IAM1695 – Expert Uses Technology to Improve Healthcare Operations and Products

Shane Foss Teaser 00:00

What really sets us apart is that we have this provider network that's ours that is connected to technology. Then we use additional services to where we can offer your basic and accident, sickness and accident care for, less than a hundred dollars a month.

Intro 00:16

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs. Without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I am CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkles: 00:44

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast and I appreciate you listening to this episode. If you've been listening this year, you know that we hit 1600 episodes. We're doing something a little bit different where we're repurposing our favorite episodes around certain categories, topics, or as I like to call them, business pillars that we think are going to be extremely impactful for CEOs, entrepreneurs, business owners, and what I like to call the CB nation architects, who are looking to level up their organizations.

This month is around technology. We're a technology company that does dot, dot, dot. Technology is no longer an afterthought or something that you might do. It's actually a core part of your business, and if you're a real estate investor, you're using it. If you're a financial firm, you're using it. Cleaning company, author, speaker, you are using technology and if you are in any type of business, you are using technology. And if you're not, then you're probably gonna be disrupted by this.

So this month we're gonna look into repurposing episodes that are around technology, whether that be firms or organizations that are actually investing in technology and have that as a core part of their mission and vision of what they're doing are people that just might be using them as CEO hacks and CEO nuggets in ways that you can leverage them. So remember that we're a technology company that does dot, dot, dot. Or a technology organization that does dot, dot dot. So sit back and enjoy this special episode of the I am CEO podcast.

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Shane Foss of Hooray Health. Shane, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Shane Foss 02:12

Oh, thanks for having me Gresh really looking forward to it.

Gresham Harkless 02:15

Me too. Super excited to have you on. And before we jumped in, I wanted to read a little bit more about Shane so you can hear about all these awesome things that he's doing. And Shane is an expert in business development and strategy, sales strategy, and team development. After over 20 years in the healthcare industry, Shane decided to use his passion for technology to improve healthcare operations and products.

In 2018, he launched Hooray Health, an unconventional health insurance company that works hard to make healthcare coverage simple, accessible, and affordable.

Shane, are you ready to speak to the I am CEO community?

Shane Foss 02:45

Absolutely.

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Gresham Harkless 02:46

Awesome. Let's do it. So to kick everything off, I wanted to hear a little bit more on how you got started. Could you take us through what I call your CEO story? What let you get started with all those awesome things you are doing.

Shane Foss 02:54

Yeah, absolutely. So, it was a long journey here. I think that really starting back to my childhood and my upbringing, I had a lot of really good mentors growing up and I found myself in the military and as a surgical technologist in the military, I got introduced to healthcare where I assisted surgeons during surgery and just fell in love with the space. And so, from there, after I got out of the military, I joined Johnson & Johnson, worked there for a while and then ended up with Stryker Orthopedics. And it was a great experience, a wonderful organization and that's really probably where most of my professional development really came from.

I met a lot of great people, and learned a ton. And what we did was we sold the medical device, so orthopedic implants, and so we were in surgery and so really learning the clinical side of the business. And then after that, I bought my own business and did very well there, sold it and then one of my buddies that were at Striker called me up and said, Hey, I just got my first CEO position as a, CEO of this health benefits startup, would you come work with me as my COO? And I was like absolutely. So it was great timing and that was my first entry into the health benefits world. And so it gave me a completely different view of what's going on in healthcare. But what was interesting is, I could take what I had already learned in the past and apply it here and it was not an outsider really coming in.

We did really well with the company. We basically sold access to surgical bundles, to large self-funded employers, And we were, one of a few companies that had done that and we'd taken a different strategy. We sold 11 months after I started, stayed on another six months, and then really wanted to figure out what I wanted to do next. And so, the path was really personal experience. I think anytime you talk to an entrepreneur, they didn't just wake up one day and say, I think I'm gonna do something right? Something stimulated that thought.

And so what had happened to me was, I was consulting and my back went out and I'd never had anything like that happen. I went into urgent care and I had health insurance at the time. It was a $75 copay. I went in and I asked them, well, how much? I haven't hit my deductible. So how much is the total bill gonna be? 150 bucks. Okay, great. So I paid for it. I went in and they took an x-ray of my neck. They gave me two injections, a muscle relaxer, and an anti-inflammatory when they saw what they thought was a bone spur. And was irritating my nerve root and C four C five and just inflaming my back. Great. So I'm thinking I paid 150 bucks, I'm good to go. Well, three, three to six weeks later I received an $800 balance bill. So I called them up and I said, Hey, what's going on? Why am I getting a balance bill? And they're like, well, you got carve-outs, and what other industry do you not know what you're gonna get charged, right? Even when they're telling you what you're gonna get charged, you still have no idea and you're legally liable for it. So that was where I really came up with the idea of Hooray health in the sense that we looked at what was going on in healthcare and there's really this gap between full-time hourly and like, salaried hourly. And then even if you're making less than a hundred thousand dollars right now, a lot of times you can't. Unless your employer's paying a hundred percent of your bill, you can't afford it, your medical insurance bill.

So, we saw this gap and nobody was taking care of the hourly and the part-time especially, so I went out and I had the idea. I built this national network of retail clinics and urgent care with fixed pricing. And we are the only ones that have ever done it. And so for $25, our members go into any of our urgent cares or retail clinics for 25 bucks, no balance bill, and they get the services that they need. And so, that's the story. It's a long story but it's important because, until everybody, I don't know why, but everybody accepts this fact that, well, you just don't know what it's gonna be and you just, put up with it and then you pay the bill if you can't, and or if you can't, and if you can't, you get sent to collections.

So it's a tough place to be.

Gresham Harkless 06:40

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I definitely appreciate you telling the story. Could you drill a little bit more into that and what you feel maybe sets you apart and is what I call the secret sauce that makes you unique?

Shane Foss 06:48

Yeah, absolutely. So really we only focus on the hourly, whether it's part-time or full-time employees. And so with that, every product that we put out is focused to be accessible, simple, and affordable. Right? And so, affordability looks different in this population, so what really sets us apart is that we have this provider network that's ours, that is connected to technology, and then we use additional services to where we can offer your basic and accident care for less than a hundred dollars a month. We sometimes get it down to, 60, $70.

Our goal is that we're trying to provide affordable access to people getting into the health insurance space. And what that does is, you talk about, you said it perfectly, which is yeah sometimes, I really rethink going to the doctor. We don't want that, right? We wanna make sure that, especially with your kids, people are making bad medical decisions based on the financials, which is a reality. And so, what sets us apart is we really, that's what we live every day. That's what we focus on. And our experience is completely different than what a person, an hourly person who's normally going to experience, because we have the mobile app. We have from an eligibility standpoint our ID card, is recognized in any provider's office, normally people would go in, if they had benefits similar to ours, they would go in and they would make them pay first, and then they would have to get reimbursed.

And, that's a financial burden. And so with us, they go in, oh, Hooray, they send the bill to us, we pull the money out, pay them, and then you know, you're good to go. So yeah, our biggest competitive advantage is that this is the area that we focus on and we put all of our time and energy, so we look at it like we're not major medical, but we try to give that major medical experience.

Gresham Harkless 08:37

Yeah, that's absolutely amazing. And I don't know if you feel this but I always feel like sometimes people that are not all the way entrenched in the industry sometimes have that opportunity to see things and look at things in a different way. They don't take it as is, as you touched on.

Shane Foss 08:48

Right.

Gresham Harkless 08:48

But I don't know if that's been your experience with building the company and seeing that problem, but of course, solving it.

Shane Foss 08:53

Yeah, absolutely. It's funny because one of the biggest issues in our space, is we have lots of competitors that have been around a long time. But they've literally said this is the way it is, and we're not not improving the product. We're not, it's just one of the products we offer. Well, for us, we look at it completely different, right? We're customers ourselves. We, ask the question, well, wait for a second, why are they not able to see that we have health insurance and that we should get our $25 copay as opposed to having to pay for the whole bill first and then get reimbursed and then fight for reimbursement from them because we paid too much?

It's just a nightmare. And so by spending our whole time here, everything we focus on is how do we provide tools for the employee and the employer. How do you retain, recruit, and retain better talent? Even in the current climate we're in, where there were a lot of people laid off or furloughed, it's still always a dogfight for talent. Always. The number one issue is always getting the right people. And so if we're able to help the employer provide a valuable benefit that they actually appreciate, then guess what? We've done our job, we've helped them, and they're gonna retain that person or be able to recruit a top talent.

Gresham Harkless 10:08

And so I wanted to switch gears just a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Shane Foss 10:18

I like to get in the office early and I think one of the things that help me out is I get my busy work done when nobody else is in the office. We have 25 employees. We're still, relatively small. But the reality is there's still a lot of demands on my time. I need to make sure that I'm available to help where needed and guide and so getting all of that stuff done early in the morning. If it's getting up, like this morning I was in the office at six.

And so I'm here, I'm getting things done, answering emails, knocking stuff out, and then the rest of the day is the pressure's off to be able to focus on really what matters when my team is in the office.

Gresham Harkless 10:56

Yeah, absolutely love that hack. And so now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO Nugget. So this could be a word of wisdom or piece of advice, and it might be something if you jumped into a time machine, you would tell your younger business self.

Shane Foss 11:08

Yeah. So, I think the most important thing, especially from an entrepreneur standpoint, or you can use it if you're in a large corporation and you're trying to find new markets to enter, we talked about solving for a problem.

So there are a couple of things. So when you're solving a problem and you identify that problem, really love the problem and not your solution. Because the problem, more than likely will remain the same, Right? On some different level it may vary a little bit, but your solution is going to change, most definitely.

And, when you look at companies that fail and succeed versus companies that succeed, it is a lot of it has to do is they're so bought into, they're in love with their product and so somebody else comes up with, they're looking at it, saying, man, we can do this so much better if we do X, Y, Z. And if you're not constantly evolving your product to really address the problem, then you're gonna get passed.

Gresham Harkless 12:04

Awesome, awesome, awesome. So now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO and we're hoping to have different quote and quote CEOs on this show. So, Shane, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Shane Foss 12:13

It means a lot of humility, and a lot of pressure. But really, I think that the CEO is really the CEO and coach. You need to bring your team together. You need to be able to challenge people. You need to be a good listener. I'm not trying to be cliche, it really is.

I've been in sports my whole life. And the good coaches you always remember, and the good coaches, your team, may not be the most athletic, they may not be the smartest, but when you work with them and you give them that confidence and that guidance and let them fail, and then making sure that everybody learns from those failures.

I think the most important thing is the coaching aspect of it, because, if you have a team that is not cohesive and not working together to solve the problems as a CEO, it's your fault. And you're not maximizing your talent and shame on you.

Gresham Harkless 13:04

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, Shane, truly appreciate that definition. I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know, and of course, how best they can get ahold of you and find out about all the awesome things you and your team are working on.

Shane Foss 13:18

Yeah. Awesome. So, you can get ahold of us at hoorayhealthcare.com. We're constantly working on innovating our core products and expanding our product line to offer, really continue to stay focused on the hourly, full-time, and part-time population.

I think, just a nugget to leave your listeners, a lot of people listening. If you're listening to the podcast, you're always about self-improvement. And you're always looking for that one thing. Continue to keep pushing. And when the time is right, you'll know it.

Don't go in prematurely. Make sure that you've done your due diligence and you make sure that you're ready for the opportunity, because when it comes, it'll come and you'll know it. And it's an exciting time. It's a nervous time, but I tell you what, I wouldn't trade it for anything so.

Gresham Harkless 14:00

Nice. Well, I absolutely appreciate that, Shane. We will have the links and information in the show notes as well too. But truly appreciate you again. I hope you have a great rest of the day.

Outro 14:08

Thank you for listening to the I am CEO podcast, powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I am CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and everywhere you listen to podcasts, subscribe and leave us a five-star rating.

Grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I am CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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