In this exciting kickoff to 2025, Jamie sits down with Your Health CEO Matt Staub to discuss the organization’s latest groundbreaking initiatives. From the expansion of the Community Health Integration (CHI) program to the launch of a new Durable Medical Equipment (DME) division and a return to hospice care, Your Health is reshaping the way healthcare is delivered. They also dive into the organization’s expansion into Florida, how healthcare is moving beyond the four walls of a hospital, and why integrated care teams are the future. Tune in for an insightful conversation about the future of patient-centered care and how Your Health is leading the charge!
In this exciting kickoff to 2025, Jamie sits down with Your Health CEO Matt Staub to discuss the organization’s latest groundbreaking initiatives. From the expansion of the Community Health Integration (CHI) program to the launch of a new Durable Medical Equipment (DME) division and a return to hospice care, Your Health is reshaping the way healthcare is delivered. They also dive into the organization’s expansion into Florida, how healthcare is moving beyond the four walls of a hospital, and why integrated care teams are the future. Tune in for an insightful conversation about the future of patient-centered care and how Your Health is leading the charge!
Welcome to experiencing healthcare. My name is Jamie, and today we're back with a new episode. It's 2025, I'm excited to be here with Matt Staub, our CEO. Matt, how are you doing today? I'm
good, Jamie. How are you they don't call me three take Matt Staub for nothing.
Yeah. If you could hear all of our intros. We had a few there technical difficulties. I made a few mistakes. I called you. Matt Stobbs, that is not your name. Yeah, we but we're getting there. We're getting there. So
I didn't push the red button. That means record. It's It's fine. It's
fine. Yeah, we're gonna make this podcast for sure today. So Well, Matt, it's good to talk to you. It's good, good to hear your voice. We've been busy here lately. At the end of the year, vacations and such, and it's great to be back. Today is a new day. We are fully engaged in the new year at your health. Things are cooking. We got a lot to talk about, a lot on the table. We, we're we've got some really cool programs that are running that that are kind of changing with Medicare. There's, there's all kinds of things happening, new business ventures within the your health organization, new states that have launched officially. So we got a lot of talk about. So why don't we start with ch i The Community Health Initiative, and let's, let's kind of talk through what's going on there and and how that's going.
Yeah, I'm, you know, I can't wait to talk about all these things, Jamie, like I'm really just want to jump in as I'm listening to you talk. You know, there's a lot of good things that that have come here with 2025 you know, and I'll just go ahead and get it out the way and say that's certainly presented itself with with a number of of opportunities and challenges to overcome. But if you look at, if you look at the bigger picture, and hopefully are able to look into your crystal ball and see the end of the end of the story. It's very positive at first that, you know, just be kind of a miss to say, I heard somebody the other day say, oh my gosh, I can't believe it's still January. How long is this month, you know, and I just, I kind of had to reality check on that, because I feel like Christmas was, like, maybe a week and a half ago, and I'm already starting to get ready for the Fourth of July, yeah. Like, I just feel like it's this blistering speed again that we're moving at. But since you talked about and kind of intro, ch, I community, health integration, you know, it's, I hate to even, I hate to even say this, but it's really one of those things that almost sounds too good to believe. So if you look at where we've come not just as a primary care organization, but as a healthcare organization, and really this idea of patient centric care. We're we're really bought into and living every day and really making changes for healthcare. I'm just so proud to be a part of this organization and and, you know, I feel blessed and fortunate and lucky that I get to be the CEO. You know, then if you look at healthcare and all the things that healthcare has done wrong for so many years, and then you look at something like community health integration, and you see, you see policy makers and lawmakers and administrative people working in hand to make health care better, with clinicians, with operators. And you get this community health integration. It it really says a couple of things. One, health care exists outside the four walls of the hospital. You don't have to go just to the hospital to get good quality care. And I think there are some hospitals that deliver good quality care. But the idea that health care is bigger than an instance that you know it, it can be being proactive and being preventative, you know, is health care and so. You look at this, this CH I, that falls under what we would deem as as a care management bundle. So we've got transitional care management and chronic care management and principal care management and behavioral health integration and all of these things that policy makers are going you. If you know, if only there were somebody to to tackle some of these behavioral health issues, if only there were somebody to address these social determinants of health that are really barriers, that that really speaks to not just equity, but equality, and to be able to as a as a healthcare organization, and you know, our, our, I'm calling him our chief visionary officer today, our chief visionary officer, Scott Middleton, to say this, this is this is what we've been asking for. This is our time. This is how we can change healthcare. We can put people in place so that the people that are having social isolation, the people that are in food deserts, the people that are are having transportation issues, all of these social determinants of health that are captured by Z codes in a very complex way. But people that we know, that we know that they're having some insufficiencies, we're able to help them like no greater gift, yeah, than for that and and for us to be able to say we're going to have these community health workers that that we can send into assisted living facilities, that we can send into independent living facilities, we can Send into people's homes that can help do some activities of daily living, if you will, type exercises or help address these social determinants of health. Really changes the game. Yeah. And then on top of that, the thing that I think that your health has done for healthcare in in South Carolina, and soon others, which we'll get to to be able to add a clinician to that you know, not just the nurse practitioners that we've been sending to people's homes since 2018 and before, yeah, but really that, that Visiting Nurse that you know might be part case manager might be part clinician might be part, you know, tech support sometimes you know somebody to really have eyes and ears and hands and hearts on These people only, only makes healthcare better, yeah, and I'm excited that we're at the forefront at it. I'm excited that, you know, we're saying, Okay, let's take three steps forward. Okay, we gotta, we gotta take a step backwards here. All right, let's take four more steps forward, you know, and we're figuring out as we go along. But I think that's the thing that that we've always been pushed, and Scott certainly has pushed us is, you know, not the big that eat the little, but but the the fast that eat the slow. And I think that that we're, we're quick out the gate to figure it out as we go along. And we've got, really got some great teams put together that are that are helping to do that.
Yeah, I think it really, it's, it's helping tremendously. It's helping our organization to be able to stay on top of this patient care, so that, you know, these, keeping these patients from going to the hospital, cutting off problems before they become bigger problems, and there's just so many things that this program does that that is really, really unique. And Matt, I'd venture to say, as you, as you talk to other colleagues out there from other organizations, I would venture to say not many healthcare organizations are kind of moving in this direction and actually taking advantage of this. You know,
it's funny if you say that Jamie Scott was at a conference a week or two ago and was at a trade show and ended up running into a person at a booth that wasn't quite sure what the person did. And finally, after talking to him, or what their what their what their business was, after talking to them, found out that that they owned skilled nursing facilities. And so, of course, Scott, you know, said that, you know, I used to own three nursing homes, because the person was like, you know, for for a physician service group, we just, we want you to know that if a patient has been in our facility, they can readmit to our facility within 30 days and not have to go through the the rigamarole, if you will, of going back to the hospital. And Scott, you know, hey, I know that that's what we want to do. I own nursing homes, and Scott's very, very timely. I. Simple question of, he said, so is your doctor's office sending in community health workers or CNAs to help your staff? Yeah. And, and the, he said, you know, the the person kind of looked at him like he had, like he had multiple heads, and she was like, No. And he was, you know, went into talking about community health integration and community health workers, and how we were able to do that. And, of course, you know, she was like, hey, next time you're here, let's, let's have lunch. Let's talk. I'm really interested in this because, you know, the name of the gaming facility is, many hands make light work, and there's, there's always just a lot of things going on. As a matter of fact, I was talking to Theresa Eunice earlier today, our Chief Quality Officer, and and she was telling me that she and and Sydney Boggs were working on this, this kind of not a checklist, but duties or these are all of the offerings that community health workers could do while they're there in those facilities. And it wasn't so much like, Hey, you have to check all these things off and turn it in every day. It was like, there's a lot of things to do. These are the things that that you need to be focusing on. These are the things that you could do. So, you know, I was really proud that we see that there's a there's a, you know, a lot of things, there's a big mess, and we've got already people out there providing clarity, providing information, so that that our team members can take action and really make a difference.
Yeah, yeah. It's, it's amazing. So now included in this, and since we're talking about, you know, the community health workers that we have, you know, let's, let's dive into because part of that, you know, with the community health workers, they work with our pharmacy, they deliver medications, but something else they're going to start working on, and that has already begun, is our DME, part of your health, and providing that medical equipment for for patients that need it, that are coming out of the hospitals, that might need a walk, or They may need, you know, a bed, or, you know, some of those medical equipment, things that your health has done before in the past that knows how to do this. Talk about the new DME, you know, part of your health.
I remember being early in my career. So this would have probably been 2005 Scott talking about opening a DME company when, when he owned assisted livings and skilled nursing facilities. And he said he was walking down the hall one day and passed five different people carrying durable medical equipment, and you know, some of them looked very professionally dressed, and some of them did not. I'll just leave it there. And you know, there were some people he knew that would pick up equipment or repair equipment timely, and others weren't. And he just couldn't find somebody that he could hold to the kind of standard that he wanted for for the residents in his assisted living facility. So he started his own durable medical equipment company. So last year, at some point we we were really having our providers were saying we're having trouble with with, you know, acquiring durable medical equipment, walkers, wheelchairs, beds, oxygen supplies for patients. And, you know, had some, had some good partners that we were working with throughout the state. Had some that, you know, it was taking weeks for some of these things. So we started looking at, you know, not having a durable medical equipment company, that's not what we wanted to have. We wanted to be a primary care practice that has a lot of offerings. Yeah, and that's where we've evolved to we're a primary care practice, but the breadth and depth of what we've been able to offer now, you know, really just, just fits together. And there are some things that we're like, hey, we could get into that. And we go, You know what? That doesn't really fit with our quote, unquote model. But I think, you know, as as we've now started a durable medical equipment company. So we'll have community health workers that not every community health worker will will do this, but you know might be that they are delivering and putting together a hospital bed or oxygen or a number of durable. Medical Equipment this that's going to help assist those patients in their homes or where they need that equipment, so that they can, most of the times, be safe in their in their home or in their their home environment, and for us to be able to offer that in house as a part of that care team through a community health worker, you know, really expands how we're how we're able to change healthcare and deliver care, yeah,
yeah. It just really is, brings it full circle when you can get that, you know, that oxygen out to that patient quickly and get them what they need to be able to live a better life, to get them that you know, and then get them off that oxygen you know, when they when we can, you know, but to be able to for our providers to have that resource where They're not trying, okay, who do I need to call? Who do I need? Who do we need to get this, you know? Oh, it's our we can, we can get this equipment. It's, it's right in our EMR system, click a box, you know, I don't know how it's going to work. I'm not saying that, but, but, but to have the, you know, the authority to be able to say, yeah, we can get you oxygen. We can get you this, that visiting nurse can be out there and say, oh, you know what? You need a walker. You know, that's That's amazing. And then to have our community health workers giving them an extra tool to be able to come out and get that bed set up so that they don't have to walk those stairs right now, you know, after they've had this fall or whatever, whatever they've been going through, but they can't get up those stairs, or it's not safe for them to get up the stairs so they can sleep, get the rest that they need until they can get back to recovery. You know, when our physical therapist is getting them back in shape to be able to walk those stairs again. So it's just really neat to see how this is going to work and who this is going to benefit, who this is really going to help, and it just cutting out the middleman, for lack of a better term, to be able to just get the job done, get them healthier, to get them the care that they need and deserve. So
and I think Jamie, you hit on an important point there too, that, you know, with this care team, you've got that community health worker that's able to deliver medication, equipment, whatever, and, and, and be a part of that person's care. It really makes us, you know, expands that, that patient centric model that, that we've that we've been really pushing and touting, yeah, so that, that community health worker, can, you know, call the pharmacist and say, hey, you know, I was able to deliver that medication. You know, she was good with everything. You know, she couldn't do a tele health, a tell telemed visit right then, but we need to get her scheduled for that, or to be able to go back to the provider and say, Hey, I just wanted you to know that we got Miss such and such. You know her her bed that you ordered. We got it all set up and she's all comfy in it. Or go back to the physical therapist and say, Hey, we were able to fit them for that Walker today, and, you know, so that they feel comfortable moving around their house or getting to the mailbox. Yeah. And oftentimes that's the piece in healthcare that we miss, is that is that full circle communication, so that, you know, we identify problem, identify solution, test to make sure solution works. And, and it's a, it's a complete package, because, you know, it's, it's another company and, and certainly, we're not saying, you know, that there aren't good, durable medical equipment companies out there, but for us to be able to really have a network internally that we're having good integration and good communication all around a patient and their well being really, really does make it. Make it quite special.
Yeah, it really is. It's really neat, Matt, let's, let's talk about another brand new part of the company, just like the DME. The DME has been around for a little bit. It's been, you know, getting off the ground, but that's something that, you know, we've both worked in in the past. That's how I even came into the organization is through, through hospice and and that's another part of this. You know, the palliative care program we've we've had for a long time. We've had palliative care specialists, but we're going to be doing hospice again. Talk a little bit about that. I know this is the newer piece. And then I want to get into our state that. We have started in and moving along. Talk about the hospice company first,
very new, very cutting, cutting edge information. You know, I think that for a lot of us, Jamie, that have been here for quite some time we've we've seen this senior adult care really evolve over the past several years. And you know, there's a there's a piece of that, that that all of us still continue to think, you know, that, that 100% of the people that were born today will eventually die and death, you know, while, while, you know, it's a sometimes it's not pleasant to think about. It is a reality, yeah, and, you know, I remember Scott saying that you only get one chance to have a good death. Yep, and as a young healthcare professional, I really didn't know what that meant until I was involved with hospice and really could see what that meant to families, what that meant to individual patients that that you know, in the last stages of life, it can be, it can be really, really difficult and really scary, yeah, and for us to almost look at that as a ministry, it really is a ministry. Totally it, you know, it really fits. So to be able to think about having a hospice organization, not only including the ones that we partner with, but you know, a new one that we will, that we will start. It's going to look different. And I think that's the, that's of the little bit of the, okay, let's, let's have a little bit more conversation about that. So again, let me, let me go back to we're not starting a hospice organization. We're a primary care practice that is now going to, or eventually will offer hospice services. Yeah. So, so the idea of your primary care practice, your primary care physician, all of the things with that now, offering end of life care in conjunction with treating you as a as a primary care patient really does kind of fit nicely, that it's not just segmented out as hospice and This, this is what we do. But really, you know, one of the things that the guidelines of hospice want is the the patient's attending physician or elected physician, or primary care physician has a seat at that table of the care team. Yeah. And is a very important driver of that care for for continuity and of care. So to have us be a part of that, while continuing to offer community health workers and visiting nurses and social workers and pharmacists and specialists and you know, all the services that we're able to provide patients now, also in an end of life care setting, you know, really makes really makes that something special. And I think as I continue to talk about improving health care, I heard somebody say, and you know, it was, I don't know, on the news somewhere, that 54% of people who were of Medicare age were in some sort of value based care arrangement. Yeah, some may know it. Some may not, you know. Some may be in. They might not have traditional Medicare. They might have a Medicare Advantage plan. That's all in a value based care or a Medicare Shared Savings Plan, or a ACO or whatever. But more than half of people are are in this arrangement. Says to me, you know that's going to be the continued way that that healthcare goes. Yeah, and to think about, to think about quality delivery of care, and to think about cost containment, not necessarily spending less, but the the best bang for your buck, if you will, right? And, and having those two things have parallel trajectories. Is really where we are as a healthcare organization, that we're able to look at cost containment and not sacrifice quality to have really good outcomes and have end of life care be a part of that. You know. It's, it's a great time to be in health care.
Yeah, it really is, yeah, especially when you're kind of a pioneering organization, you know. And your health really is, you know, Scott Middleton is yourself, you know, it's, how can we do it different? How can we make it better? How can we do this better? You know, there's just so much in that pioneering saying, hey, let's, let's be the first to do this. Let's be the first to go and give care in the home versus, you know, in a traditional doctor's office. You know, there's, there's so much of that. And I know your health will be at the forefront of doing that. Matt, lastly, let's talk about something that's really, really exciting. You know, your health started off, obviously in South Carolina, reaching all counties in South Carolina, you know, moved to Georgia and Augusta and Savannah and Macon and those surrounding areas. But there's a brand new state. We've, we've had a couple people down there getting this off the ground, and they're, they've been building a team, and that's been and Michelle guest, and they've been working extremely hard. And that's Florida in in the St Augustine area, and that's really, really exciting talk about Florida and kind of where we're at, kind of how this has gone and but it's really neat to see that your health is going to be able to help so many seniors down there, especially Medicare age. I mean, it is loaded with them, and it is a true need in those communities,
Damian, I was kind of waited with, with bated breath here for a new state. Florida's been around for a little while. Yeah, it's not a new state,
you know, I it is, it's, it's brand new. It's, it's the, I don't know what, what it's the wild wild south. It is definitely wild. Well, I mean, there's not Florida stories for nothing down there.
So that's, that's right, that's right. You know, we we talk a lot about growth and we talk a lot about expansion, and I think we use those two terms synonymously or interchangeably. And really, after a conversation with Jason Taylor, um, he kind of helped me have a different perspective and different viewpoint on on growth and expansion, and kind of went into expansion is, is, you know, we're, we're in a particular area, whether that's a building or a doctor's office or, you know, a geographic area that that we've got service offerings, but we need to, we need to expand those, like Macon, you know, we might not have all of our specialty services available in making as of today, but, but we will, And we're expanding to that. And then we talk about growth, and it often seems that growth is that exciting thing. It's that new thing. It's a DME company, it's a hospice company. It's now, we're in in St Augustine, in Florida, and, you know, we did a good bit of market research. We had an idea of where we wanted to be in Florida. Our market research told us that that wasn't where we should be in Florida. And it really, it really showed us that we needed to be in St Augustine and and I think we've had, you know, a number of people that have helped us make good connections there. We've brought on some really good team members. We're starting to serve some patience. And you can see it taken off like and, and as a as a person who has a little bit of control issues, sometimes, like, you know, I feel myself wanting to grab these reins and and, and just, just really control this. And speaking from experience, that's, that's not where we can be. You know, we have to be able to grow organically for one reason, and one reason only is because we'll find needs that patients have, that we can fulfill, and that's, that's our calling, that's, that's what we're meant to do. So we're in St Augustine, but you know, before you know it, we'll, we'll be talking about, we'll be, we'll be talking about the villages. We'll be talking about Jacksonville. We'll be talking about Gainesville. Yeah, we'll be talking about Daytona. We'll talk about Orlando, and, you know, healthcare Orlando, in that central part of the state, is highly competitive. They have some great care there, and I think we're positioning ourselves to be there, yeah, but then we have to go back, back north, and talk about, talk about Brunswick, yeah. And it's. Is such a such a fast growing area, very similar to St Augustine, that then kind of, kind of pitches us back to Savannah, yeah, where, where we currently are and need to expand. And then, you know, up into the middle part and western part of Georgia. I know we had somebody that even talked about Lagrange, and not the shack outside of Lagrange, but being in in La Grange, which then, you know, we're, we're in Atlanta, yeah, before you know it. So I'm gonna
go ahead and call it here your health Disney. So hopefully I didn't get a suit there, but let's, let's make that happen. It's a different spelling.
So, okay, good. I think we'll be okay, yeah,
nice, yeah. I mean that's just so exciting. Matt,
yeah, it really is. You know, I think we've, we've been very blessed. We've been very fortunate that, that we've been able to have these opportunities that were afforded these opportunities, and you know, at the same time I have to, I have to thank and give credit to the operations side of things that you know continues day in and day out to make sure that this, this flywheel keeps, keeps moving. Yeah, of you know this, the bringing on of patients and helping to make sure that they get good care. And then, you know, you can't do that without, really, with, without the the human resource department that starts with recruitment, yeah, and then, and then contracting and credentialing, and the the human capital, I really don't like that term, but the human capital that we have and To ensure that, you know, we can send out W twos, and that people who have their PTO approved and that and that they get paid. And then, as we have all of those things, we we have to make sure that, you know, I'm, I'm the first person to say there's no mission without margin if those those visits don't get coded, and claims go out the door and revenue comes back. You know, we, we have to be able to keep the lights on, yeah, so, so making sure that that coding, you know, has, has, has done their job of getting those bills out the door. And then, you know, the the AR team and revenue strategy to making making sure that we're capitalizing on those areas to come full circle, like back to ch i that that we're able to have good revenue streams. This has really been the first January that I can recall that you know has has really been lucrative. Maybe the best word for us that that it's been a financially secure, if you will, not to give anybody, anybody heartache. But you know, with January, we see a lot of resets of of everybody has an annual deductible, and their co pays may change, or they've changed insurances, and maybe we don't know about that, we, we really did a excellent job of preparing for that, probably for about the past six months, so that, so that, that we're not having a really rough January and so, so this, This has been a great start to 2025, and and I just, I look forward to all that it's that it's going to that it's going to bring, yeah,
it's going to be an exciting year. We've got marketing meetings next week. We've got, I mean, there's just so much going on right now, and it's exciting with what's going to happen, where, where things are headed, and it's going to have its challenges. It's going to have we're going to we're going to see some huge wins this year. But it's, it's all exciting. It's where it's headed. And Matt, it's going to be, it's going to be a fun 2025, to say the least. Hey, and let me mention to speaking of Florida, we have the symposium that's happening down there on March 25 down in at the World Golf Village down there in St Augustine. It's going to be really neat to see what happens, and see just being able to our education department reaching down there, our assisted living department, you know, helping, you know, get those CE credits for those Florida administrators. So in which I think you're going to be speaking down there, Matt,
I was going to say, hey, I'll be there. You will be there. Yes, you will. Before that, we'll have a we'll have an open house. We've been cutting the end of February. I want to say it at our at our office there. So. You know, so look out. Yes, it's coming. It's happening. Let me also say you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs. That's true. So, you know, I don't want everybody to feel like that. This plan is going to go perfectly and flawlessly. Never does because, because it never does. But I do know that we have great people and great team members and a great team that is gonna, you know, identify areas where we've got opportunity and then work feverishly to to make changes and make improvements so that our patients get nothing but the best care. Yep,
that's great, Matt, this has been awesome. Thanks so much for your time and and we'll thank you, Jimmy. We'll do this again soon.