Reducing Unnecessary Spending in Healthcare with Andrew DeLeeuw, President and CEO of DOCSI

[00:00:03] Hey everybody, welcome back to the Outcomes Rocket. I'm so excited to be continuing this HFMA 2024 Insight series

[00:00:13] and for today's guest I have the privilege of hosting Mr. Andrew DeLeeuw. He is the President and CEO at DOCSI.

[00:00:23] We've had the company on the podcast that you've strategy officer and such a privilege to have Andrew the CEO be joining us for this series.

[00:00:32] Andrew, welcome. Thanks for having me. Pleasure to be here. It's such a pleasure to have you here and we've got a lot to unpack here. So your focus areas as a company, the value that people could get from it.

[00:00:45] But before we jump into that, what does it that inspired you all to start this company?

[00:00:50] That's a great question. My self in the whole founding team of DOCSI are very passionate about leveraging technology to improve healthcare.

[00:00:57] Jama put out a study in 2019 showing that there's probably over 900 billion in annual waste in healthcare.

[00:01:05] Where we have a lot of experience and where we know that we can move the needle with the current technologies that are out there is focusing on supply use, supply optimization,

[00:01:14] data visualization, and transparency across healthcare. And right now we're just laser focused on that surgical environment.

[00:01:22] That's what gets us out of the morning. We're all very excited about the improvements that we can make the results that we're providing for our partners.

[00:01:30] And we've got an internal goal that we want to reach 5 billion in unnecessary spend eliminated through DOCSI in the next few years. So we're pushing hard.

[00:01:40] I love it, man. It's a lot of waste and the waste that we see is really accentuated by all the other problems, right?

[00:01:47] At the conference, there's a lot of discussions around prior authorization, bills not getting paid. All the stuff compounds and you guys are doing something about it.

[00:01:57] It talked to us a little bit and about what recent news or insights you guys have going on and what you want to share with our listeners and viewers today.

[00:02:06] So many things to talk about. We are a younger company so we're continuing to grow. So every time we have a new staff member joined the team that's always something to be excited about being able to

[00:02:16] to be able to do that. As early stage companies, you're in 25 different hats being able to transition those to and grow in the team, grow in the culture.

[00:02:23] There's always exciting news there. I would say one of the for the healthcare systems out there, one of the things that we are most excited about is the recent work that we've been doing in contract compliance and engaging physicians on their contract on contract versus other contracts spend.

[00:02:38] I'm pretty sure you focused on that quite a bit with Dr. McCarty on the platform podcast on that continues to just deliver tremendous value and so we're extremely excited about that and you're reading on that product that we have for our partners. That's been very exciting.

[00:02:54] Yeah, and so this is just a digital first kind of report that just says, hey, you're 80% compliant, you got 5% to go with recommendations on how to get there.

[00:03:05] Yeah, it's a break it down into a little bit more detail without going too long.

[00:03:09] Docsie is a digital solution for engaging multiple stakeholders in the healthcare system on areas of improvement and so we're working with our customers data to run it through our algorithms to run it through our machine learning tools to identify areas of opportunity for waste reduction or improve improving and

[00:03:31] for contract compliance specifically we are engaging physicians showing them here with a personalized dashboard that they see.

[00:03:40] The thinking on their mobile device that shows them here is your audit contract spend in this contract area that is that's really heavily focused on your department.

[00:03:48] Here's your in contract spend and here's some one for one product swaps that we want you to look at.

[00:03:53] Here's what you're using that's on a contract here's an on contract item and then we're giving them the ability to not only accept or decline that but then provide some feedback like, hey, I'm willing to try and trial, but it's not something I want to switch to for all my cases.

[00:04:08] Or, hey, I've had some really bad experiences with it in this environment and that's information that the.

[00:04:17] And the factures get really excited about getting this level of detail at scale from physicians as well.

[00:04:22] That's great. Now I really appreciate you digging into that a little bit more just to give us context and details around.

[00:04:28] That really personalized dashboard that physicians could use to understand and it's that visibility right the visibility makes a difference because otherwise they don't have this.

[00:04:38] Absolutely absolutely that's what we're trying to do is preach the caps there's so much.

[00:04:43] Great information out there and you just have to make it you got to make it curated can be an actionable for decision makers where they typically they don't get that information.

[00:04:53] Dr. McCarty he typically goes into several different examples of why this was so important to him as a as one of the founding physicians is.

[00:05:00] Keybie's asked to sit down for an hour and a half two hours pour over ton of data and at the very end of it there was no action for him to take it was just hey we wanted to present this information to you and he said well.

[00:05:10] What can I do to help like why how can we make this data actionable and there was nothing there.

[00:05:15] And so that's one of the several realizations of we've got to come up with a way to take all of this information and be able to deliver actionable insights to decision makers.

[00:05:25] Love it and you guys doing a great job of it. Hey look at the conference there is a lot of discussions on many different topics AI value base payments and the rev cycle from the front middle to the end.

[00:05:39] What's an insight that's top of mind from hfma for you that you want to share with the listeners that and viewers that couldn't attend.

[00:05:45] Oh yeah, there are so many great ones I think the AI was everywhere for sure absolutely but I think the thing that everybody gets really excited about with AI is providing using technology to create operational efficiencies in healthcare.

[00:05:59] And so that is that is something that I see true across the spectrum hfma it was a CFO CEOs that were really interested in that I see that at the VP level of all these departments I see it down at the individual OR manager level everyone's trying to find ways to be more efficient and effective in what they do in leveraging technology to do that.

[00:06:22] And we're extremely excited to be positioned at a great point in time to do that the tech the technology is there the data is there to be able to do what we do to provide operational efficiencies across the board where people at the top supply chain can be more confident that their information is driving down to the right individuals for decision making.

[00:06:41] And people that are providing care every single day have the information the tools they need to be more effective in actually ordering and utilizing supplies that they want to use so there's not as much waste in the system.

[00:06:54] Yeah, hey man we I love it thank you for sharing that and yeah we have to focus on all these things and we all have a role to play in what and Jordan called making this system more sustainable and absolutely right and

[00:07:10] And so you and your team are doing your part everybody that's listening of you and you you can do your part it could be as easy as given Andrew phone call and here and about what he has to do because they can make a big impact on your supply chain and your contract position.

[00:07:26] Look I love doing these things I appreciate you jumping on to do this with us Andrew give us a call to action and what's the best place listeners could follow and learn more about you.

[00:07:39] Absolutely LinkedIn is a great place to check us out. We try to be very active on there so it's easy way to get in contact with us.

[00:07:46] I was a number one thing people can do is go listen your podcast specifically the episode with Dr. McCarty our chief medical officer.

[00:07:53] That was a great podcast really appreciate that and I think if people are interested in hearing from a physician's perspective.

[00:08:01] How they want to be involved in this type of work how they want to be involved in operational efficiencies and helping reduce costs.

[00:08:08] So it's a great 20 minute listen love it. We'll make sure to put that in the show notes as well. Thanks for bringing that up Andrew folks you guys all know this check out the show notes for ways to get in touch.

[00:08:18] We'll leave the doxy LinkedIn page. We'll leave the web page there as well as a link to the podcast with the chief medical officer Dr. McCarty this has been so great Andrew I really appreciate you jumping on with us on this series and excited to stay in touch with you.

[00:08:34] No, this has been awesome thank you so much.