly enough of the population that should be served. I'd look at someone like an IVI RMA to lead the way, given your scale. We further scale delivery.
[00:13:24] Lynn Mason: So one of the things that is really important to us is that we're supporting the right legislation and that we're supporting the right groups as we try to holistically across our industry, provider agnostic, this is all of the provider groups coming together to make sure that we have the right protections in place, the right legislation in place, and the right regulations in place.
to continue to protect and improve upon our industry. The second piece when I think about IVI RMA, we are really trying to dig deep and understand what is it that our patients need. And to do that, first we have to recognize that each patient's journey is very different. It may be very different because of the state in which they live, their own financial resources, The age they are in life, whether they're thinking about preservation or there's already been challenges if it's a really busy professional or someone who can actually dedicate a lot more time, we've got to understand those journeys and meet every single one of our patients where they are.
That requires our operational folks, our marketing folks, our sales folks, our relationship people, and our clinical team to get into a room. We believe not only protecting the industry, but providing the right types of services To these different patient groups is important. What may look like the right patient journey for someone who's ready to go to IVF.
They've had experiences, they know what they want, they're talking to their doctor, they're ready to go to IVF, that looks like one thing. Someone who's at the early stages of their journey and they're thinking about preservation perhaps, they don't even know if they have a challenge or not. That's a different type of product, and that's a different type of journey.
We must get better and we're working together, again, both sides of the house on what are those right products to offer? How do those look clinically? How do they look operationally? And how do we launch those so that we're servicing more and more people?
[00:15:20] Griffin Jones: Are you talking about two different delivery systems or perhaps more than two different delivery systems for this patient population? We do this, and maybe they don't even see the REI for this patient population. They need to see the REI more, and there's triage involved. Tell
[00:15:36] Lynn Mason: Abs
Yeah, absolutely Griffin. So not every patient needs the same level of interaction. Not every patient wants the same level of interaction. Not every patient wants to walk into kind of the same big lab experience. So we're thinking through a lot of ways of who wants to be serviced via telehealth. Look, I am I call myself old school Gen X.
I'm still, I love some bricks and mortar. I like walking in I like feeling all that love wrapped around me, but I'm also recognizing in other generations, there's a different amount of love. On the go, and what they've had the opportunity to experience from a telehealth perspective. There are some who, they love seeing their nurse and their advanced practitioner, and say, hey, I don't really need to see the REI.
How do we understand each of those and understand that journey? So that we can say, okay, we're happy to service you via telehealth. We're happy to do what we can to put all of your services into a day versus multi days. And what does that look like? So it's really playing around with and thinking through how can we deliver these products differently and getting a lot of patient input on that.
We don't imagine that we understand it all just because we're deliverers, but we want patients to opine to us around what would make that patient journey even better for them so that we can segment better and offer different lanes of care in the right way for these patient populations.
[00:17:06] Griffin Jones: that sort of triage comes in? In the beginning, is it all about an operational workflow? Is it about using certain kinds of software tech solution? Talk to us about your views on triage.
[00:17:19] Lynn Mason: yeah, I think triage needs to occur as far upstream as possible. And this is when I say, I'll go back to my broken record around diet leadership, but getting that feedback and constant communication. We really think about bringing our patients in almost like a funnel, right? We want the funnel to really wide.
At the top, we want to talk to as many patients as possible or potential patients as possible to understand, Hey, who can we help? And to guide people in the right direction. And it became very clear to us as we are getting feedback from our physicians, Hey, we're using systems up front to triage. How do you feel about the ways that we're triaging them?
Are the right patients reaching you? And we get feedback across our network from our physicians, some who say yes, some who say no. But that just helps us to refine what questions are we asking up front? How are we leveraging treatment? Our homegrown EMR system, Artemis, to help us because we're capturing a ton of data.
How do we leverage that data to better direct patients, to better help us to triage and to get patients to the right physicians in the right mode of care that they need? And also thinking about perhaps what else do we need to invest in? from a tech and AI perspective to help us understand those feedback loops, but to continue to go as upstream as possible, because I think if we are focusing on that top of the funnel, and we can help get those patients to the right level of care, It almost doesn't look like a funnel anymore.
It becomes like this straight cylinder, but where patients go to exactly where they need to go. They're not falling out. Because that's the piece of a funnel, right? That as, a business person, as someone who was a chief development officer at one point, sometimes the funnel used to bother me. So, know, what we're talking about is weeding out folks here.
I think we reach so little Of the population that needs help, we need to focus on a cylinder, and that's about getting people to the right places, but we can't do that unless we focus at triage at the very top.
[00:19:29] Griffin Jones: You talked about getting the right data using your homegrown EMR solution. What data do you get there that's important that people should be getting
that sort of patient flow direction?
[00:19:42] Lynn Mason: Yeah, we try to, without overwhelming our patients, we really try to get as much data around them, their experience, what previous physicians they've gone to, what medical information is in their chart, and then their own just personal, emotional experience. Experience and journey as possible, because we want to make sure that we not only understand clinically.
I know, we're in a medical business here. We want all that clinical data that we could get, every lab that we could get, etc. But we also want to understand what are your goals? When you're thinking about building your family, what does that look like? What type of, physician do you work best with?
How do you want to interact with us? We're trying to capture. The essence of the person as much as possible, not just a clinical view of them, but what are their hopes and dreams and how can we help become a part of that? But then as we're thinking about a business and from a business perspective, we really want to make sure we're capturing where are these patients coming from?
What's that history of perhaps where? So, We're seeing a lot of patients come from areas where there's no care and coverage and how do we think about that and our growth journey or how we, perhaps a satellite needs to be out there or we're seeing that a lot of young folks are living a certain area of the country or a certain city but there's not a whole lot there for them just to engage in fertility preservation.
What do we want to think about that? So, We're trying to capture. Information about the person but also information holistically around demographics, our markets, because we're constantly learning. We're constantly learning about how IVF and where patients come from is evolving.
[00:21:32] Griffin Jones: When you say where they come from, you mentioned geographic examples, are you also thinking of referral sources,
[00:21:38] Lynn Mason: What? Yes.
We're also thinking of referral sources. It is so important for us to have great relationships with our referral sources and our referral sources are, numerous in nature in terms of we've got our great relationships OB GYNs who refer to us, but we also are seeing more and more primary care physicians.
So how do we ensure we've got credibility with our physician partners in other sectors of health care such that the first thing that comes to mind for them is, I know where you can get help, I really want you to meet my friends over at IVI RMA. We really want you to go into that network and let's help make that introduction.
We also believe that we've got to have and maintain these great relationships with former and existing current patients that are working with us. Our patients are our best advocates to other patients to talk about the journey, to talk about what to experience and what their experience was within our network.
Our payers and health plans. are also really important to us. That's why their KPIs and what's important to them has to be important to us as well. And we've got to have those relationships where we're not sitting across the table being enemies with each other, but we're working together to say we've got to expand this access.
What are the right KPIs to be looking at and how do we make sure that we're delivering on those? But where are we seeing that there's a need? Because sometimes we'll see a need. Sometimes our payer partners will see a need. How do we collaborate on that together and let's get care into these places for people.
[00:23:18] Griffin Jones: I'm talking with Lynn about RMA strategies for expanding care and being able to serve more patients. And since this conversation was recorded, RMA has announced that they're partnering with a new financing partner. Who and why? If I had to speculate why, because the status quo of revenue cycle management is a nightmare. That's true for small practices, true for big network like RMA. You hear Lynn talking about investing in operations to support providers. How are providers supposed to serve patients and improve clinical outcomes when their teams have to spend all their time investigating the coverage and authorization of different plans and then hunting down payment? Maybe that's why RMA just announced their partnership with Gaia. Gaia, where have I heard that name? Maybe from a podcast episode that I did with their CEO, Nader AlSalim. Since that episode, I've personally run into two practice owners that started using Gaia after hearing my interview with Nader, not including RMA. What advantages is RMA getting from using Gaia? Ask Gaia. Email Kay Colegrove. Kay is her name. So that's K A Y at Gaia dot family. Gaia is G A I A. Kay@gaia.family. Tell Kay you heard about them on Inside Reproductive Health that Gaia is helping RMA. Ask her what they can do for you.
I would also like to see more of a cylinder than a funnel, or at least some mechanism where people aren't getting stuck or lost. Think of people like Joshua Abram and David Sable that say the worldwide demand for IVF might be 30 million babies a year, it might be 20, it might be 25, but if you think of it being 10x in the United States instead of 90 or so thousand, it's closer to 900, That would mean that the average REI needs to be doing 1, 500 or 2, 000 cycles, which would look very different from doing 1, 500 or 2, 000 cycles
today. In fact, even putting it in those terms
Scares REIs and may even shut them off to the conversation Yeah. So how do you get them to think about A technological shift, an operational shift to, if we actually want to be treating the number of people that need treatment for the medical solutions that we have available today, we need a much broader approach.
How do you get doctors to think about this is how we need to shift to where doing 1, 500 to 2, 000 cycles a year isn't you running on a hamster wheel, it's you being a clinician with a whole lot of technological and support operational support. How do you get them to think about that?
[00:26:00] Lynn Mason: This is where dyad partnerships that have credibility are so important. I think about if I can go and use an example from a different industry and I'll come back here. My entree into healthcare post business school was at DaVita, which, know, everyone okay, DaVita, the kidney care company, how is this going to relate? We were having a similar challenge in that the need for dialysis, but also the need to go further upstream into patients that were chronic kidney disease 3 and 4, they're not even ready for dialysis yet, but they're heading there, meant that nephrologists were seeing this world in which there was Oh my gosh, how many hospitals do I need to be credentialed in?
How often do I need to be in the ER, in the hospital, and then in my own practice, and then in the dialysis facility? This is where the dyad partnership became so important because as a physician, what I don't want is you running yourself crazy. That does no one any good. Not you, not the patients, not anyone.
We need to test some different ways. Of doing workflows, of leveraging technology, of even thinking about the approach as we go further upstream a little differently. And it's that willingness to say, let's first have the conversation and understand we're coming from the same place where we're, we all want to help more patients and we all want to do it in the best way possible, but also we want to protect your time and we want to protect your ability to service patients effectively.
Here's some ideas, let's involve you in the conversation. If we think about someone like John Carter, when he talks about why transformation fails, that's why transformation fails, right? And change fails. We start dumping things on people. The worst thing that business leaders can do is dump technology on doctors, to dump new ways on doctors, versus involve them in the conversation.
When we sit at the same table together and say what needs actually to happen differently in the hospital? What needs to happen differently in the dialysis facility? How do we use technology? How do we use people differently? And have the physician as a part of that conversation and be willing to pilot, test, fail, fail safely, and then try it again until we get to the right thing is so important.
So when I think about translating this to this new world that I'm in now I'm still learning what are those different things that we can do to help with the current state of affairs to build credibility for doctors? There's things that we need to help with today before we even start thinking about 2 thousand 3 thousand, patients, right?
And we start thinking about hundreds of thousands of babies. There's things we need to fix today. So what do we as dyad leaders do? Prove that we can attack today so that we build that credibility to start testing and thinking about new ways of doing things and then being patient enough to pilot, being patient enough to test new ways, let ourselves fail, celebrate the fails, and then go at it again.
But it is going to take, I think, a whole new way of thinking about our industry. I go back to the conversation that you just had with Beth. And I really enjoyed reading and listening to that conversation because what it was for me was this wake up call around how some things that I take for granted that are a part of the industry that I'm in right now, just 5 10 years ago, weren't a part of the space that, Beth and TJ and some of the other, know, leaders were operating within.
I wonder how we get ourselves ready for what's coming in the next 5 to 10 years. Because this industry is still so young. Even when I talk about we've got this combined 60 years of experience. Well, It's because we both started operating like 30 years ago. That's super young. So we know that change is coming.
[00:30:02] Lynn Mason: Iteration and innovation are still on the way. So what do we do? To have that credibility with our doctors now, such that they trust a dyad partnership and are willing to test and try new things. And I think so many of our physicians are there, they want to do more.
Mm-Hmm. testing now?
Yeah. So we are looking at uh, a number of different things.
know, Boston, IVF has done a great job in working with how do we think differently about pharmacy and how do we work with a life and some other things differently? What do we think about with time lapse? How do we think about the ways that that can help our embryologist, who we haven't even mentioned yet on within this conversation to work more efficiently, who, we would fall apart , without them. How do we make the lab a more efficient place with them? So we're thinking about that as well. How do we use our partners like Juno more effectively and higher PGTA and PGTM? How do we continue to improve along these lines, but also what are the different AI systems that we can use to constantly be in response to our patients so that we keep them at the forefront and at the center of being important while we're also making our processes better.
What are the things that I've learned here, but it's true in a lot of areas of healthcare is our patients want and deserve communication and communication across healthcare right now, is still very manually driven. Someone's picking up the phone and giving a phone call. Someone's having us send an email and wait for a response, but we live in a world in which that could be a lot more automated and not to make it cold.
And in person um, and personable, but to say, we're providing answers that are great answers and if we need to call and disrupt your day to get you the right answer, we'll do that. But what are the different technologies that we can test in AI that can get you the right We're trying to get fact based responses back to our patients in a timely fashion so that our human beings can be doing the things that we need human beings to do directly.
So these are just a few of the areas in which we're thinking about making our labs more efficient. Innovating around how we communicate with our patients. How do we help them? Deliver pharmacy better. How do we deliver all these other pieces of the chain better to our patients and more efficiently?
[00:32:39] Griffin Jones: How do we deliver pharmacy better?
[00:32:41] Lynn Mason: So I come from a bit of a pharmacy background. of, of fell into it when I was at DaVita and I think a big piece of it is the communication first and foremost has to continuously improve between providers and pharmacy and I say that across healthcare. It's no different in, in, in fertility, but in any piece.
So, We're going to talk about the benefits of healthcare, us having better communication. It's also using technology. I've talked to a number of pharmacy providers as, as we're having this exact conversation. How do we get insight into the patient's home? So into what they were delivered and making sure they can understand right then and there looking in their box what they're supposed to do, how to do it, and where to go for questions.
I, what do I mean by that? It is one thing for our patients to have a conversation in front of a physician and they're getting tons and loads of information, right? There's so many different things to keep up with. As I shadow these conversations, I'm just, I'm blown away by, the complex pieces of infertility and there are times that I would imagine if I were a patient that The medication piece might be the last thing on my mind, because we all have taken medications, okay, you go to the pharmacy, you get it, you take it as it's said, but here arrives this box, and oh boys, it got a lot of goodies in there.
What did that doctor say? Are these the right things?
How amazing is it that we've got the technology now that can allow us to see, okay, what was shipped in that box, we can have a conversation, it can be remote around, okay, I know you've heard these things before, you've got that leaflet to read, but here's a conversation we can have just very shortly around what's in your box, and that supports the physicians, that supports the nurses, that's few less phone calls.
That's coming in to them to explain something they've already explained, but it's okay because we need to hear it as patients multiple times over because this is a complex journey.
[00:34:48] Griffin Jones: So I might view that as the pharmacy's responsibilities. There's something about your leadership style or view on operations that you're viewing it as the clinic's responsibility.
[00:35:02] Lynn Mason: I view it as a partnership with the pharmacy to deliver what the clinic wants to have happen, which is a lot of touch and hand holding with the patient. And when we are working with our Vendors, which I prefer to call them partners, that's about having a lot more conversations and understanding around what's working well and what's missing from both sides.
We've gotten feedback from the pharmacy side to say, Hey, it'd be really helpful if this is what you guys would do. So to me, anything that we're delivering to the patient, there's ultimate accountability, but we have to feel a joint responsibility. around what happens, what that looks like, and how we have a partnership back and forth in which we can deliver on that feedback loop.
[00:35:51] Griffin Jones: So networks often will get deals with a particular, in your words, partner as opposed to vendor, but for a certain economy of scale. But are you suggesting it's not? Not just about costs that you need to get the partner, the vendor, to integrate in some
[00:36:11] Lynn Mason: Yes.
[00:36:12] Griffin Jones: your clinical operations.
[00:36:14] Lynn Mason: Absolutely. Absolutely. That should be a conversation that feels natural to have. And I believe in doing that through management process, right? When we are looking at partners to work with, it's important to say, how often are we going to communicate? How often can I get you here to talk to my nurses and to give an update?
What's our communication going to look like and our feedback loops are going to look like? The mistake that I believe so many people make. Organizations make, so many providers can make across all the lanes of health care is to say, I need this service, I need it at a certain cost, and I need this to be off of my workload.
Okay, those things are true. You likely need a service, you need it at the right price, and your workload, you need some help and it's likely better to outsource it. But it's about communication and partnership, not abdication. And that's when I see, vendors become partners is when you're working together to say, I didn't just hand that off to you.
We're in partnership and communication on this thing. Yes, it's your responsibility and accountability to get it there and to do these things. But if we just let it go, all those cost savings are going to come back in some other kind of way because they're going to be spent making corrections to mistakes.
[00:37:40] Griffin Jones: but to carrier screening, to any type of relationship.
[00:37:46] Lynn Mason: Absolutely I completely agree that it can and I've seen it, I've seen Work well across various healthcare industries, and I know it can work well here, but I've also seen the flip side of when we've handed things off, there's not the communication of what we think is happening as a happening, or for that partner, what their hope is happening inside of our provider network isn't happening.
So those to me have to be partnerships in order to be effective, especially as we're in an industry that's constantly evolving.
[00:38:18] Griffin Jones: How do you vet that, Lynn? Because COST is relatively easy to vet. It's either this price or it's this one, but when it comes to how well do they integrate with our operational workflow and vice versa, how much do they improve it, how do you vet that in potential partners?
[00:38:37] Lynn Mason: I think a huge part of that comes in that initial relationship building and conversation. I love first working with partners who want to experience who we are as a network first. I really want to go on a tour. I'd really love an audience with your APPs or your nurses to learn and to understand who's the right person for me to work with just to understand what your pain points are.
Like those, that is key for me to see in a potential partner at first. The second piece is what we contract for. Spot on Griffin that the cost piece, know, you negotiate the numbers. Are we also having a conversation around how often are we going to talk? What are we going to have as our leading and lagging indicators of success?
How do we check in and course correct? If a partner is helping to have that conversation with me and it's just as important to them that we're having these touch points that we decide if we're working well together or not and how we course correct, it's another touch point to say, okay, I know we're thinking about this in the right way.
And then the third piece is that we really do execute on it. Meaning. Every quarter we're having, know, our touch base meeting. I know my folks come and say, Hey, Lynn, I was just with this certain vendor and was at, was invited to their offsite and, know, learn so much more. I want to bring them in.
We're invited into each other's spaces and we're being adherent to what we said we were going to do to have feedback loops and to course correct and have continuous improvement with each other.
[00:40:22] Griffin Jones: Hearing Lynn talk about partnerships makes me think about why RMA chose Gaia as a partner for revenue cycle management. RCM infertility care generally follows three key stages, benefits verification, pre authorization, and claims management. Each step introduces potential delays, errors, and administrative costs. Benefits verification requires staff to confirm coverage details, often navigating insurance specific portals, calling directly to clarify plan terms. Pre op then mandates the submission of detailed clinical documentation to justify proposed treatments. With no guarantee of approval, by the way. So if you're RMA or another fertility clinic, you need to partner with a payer who is going to take as much of that junk off of your plate, as much of that junk off your admin team's plate as possible.
Gaia talks about being one of the fastest payers on the market. They talk about how they help clinics large and small. with their revenue cycle management and support RCM and financial teams at clinics. RMA announced that they'll be using Gaia's financial support with a concierge counselor for those patients who choose to use that service.
If you'd like to see the advantages That RMA is tapping into, maybe Gaia can do the same for you. Email Kay Colegrove, Kay is her name, she's a lady, a human being, Kay Colegrove, Kay is spelled K A Y, at Gaia dot family, Gaia is G A I A, Kay@gaia.family.
And then you said sometimes it doesn't work out. You've had it not go the way you want it to in other areas. When is it time to cut the cord and switch to a different vendor?
[00:42:04] Lynn Mason: Yeah, I think a couple of things that I look for, first, was the feedback well received and was there an attempt to course correct and have continuous improvement around that? If so, we may have to agree up front. Hey, we're going to test a new way of doing this, and if that fails, let's go back to this, but what did we agree upon?
And if what we agreed upon, we're still working towards, and there's continuous improvement, then we need to keep moving forward, but those instances where feedback is not received, or feedback is given and nothing is done differently and there is a different point of view on what failure has looked like.
I am a fan of moving on sooner rather than later because those are key indicators that we aren't aligned. we, If we've alignment, then continuous improvement is going to happen. If we don't have alignment on what failure looks like and what feedback loops look like and course correcting, there's no amount of time that's going to fix that scenario.
[00:43:10] Griffin Jones: The types of technologies that you talked about in introducing new partnerships, you talked about AI a few times, but it sounded not just like clinical AI, but also, operations AI in which the patient is perhaps getting answers from a chatbot or they're getting some sort of real time communication from AI as opposed to having to call, play the voicemail game.
What are you testing there?
[00:43:37] Lynn Mason: Yeah, we're working with a couple of organizations that, not to be named yet, but hopefully soon, on piloting technology that they have. That can be integrated with our Artemis system in order to response back. We also have a global initiative going on that hopefully we'll be able to talk about soon around this very thing on communication with patients, but also, know, communications broadly.
And I will say, this is the beauty around being a part of a global organization that's also looking. Yes, region by region, North America, Iberia, Europe but says some of these challenges are global in nature. And what can we do and learn from each other as this integrated network to what's the packet of materials that's handed to a patient when they leave?
What's that frequency of follow up? How do we automate that? So we're looking at some things from a global perspective as well. And a third, we've we've worked globally to do a lot of studies that are time and motion in nature, management process in nature to say, if we're really working to the point of burnout, let's pause.
Let's go and let's time motion study this. Let's take a look and say, where can we add some efficiencies? And sometimes efficiencies are as simple as new. Workflows, new processes, the way we're using our teammates, our APPs, our nurses. How can we do that more effectively? I think we're at a point in time where AI is so sexy and some of these technological things are so sexy is that the solution?
Sometimes it's just better operations. And then other times it's, it is. What technology can we get in here to help you? What's taking the most of your day? And asking those questions and being out in the field. We did some of that work earlier this year. We're about to do some more to say, how can we improve these operational workflows so that our teammates are experiencing joy at work and not burnout at work?
And some of that takes a long time to do and to understand and to really test some new things. But. Other pieces of it are just, hey, we just need to tweak how we're doing our workflow here. It doesn't have to be that cumbersome.
[00:46:02] Griffin Jones: I would see responding to certain patient questions, not all, but certain patient questions as one of those things that it's not just an operational improvement that we
[00:46:10] Lynn Mason: Right.
[00:46:11] Griffin Jones: use something like that to scale to want the answers and the quantity that they want the answers with regard to being a part of a global organization and earlier you mentioned time lapse is something that To paraphrase, I have evolving views on, IVI RMA organization. other parts of the globe, there's a lot more time lapse, where in the U. S. it's probably 20 percent or less. How do you view time lapse and does your affiliation as part of a global network impact that view?
[00:46:43] Lynn Mason: I think it's something, like I said, we're testing and we're working with right now and I think that's very important. When first our embryologists within North America say, look, this is really what we should be testing. We want to be mindful of that and hear that and work with them on that.
What's wonderful about the global organization is that there is influence, but what influence looks like within the IVI RMA global network is we meet quite often. We meet as a global team every other month, which, know, someone's going to say, wow, so you guys are flying around meeting together every other month, but it's important because we have these conversations and it's not a heavy hammer that comes down and says, this is what's going on in the UK.
As a result, it needs to go on everywhere else. It's really a scientific approach that says, hey, this is what we are doing here. We've been doing it for quite some time and these are the results. What could testing it look like in your market? What could bringing this out look like in your market? So we think about time lapse in that way.
We take a very scientific approach to looking at how do we want to test here? How do we design the right studies? But also, what have we already learned? Globally, that we can apply. So it's, it's like two for the price of one, if you will, because we already have markets that are leveraging different types of technologies, know, for us, there's some things that we think about here in terms of what our EMR looks like and what attracts.
Well, Artemis is not, in Thank you. Other countries, but what can be learned here from what's in our EMR, that could be great somewhere else. So that's how we learn together versus an influence together versus a heavy handed approach. It is, we're scientists, so let's learn together as scientists.
[00:48:32] Griffin Jones: How do you engage with IVI RMA
You are the CEO of a very large organization, just as IVI RMA North America, part of the IVI RMA Global, a very large organization with their CEO. Trio in Canada has a CEO, they're part of EV North America.
Boston IVF is a very large organization that's within your organization. They've got their CEO, David Stern. How do these organizations fit together?
[00:49:00] Lynn Mason: So with North America, we work together as a network of brands and again, this is where communication is key. We are still in the early days of our integration work. The transaction just closed. So we're still aligning technology systems like Artemis but it is important to us from a communication perspective that we're communicating and sharing, because that is the beauty of bringing these organizations together is to get the best from all worlds.
So I'll go back to boring old management process. First we've got to be talking weekly. We also have a group meeting just in North America. We've got our weekly call in North America with Canada. We've got our own separate calls , that we do there and meetings that we do, management process around all of that.
So those are things that we do that are joint and the same. With the global team, we actually have a global call our weekly committee call that is what it says it's weekly. So we're exchanging information on a weekly basis and our global CEO, Javier, is the Javier is someone who, he is constantly in country.
I am in awe of how he does it. I see Javier almost every single month but we talk weekly as well. Communication here is absolute key. And then when I talk about the Dyad Partnership again, Javier has a Dyad Partner. Dr. Roqueña is constantly talking to my dyad partner, Dr. Molinaro.
So having these communication loops and learning from each other and deciding, hey, what's the best from all worlds that we can pull together as this global network? That's when the fun really starts happening.
[00:50:50] Griffin Jones: Within North America, what, for what things is it that, hey, we make these decisions together, we buy these things together, we do things this sort of way together, versus this is when IVI RMA does it their way, and Boston IVF does it their way, and TRIO does it their way?
[00:51:07] Lynn Mason: We do not want to upset, first and foremost, anything clinically or medically that is working well. We want to ensure that our medical directors have a say in how they practice medicine and treatment. Thank you. Our medical directors over those brands are helping them with that and constantly communicating.
So the first and foremost we always want from a clinical perspective, our physicians to be able to practice medicine in the best way that they see practicing medicine. And then we bring things together that say, okay. These are the best standards of care and let's think about how we to roll those out.
We work together very closely on business development and deciding our directions to go on business development. Ultimately, IVI RMA, North America, is a network. We are working together On how do we grow, where do we grow, who has the relationships and then let's grow from and operate from that perspective.
But again, the key is how as we're integrating with systems, do we best learn what are the things that are working really well and bring them together under what IVI RMA Network, which is IVI RMA North America does.
We've talked a lot about how you can use these systems and grow these teams to improve care. How do you reduce cost at the same time as improving care?
It's the challenge of healthcare. It's been a challenge of health care for so many different industries and across the years. The cost of doing health care continues to rise especially across North America. So for us, it's first about thinking about really, Being good stewards of our resources, be very thoughtful around planning and how we leverage our scale when we are negotiating for things that are pure costs for the organization.
[00:53:12] Lynn Mason: That is really important to us to leverage what's our purchasing power, what's our scale, how are we really good stewards of resources around how we use people, and then what are those areas that perhaps it was the way that we needed to operate or staff or do things historically, but there's better technology or there's better systems that we can use now to reduce the cost.
What we want to ensure is that clinical care still always comes first. Clinical care comes first, but then how can we do it more efficiently and effectively through leveraging our scale, our purchasing power and technology.
[00:53:51] Griffin Jones: How do mergers and acquisitions come into all of this? Is it for that purpose, at least partly, to increase the purchase power and to increase the power that you have with certain to integrate operations at scale? How does M& A play in?
[00:54:08] Lynn Mason: Yeah, so first and foremost, we do truly want to expand access to care, and we want to do it with really strong partners, and especially in areas where we see that there can be a lot more growth. So we look for M& A partners who are already aligned clinically. And are in areas where we say this is a great area for us to enter and then we can grow from there and expand that access to care.
We do believe that we can bring to practices some of the great things that have been done across our networks for years to help improve outcomes. But also to help improve the total cost of care. So first and foremost, we want really aligned partners who can help us quickly expand in those areas where care is needed.
But secondly, we want to be able to bring some of these things that we've learned over these years of experience to providers who want to be a part of a bigger network, who want to have access to more innovation research, the ability to test things and take advantage of our scale.
[00:55:15] Griffin Jones: You mentioned conceptions in Colorado, Dr. Bush's practice, Glenn Proctor's practice in the Denver area. What areas is IVI RMA North America not in yet? It seems like you're in in Seattle and what areas are you not in yet?
[00:55:31] Lynn Mason: And so you're right, you look at the map, we have a great concentration in the Northeast and New England, our Boston IVF partners, have a great concentration there as well. We're along the West Coast, but there is still so much white space. It's in the middle of our country where there's some providers, but frankly not enough and more growth is needed.
There's still so much need in the Southeast I'm a little partial to the Southeast cause it's originally where I'm from and even thinking about my own personal journey. The access to care here just was not talked about nearly as much as I've seen it talked about in other areas of the country.
[00:56:10] Lynn Mason: So I think there the US where we see a lot of access to healthcare, we do have a presence there, but I also believe there's so much of the country that especially in the middle and as you come down into the south, there's still opportunity to really service a lot of patients.
[00:56:28] Griffin Jones: What do you want fertility specialists, practice owners to either think about differently or as we grow as a field in the next couple years or pay closer attention to.
[00:56:41] Lynn Mason: The first thing to think about differently is truly leveraging the strength of the dyad partnership. I have just met amazing REIs who've done it all themselves and I am constantly impressed and there's so much more that we can do when we partner. Together, and to just give some of that weight away to the dyad partner.
Let that dyad partner carry that weight. The second piece is to still be as excited about innovation and trying new things as I believe has been occurring across the few decades that the industry has truly been in place. Just, know, drinking from a fire hose, entering the space, looking at all the research and all the innovation.
I'm blown away, but now is absolutely not the time for us to slow down our publishing and our research and what we're willing to try now more than ever where We want to take that next leapfrog ahead and the number of patients we can service, the number of babies that we bring into the world, now is absolutely the time to crank that into gear.
What should we be testing? What should we be thinking about? What pieces of the value chain need to come together and take this market and to take this industry that next step forward.
[00:58:09] Griffin Jones: Lynn Mason, CEO of IVI RMA North America. It's been a pleasure getting to know you today. I look forward to having you back on the Inside Reproductive Health podcast.
[00:58:18] Lynn Mason: Thank you so much, Griffin. It was a pleasure. I love meeting you.
[00:58:22] Griffin Jones: If you'd like to see the advantages that RMA is tapping into, maybe Gaia can do the same for you. Email Kay Colegrove, Kay Colegrove, Kay is her name, so that's K A Y at Gaia dot family, Gaia is G A I A, kay@gaia.family.
[00:58:39]Announcer: Today's advertiser helped make the production and delivery of this episode possible for free to you, 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, and the guest's appearance is not an endorsement of the advertiser.
Lynn Mason
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