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In this episode Ron chats with Dr. Devi Shetty. Devi is the Chairman of Narayana Health and Founder of Health City Cayman Islands. Here he discusses working long hours for a job that you love, technology, volume, and specialization to drive down costs. They also dive into medical tourism as an alternative to having an expensive procedure, with similar outcomes, in the United States. Dr. Shetty is a true visionary and pioneer in healthcare.

Dr. Shetty is a cardiac surgeon with around 34 years of experience. After completing his MBBS from the University of Mysore in 1978, he registered with the Karnataka Medical Council in 1979. Thereafter, in 1982, he received a master’s degree in surgery from the University of Mysore. In 2009, he was granted a fellowship from the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He founded Narayana Health in the year 2000. He initiated the concept of “micro health insurance scheme” in Karnataka, which eventually led to the Karnataka government implementing the Yeshasvini scheme, a micro health insurance scheme for rural farmers.

Dr. Shetty is a professor at Rajiv Gandhi University of Medical Sciences, Bengaluru, India and University of Minnesota Medical School, USA. He is the recipient of a number of awards and honours most noteworthy being ‘Padma Shri’ and ‘Padma Bhushan’ Award in 2003 and 2012 respectively, conferred by the Government of India and the ‘Rajyotsava Award’ in 2002 conferred by the Government of Karnataka. He was also conferred with the ‘Dr. B C Roy National Award’ by the Dr. B C Roy National Award Fund under the category of ‘Eminent Medical Person’ in 2003, ‘Entrepreneur of the Year Award – Start-up 2003’ by Ernst & Young, India, and ‘Sir M. Visveswaraya Memorial Award’ conferred by the Government of Karnataka in 2003. The Rotary Bangalore Midtown conferred him with the ‘Citizen Extraordinaire’ award in 2004.

He also received the ‘Outstanding Social Entrepreneurship Award’ by the Confederation of Indian Industry in 2005, ‘The President’s Award’ by the American College of Cardiology in 2011, and the ‘Economic Times Entrepreneur of the Year’ in 2012. Further, he received the ‘Indian of the Year Award’ in 2012 by CNN- IBN and the ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry. In addition, he received ‘Commendation for driving affordable quality healthcare for all 2010’ at the Healthcare Awards Program presented by ICICI Lombard & CNBC TV18 in 2010 and was the winner of ‘Business Process Award’ at ‘The Economist Innovation Award’s 2011′. He was an Honorary Fellow at the College Physicians and Surgeons of Mumbai, Doctor of Laws in 2011 and has also been awarded the Doctor of Laws by the University of Minnesota in 2011. In 2014, he was awarded the Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) by the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, Bengaluru. He received the ’19th Nikkei Asia Prize, Economic and Business Innovation’ by Nikkei Inc. in 2014.

He is an active member of the European Association for Cardio- Thoracic Surgery since 1996 and a life member of the Indian Medical Association. He was also a member of the Finance Committee of the 47th Annual Conference of the Indian Association of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgeons. He was a member of the governing body of the Medical Council of India between 2010 and 2011.

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In this episode Ron chats with Dr. Chris Crow. Here Chris does a deep dive into value based care and all of its different forms. Ron helps Chris to break it down in a way that healthcare outsidser, who only think of “value based care” as a hot buzz word, can understand. This episode seperates hype from reality and what is truely possible.

Christopher Crow, M.D. CEO of StratiFi Health and President of Catalyst Health Network, is a nationally recognized healthcare innovator. Dr. Crow created StratiFi Health and launched Catalyst Health Network after founding Village Health Partners and Legacy Medical Village in Plano, Texas in 2007. He is an award-winning primary care physician and has spent the past 20+ years focused on helping communities thrive through improving the delivery of healthcare.

As President of Catalyst Health Network, Dr. Crow has connected and aligned a network of more than 650 Primary Care Providers with nearly 1 million lives across North Texas, to build a better care model for patients that improves health and lowers cost. His work with Catalyst led them to be the first North Texas physician network to hold value-based contracts with the top four major carriers: Aetna, UnitedHealthcare, BCBSTX, and Cigna.

To date (since 2016), Catalyst performed with significant savings of approximately $55 million for the communities they serve.  Additionally, Catalyst became the 5th URAC Clinically Integrated Network in the nation in December 2017. In August 2019, StratiFi Health became 2nd in the nation to earn URAC Accreditation in Case Management with the Transition of Care Designation.

As CEO of StratiFi Health, Dr. Crow has been instrumental in the company’s incredible 5 year growth and success. StratiFi Health serves over 1,300 providers between their population health and practice services offerings. These practices manage well over 1.25 million lives and over $5 billion in annual medical expenditures. In 2018, StratiFi Health was awarded #19 out of 100 fastest growing, privately held companies in North Texas.

Dr. Crow was named Healthcare Innovator of the Year by D CEO Magazine, awarded TAFP Presidential Award of Merit, and Dallas 500 Most Powerful Leaders in North Texas. Additionally, Dr. Crow was name a finalist for the 2019 EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the Southwest.

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In this episode Ron chats with Michael Menerey. Senior Vice President and Benefits Consultant with Alliant Insurance Services and a partner in their Employee Benefits Practice. Here they do a deep dive into the problems with the business of healthcare and on the ground solutions that are actively working to fix them. They touch on a wide variety of topics such as paying primary care docs more, bringing the cost of care down, legacy organizations that may not have the patients best interest in mind, and more. This episode is a must listen between two excellent podcast hosts who regular talk to the brightest and most innovative the industry has to offer.

Michael works with a variety of clients from different industries and ranging from a few hundred employees to over 20,000 employees. Michael has a passion for helping businesses find alternatives to the usual health insurance strategies that simply result in higher costs for employers and their employees. He works to educate employers on the misaligned and perverse incentives that exist in healthcare delivery and payment system that naturally drive insurance costs higher. Michael and his team help employers to restructure their health plan to yield lower costs and improved benefits for their employees.

Michael is also the host of a podcast series, Reconstructing Healthcare, that explores what is wrong with the current health care system in the US, examines what drives higher healthcare costs and exposes deficiencies in traditional insurance products. Michael interviews companies that are providing innovative services and solutions designed to not only disrupt the health insurance marketplace but deliver lower costs and better value for employers and their employees. The Podcast is available on Itunes, Google Play, Stitcher and most podcast apps.

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In this episode Ron chats with Dr. Dana Corriel. Dana is the Founder of SoMeDocs. Here she discusses the power of social media in medicine, her role as a social media influencer in healthcare. She also talks about the positives and negatives of social media, but that overall a positive tool for good. Dana believes that medicine lags behind other industries when it comes to social media, but that it may be part of the solution to fixing what is wrong with medicine and specifically primary care.

Dr. Dana Corriel is a board certified internist and creative entrepreneur, who is working to empower physicians on effective use of social media tools, with her company, SoMeDocs (Doctors on Social Media). She has been active online, as a professional, for close to a decade, earning the title of Top Ten Internists to Follow on Twitter in 2018 by Medical Economics. Dr. Corriel appears regularly in major publications, with most recent mentions on front covers of LA Times and Gastro & Endo News, as well as within the Boston Globe, Huff Post, and EP News. She has served as guest faculty at conferences put together by Harvard and Rush Universities, and also has speaking appearances planned at several academic societies, where she will teach professionals how to innovate by thinking outside the box, especially using online tools, and the benefits of creative thinking in any field, esp in a traditionally conservative one like medicine.

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In this episode Ron talks to Kirk Umbehr is the Direct Care Transition Expert at Atlas MD. Kirk Specializes in helping doctors transition to an insurance free medical practice called direct primary care.

Here they discuss the work of Atlas MD and how Kirk and is brother Josh were pioneers in the Direct Primary Care movement. Kirk explains the benefits of DPC and why he feels the movement should be growing and why there should be more DPC clinics across the country. He answers common questions, such as how interested are pediatricians and OB-GYN docs in DPC. He also dives into how DPC helps docs avoid burnout and giving them the freedom to spend the time with patient that they deserve. Kirk truly believes that the DPC movement is a way for docs to enjoy their career the way they wanted to when they decided to practice medicine.

Kirk specializes in transitioning existing medical practices to Direct Care. In essence, he’ll make converting to DPC a downhill slide instead of an uphill battle. After graduating from K-State and earning a degree in Hotel and Restaurant Management from the Department of Hospitality Management and Dietetics, he moved to Kansas City for the country club industry. Looking to expand his credentials, he accepted a position as Director of Sales for a commercial LED lighting company before joining Atlas MD. He knows relationships can be a very powerful currency and wants to help doctors expose their inner servant hearts to their patients.

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In this episode Ron talks to Dr. Chris Crow. Chris is the CEO of StratiFi Health and President of Catalyst Health Network. Here he discusses what inspired to go into medicine and on his current path. He dives into why independent physicians are important to the ecosystem of healthcare. He also covers burnout, value-based care, chronic care management, and more.

Christopher Crow, M.D. CEO of StratiFi Health and President of Catalyst Health Network, is a nationally recognized healthcare innovator. Dr. Crow created StratiFi Health and launched Catalyst Health Network after founding Village Health Partners and Legacy Medical Village in Plano, Texas in 2007. He is an award-winning primary care physician and has spent the past 20+ years focused on helping communities thrive through improving the delivery of healthcare.

As President of Catalyst Health Network, Dr. Crow has connected and aligned a network of more than 650 Primary Care Providers with nearly 1 million lives across North Texas, to build a better care model for patients that improves health and lowers cost. His work with Catalyst led them to be the first North Texas physician network to hold value-based contracts with the top four major carriers: Aetna, UnitedHealthcare, BCBSTX, and Cigna.

To date (since 2016), Catalyst performed with significant savings of approximately $55 million for the communities they serve.  Additionally, Catalyst became the 5th URAC Clinically Integrated Network in the nation in December 2017. In August 2019, StratiFi Health became 2nd in the nation to earn URAC Accreditation in Case Management with the Transition of Care Designation.

As CEO of StratiFi Health, Dr. Crow has been instrumental in the company’s incredible 5 year growth and success. StratiFi Health serves over 1,300 providers between their population health and practice services offerings. These practices manage well over 1.25 million lives and over $5 billion in annual medical expenditures. In 2018, StratiFi Health was awarded #19 out of 100 fastest growing, privately held companies in North Texas.

Dr. Crow was named Healthcare Innovator of the Year by D CEO Magazine, awarded TAFP Presidential Award of Merit, and Dallas 500 Most Powerful Leaders in North Texas. Additionally, Dr. Crow was name a finalist for the 2019 EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the Southwest.

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In this episode Ron talks to Dr. Alex Lickerman. Alex is the Founder, CEO, and a Direct Primary Care Physician at ImagineMD. Here he discusses why he left the large group model to be an independent physician and pioneer in direct primary care. He dives into the benefits of the direct primary care model and how it is not just concierge medicine for the rich. DPC providers are much less prone to burnout and it is an attractive model to encourage more medical students to go into primary care. Here Alex presents his argument for direct primary care as the primary care model of the future.

Alex spent the first 20 years of his career as a leader at one of the top academic medical centers in the world, the University of Chicago, where he ran primary care for seven years and taught generations of today’s leaders in medicine. There he enjoyed a reputation as “a doctor’s doctor,” caring for many physicians who are themselves today considered leaders in their fields. He is a master clinician, routinely diagnosing medical problems that leave other doctors puzzled.

A nationally recognized speaker on the topic of resilience, his book, The Undefeated Mind: On the Science of Constructing an Indestructible Self, details evidence-based steps one can take to increase resilience and formed the basis of the landmark Resilience Project, which he began while at the University of Chicago and exported to ImagineMD as the Undefeated Minds program. His second book, The Ten Worlds: The New Psychology of Happiness, details an entirely new psychological paradigm that explains how it’s possible to achieve a kind of happiness that can’t be destroyed by anything. Living by medicine’s most famous aphorism, “The secret of the care of the patient lies in caring for the patient,” he counts his tenacity in designing preventive care interventions, managing acute and chronic disease, and making the right diagnoses as his greatest strengths.

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In this episode Ron gets the chance to chat again with Direct Primary Care expert, Dr. Paul Thomas of Plum Health DPC. In this episode he talks about how we went directly into primary care out of college and what his work week looks like, including blogging and youtubing the DPC message. He stressed the importance of relationships with small businesses and reaching the public via social media. Paul touches on how he has been successful in growing his business without brokers so far. He discusses what it takes start a DPC practice, the importance of a good name, creating a SEO course for DPC docs. He addresses Fears physicians have about going into DPC. Here Paul also shares his thoughts around end of life care and end of life care planning.

Paul is a board-certified family medicine physician practicing in Southwest Detroit. His practice is Plum Health DPC, a Direct Primary Care service that is the first of its kind in Detroit and Wayne County. His mission is to deliver affordable, accessible health care services in Detroit and beyond. He has been featured on WDIV-TV Channel 4, WXYZ Channel 7, Crain’s Detroit Business and CBS Radio. He has been a speaker at TEDxDetroit. He is a graduate of Wayne State University School of Medicine and now a Clinical Assistant Professor. Finally, he is an author of the book Direct Primary Care: The Cure for Our Broken Healthcare System.

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In this episode Ron talked to Dr. Torie Sepah. Torie is the Medical Director of Psychiatry & Behavioral Health at Imperial Health Holdings Medical Group and Healthplan, Physician & Co-Owner at Pasadena Neuropsychiatry Center, and Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of Southern California. Here she discusses a wide variety of topics around physician burnout and wellness.

Torie was born in Iran and immigrated to to the US at the age of seven, in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution. She grew up in the SF Bay area, primarily in the city of South San Francisco.  For undergraduate university, she headed southward to UCLA, majoring in Poli. Sci., graduating Magna Cum Laude.  She worked for several years in publishing, including as the Assistant Editor of Ms. Magazine in NYC during which she wrote the “Health”, sparking her interest in science, health and ultimately medicine. She went on to complete a two year post-baccalaureate, pre-medical program and was accepted at Tulane School of Medicine in New Orleans, LA.

Dr. Sepah and her husband, Ron Shatzmiller, a neurologist and co-partner of PNC, met at Tulane and married  as second and third-year medical students, respectively. She received her Doctor of Medicine in 2006, completed her  Internship year in Family Medicine at Kaiser-Los Angeles Health Center, and Psychiatry residency at USC + LAC in 2013. She served as Chief Resident in 2012  and is a Diplomate (“Board Certifed) of the American Board of Psychiatry & Neurology in General Psychiatry.

​Dr. Sepah spent five years working in correctional healthcare, beginning at LA County’s Twin Tower’s Correctional Facility followed by a year at an ICE Detention facility, and most recently at the California Department of Corrections in Corona (California Institution for Women), where she served at Chief Psychiatrist through January 2018.

​She continues to teach residents as an Assistant Clinical Professor at USC Keck School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry.  Management of systems and improvement of healthcare models–in particular in the area of access, has been an area a particular area of interest. Continuing to perform the duties of a Medical Director for Psychiatry at Imperial Health Holdings Medical Group & Health Plan, allows for involvement in health care management.

​Dr. Sepah continues to write, mostly articles about the practice of medicine, patient advocacy and improving access to care.

​She has conducted research and continues to in the area of physician burnout syndrome. Dr. Shatzmiller and Dr. Sepah co-founded Physician to Physician: Healing the Practice of Medicine in 2017, a closed online virtual peer-to-peer burnout prevention forum for physicians, now with 1800 members.

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In this episode Ron interviews Will Scott. Will is passionate about creating environments where people thrive so that they can be the best that they can be. A self-proclaimed Culture Czar, Will has studied, researched and adopted corporate culture strategies in several of his own companies, as well as helped multiple other businesses with their implementations. Each one has its own remarkable story.

Will leads workshops and speaks regularly on the subject of corporate culture using his proprietary 9-step process for taking organizations from simply having Core Values to truly having a Valued Culture. Author of The Culture Fix: Solving C-Suite Problems at the Ground Level with 9 Deeds in 90 Days, and host of the Valued Culture podcast, Will has set out to create two-thousand and twenty Culture Czars by 2020.

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