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Transforming Chronic Disease Care with AI & Health Coaching with Kathy Rees || Zero Friction Podcast · Zero Friction

• Terry Coutsolioutsos: Welcome, Zero Friction Podcast. This is Terry Kuchaluchis with another exciting guest today, and somebody who's helping sort of transform and disrupt the way healthcare is being delivered. She's a 30-plus-year healthcare provider, and she has a huge, huge broad background that she's bringing to a new company called Muscalo. And Muscalo is a digital health platform that has AI in it from a health coaching perspective. Her name is Kathy Rees, she's the co-founder. and we welcome here today. So Kathy, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background in healthcare and then what brings you here today. Kathy Rees: Hi, Terry. Thank you so much. I am in health care for 30 years. I started out as an emergency room technician in a hospital for 10 years, transitioned from there when a physician had approached me from an orthopedic practice and asked me to join his practice. At that time, orthopedic practice had... 12 physicians and two offices. When I left after 22 years, over 44 offices, over 200 physicians. So I worked at the orthopedic office and we grew so fast over many years. We had a brilliant CEO. He was not a physician, so he was able to bring his financial background into our company along with our physicians and they were brilliant surgeons and they grew into this huge practice and I was lucky enough to be part of it and see that. CEO left after 20 years and a new CEO came in and why I always accept change. I saw some people were leaving and he was asking people to leave and I was like, you know what? I'm in a good place. I loved my job, but I didn't want to be asked to leave. I wanted to leave on my own terms and I felt confident at that point that I had enough experience in the job market that I could find a job. So and luckily I had the support of my husband so I was able I did leave and I had a very good exit and I kept in touch and I stayed on board. And shortly after I had left, a physician had called me from the practice and said, I'm starting my own company. It's going to be a health and wellness company. I would love for you to join. And I was like, I'm not really sure what is health and wellness. At that point, I didn't know. Was it a nutritionist? Is it just going to the gym? And so I had to learn and I worked with the physician and I found that there were board certified health coaches. Well, what is that? So I looked and there are programs and there are tons of programs out there for health coaches. But in order to become a board certified health coach, you have to go through a program that will allow you to sit for a certification exam. Same exam that the companies that does physicians board exams. So I found the program at Duke, I enrolled. I took the program. then understood what a health coach was and how we could help people. Our program at Muscular when we first were starting was targeted towards those with chronic illnesses such as Ruben's heart arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, lupus. And I was like, well, how are we helping them? They take medication. I don't know. But once you learn that working with a health coach, you learn about stress and nutrition and physical activity, environment and sleep. mean, the five pillars of life and how by incorporating them and making sure that you're doing all of this, you can see progress, especially in those with chronic illnesses. Our company's built on anyone can use a health coach and I have met and oversee all the health coaches and they are the most empathetic, compassionate people. Some people say why and I say, well, you don't just go into life and say I want to be a health coach. It's a newer market. It's only been around maybe 20 years. I think it's only 10 years that you can get certification for it. So you've usually had another career and that is either in the medical field or it's someone that has a chronic illness and wanted to get better. And I think that's why they're compassionate. They felt that the medical community wasn't answering the questions that people wanted and wasn't helping. They don't have the time. There's great surgeons. There's great physicians. They just don't have the time to sit there and talk to you about your sleep and your physical activity. And that's where the health coach can come in. And at my company, the health coach works with a member, but they also have developed our own AI and that was created by other physicians. So we wanted to be scientific. We wanted to be evidence based. Terry Coutsolioutsos: That's great and you know, you think about like with our healthcare systems, one of the challenges is just access to healthcare. And now with AI, as long as it's used the right way and it's fed the right information, then people do have access to knowledge. It may not be prescriptive knowledge, but they do have access to knowledge and publicly made information at their fingertips where they can have a a conversation with AI and say, you know, what can I do to feel better or how many hours Of sleeping a night do I need in order for my body to recover or whatever it might be. I think it's you know, AI is going to change a lot of things in healthcare. It's going to provide access to information that people normally would never get. Number one. Number two, it's going to remove the need for humans to do low impact, repetitive things that aren't really valuable in order to do the things that are high impact, high value from a human-to-human perspective. And so what your platform is doing, what your company is doing is changing and disrupting all that. How are you knowing that disruption comes with inertia and trying to get adoption and penetration into new ways of thinking, what are you all doing in order to sort of reach that your ideal customer profile or your your client or your patient? How are you engaging to sort of say I'm here and you know we can bring value to you? Kathy Rees: So I think that that's the hardest thing breaking into it as a new company breaking into a market. Our CEO, he is able to go to some insurance companies and work with insurance companies. now have a self-pay option, but it is hard. have to do marketing. You have to use social media. We have to make sure that we have, again, we did it long-term, were only four years old, but we did three years with one insurance company for chronic illnesses. So we have some data and we have some outcomes to show that it works and that this is the right thing. Again, for people to pay for something that's not immediate, We're not selling the GLP-1s right now. We're not giving any vitamins. We're not doing any of that right now. And people want that. A lot of people want that. So that's where it's hard. That's where you go in and you say, spend some time with us. Do some sessions with us. See what, you know, we can talk to you. And yes, you can go get GLP-1s. You can get any supplements that you want. A lot of health coaching companies are out there that that's their business. going to sell you GLP ones and they're going to sell you other things. Yes. And Terry Coutsolioutsos: Peptides. Yeah, peptides are supplements and you know. Kathy Rees: that's okay. But a board certified health coach cannot coach you without saying, look, I'm working for a company who is offering this. You have to put it out there upfront because we're not there to sell anything. We're there to be your leader. We're there. We're the ones that are helping. And AI can really help us with that because we're going to sit and talk to someone for a half hour and they're going to set a goal. They need to have, what do I do? I now am looking at what I'm going to eat tonight and I'm going to put it into my AI. and see if this is the right thing, how many calories, what should I do? So many options with AI. I think the biggest thing is with the AI is getting people to understand it is good for a lot of things. You're only Terry Coutsolioutsos: Yeah. Kathy Rees: hearing the bad things, right? People are watching TV and hearing the bad things. Have you tried it? Do you understand it? And if we can get people to understand it, I mean, I think back to the days... at Rothman at the orthopedic place and I think our call center on a Monday could get 10,000 phone calls. 10,000. That's a lot of calls to answer. People are, physicians are in office hours, the nurses are in office hours. They're coming back and they have 50, 60 emails and voicemails they have to call back. Most of them could have been something that they could answer on AI. Can I Terry Coutsolioutsos: Right. Kathy Rees: do this? I'm three weeks out. I have this happening after my surgery. So AI can be phenomenal in helping people. They have to get over the fear of using it. They have to understand the technology. What can you trust? What can't you trust? Trying to get an appointment with a specialist, we all know that access to that is months, months Terry Coutsolioutsos: Yeah. Kathy Rees: away. But at the same time, if you're experiencing a problem, you're putting in there and saying, hey, I'm having this issue and I can't get an appointment, they're going to tell you, your primary. Tell them you can't get the appointment. know, AI can help people learn how to advocate for themselves. That's one of the biggest things. Terry Coutsolioutsos: Well, I've always said knowledge is power. Like, you know, having knowledge is very helpful. It it helps to understand, it helps remove creative things in your brain when you you you know, you don't worry, you have less stress. And so I that's those are the things that I love about how AI is changing our society. And a lot of people feel like it's creating friction and I I'm a firm believer that it's removing it. it's providing access to information. that most people would never have access to. It's democratizing the intelligence of our world. And as long as it's used and framed the right way, those are wonderful Kathy Rees: Yeah, exactly. Terry Coutsolioutsos: platforms. So tell me, like, so AI is using all this sort of like abundance of information and helping patients and you're creating these platforms. You have these health coaches that are engaging people with visits and then they s they get support in between with the AI, right? So it's sort of how that works. How does how does a patient find you? Like let's like give me an ideal like like situation where somebody would really benefit from your platform. Kathy Rees: So we do have a website. It's just muscular.com. They can go Terry Coutsolioutsos: Right. Kathy Rees: on. We are hoping to get out to more businesses, go on social media so that people can just click onto the website, can just click on Instagram or LinkedIn and find us that way. We have to get out there and say, and we would love for the insurance companies to say, or the physicians to get out there and say, look, you would really benefit. Here's a company that you can call. And here's a company you want to set up an appointment and you can get that. I mean, we have appointments the next day. That's our biggest biggest thing. Making sure we have that accessibility that we're going to be there if they want that appointment so people can find us that way. And again, we're out there trying to get more physicians involved. Physicians don't understand a health coaching. Once they know it, once they understand it, they're like, oh, this is great. Yeah, definitely my my numbers. don't have time to just read something. Terry Coutsolioutsos: So let's talk about the outcomes of a health coach without versus not having a health coach. So, you Kathy Rees: Right. Terry Coutsolioutsos: know, let's this what would be a typical situation where somebody had a procedure or was diagnosed with one thing that would be very typical for your practice to manage? Kathy Rees: So currently we help those with any chronic illness. Terry Coutsolioutsos: Okay. Kathy Rees: So if a physician has somebody is, I say newly diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis or. Yep. Terry Coutsolioutsos: Okay, rheumatoid arthritis, we'll take that and we'll go with a coach and without a coach. What's that pathway look like for the patient? Kathy Rees: So the pathway would look like we would want that member to be with us for at least one year. So the first three months, they would meet twice a month. So six Terry Coutsolioutsos: Okay. Kathy Rees: was the first three months. And that's important because. Muscle memory and change takes about three months. So you're really following that member and seeing how they're doing in that three months. And you go twice a month. You can then go once a month after that with AI to see how they're progressing. And they're going to make changes. They're going to maybe hit a goal of their sleep. They're going to hit it. So you want to be there for them when they want to hit that next goal. So a full year is really what we're looking forward to see change. Our outcomes show that they had less flares. They were able to less miss days. at work by having that health coach. So that is what we're looking for that full year. You could have us forever, check in three times a year, have accessibility to the AI forever. And that's what we're looking for. We want that member who wants to be engaged, who wants to set goals, and who will see those changes in their life. And it's really about doing what your physician orders and having a healthy lifestyle. And even I always say, this even if we had three to six months with that preoperative patient, the patient who's going to have the big knee surgery, the patient that's going to have the big hip surgery, they usually aren't scheduled for two to three months. Physicians are busy. But if they don't have the right attitude, if they're depressed, if they're not getting sleep, they're gonna have that surgery and the outcome's not gonna be as great as they want it to be. If we can get them in the state of mind where they know they're gonna have to do some physical activity, we're gonna help them with sleep. We're gonna help them making sure their nutrition's good. They're gonna go into that surgery in a positive mode, knowing that they're in a healing stage and their recovery's gonna be so much better. But who's going to pay for a pre-surgical health coach? But members could pay for that. I mean, it'd definitely be worth it. So if it's someone pre-surgical to someone who has a chronic illness, our company, a health coach, a certified health coach can help anyone. Terry Coutsolioutsos: Got it. So, are corporations sort of interested in this? I know like here in the Philadelphia market, it's a fairly large corporate center, a lot of finance companies, there's a lot of healthcare companies too in the area. A lot of s I'm sure a lot of self insured administrated with either United Kathy Rees: for ourself. Terry Coutsolioutsos: or Blue Cross, but they're But they're self insured. Is that are there is there a value to a an HR or benefits department? Kathy Rees: So that we would love to get into it. We would love to. It's hard to get in with HR benefits. And then a lot of times that we have we do we have had a couple of companies that the HR benefits are like, yeah, this is great. We'll put it in as benefit. You worked at companies. Do you really look at that? You're not looking at that unless it's really talked to you. Unless it's really someone's talking to about this is a new benefit that's in our company now. You can get Terry Coutsolioutsos: Right. Kathy Rees: a health coach. No one pays attention to it. And that happens with a lot of the perks in an insurance company or the HR department. They're not really there. They're saying we offer it, but they're not really promoting it, I should say. It's hard. They're very busy. Terry Coutsolioutsos: And it's hard. You know, companies are busy, right? They're busy. They have and you as you as a former, you know, leader in an organization understand that like there's five thousand priorities happening and you worked for Rothman, which is probably one of the largest orthopaedic Kathy Rees: Yeah. Terry Coutsolioutsos: practices in the country. that you know, just there's you're competing with priorities every single day. And you're the messages go out and you have to be you know, as when you're running companies, you there's only so much news that you can let out because it just starts flying over everybody's head too. And but I I think there's some opportunities with just specific chronic disease states too that that are screaming at people and that people are screaming because they can't figure out how to feel better. And so I I think there's a lot of things out there that would be interesting for people that are in pain and for people that, you know, have chronic migraines or, you know, missing work. I mean, even if you go to work, you're still not there giving your hundred percent like, you know, 'cause you're there because I've already missed so many days and Kathy Rees: Exactly. Terry Coutsolioutsos: you know, especially you know, people with chronic disease are afraid of missing work so they go anyhow. And they can only give half themselves, you know. And they're just Kathy Rees: Exactly. Terry Coutsolioutsos: sort of checking a box to be there. and so having that health coach really allows them to feel better differently, take a more proactive, controlled aspect of their their health. That's I mean Kathy Rees: They're going to work, maybe they don't feel great, but they're going, I'm to get my health coach a call, or I meet with my health coach tomorrow. And my health coach is... going to listen to me. And I think that that's the biggest thing. Like if we could get into companies and someone says, I have a health coach. Well, what does the health coach do? I'm not going, I don't feel like going to the gym five times a week. No, that's not what a health coach does. This is what my health coach is doing for me. Having someone listen to you and you sometimes you can get on the call and it's nothing about their health. It's really just about the stress in their life. And they don't see how that's interacting with their chronic illness. And then when they start to see that, you know, well, how do you, how do we take this stress away? What is it that you can do? People live under a amount of stress. We found a lot of people that we were working with a company, a very big Medicare company, and diabetes and taking their medication. But when you talk to the people, they're like, I don't live close to the pharmacy. don't have any access to my doctor. He's an hour and a half away. I don't drive. And you're like, wow, we need to bridge that gap. We need to figure it out. So we were able to report back to to the insurance company, well, here's some of the gaps. Here's what they're having trouble with. There's no physician in their network within an hour and a half ride. They're not gonna go back and get their blood pressure checked. Terry Coutsolioutsos: Right. Kathy Rees: It's too hard. So you find a lot of those things. You have to really be able to think about, know, I might be able to eat healthy. I might be able to go to the store and buy all the fruits and vegetables I want to buy. That doesn't mean everybody can. Where can I get fruits and vegetables that are at a reasonable cost? You have to be able to think of the demographic and how important it is to people who do want to take care of themselves. They may not have access to what is needed. Terry Coutsolioutsos: You know, it's a good point. And you know, there's all sorts of communities, whether it's limited access because of geography or it's limited access because of as of economics, there are all sorts of reasons in the world today why people have challenges having access to health Kathy Rees: Exactly. Terry Coutsolioutsos: care. And having something as simple as a health coach and an AI platform that probably keeps the cost fairly low from a health coaching perspective, that's gotta be a really reasonable way to sort of take care of yourself. Kathy Rees: It's a reasonable way. when we had, another thing we talk about is a health coach can help decrease the cost significantly for insurance companies. Now. I don't want to say specific data, but if you have a health coach and you say to your health coach, well, my headache's not going to go away. I'm going to go to the ER. That health coach can talk to you. Okay. When did your headache start? What do you think it is? Did you call your primary? Give your primary call. Don't just show up in the ER for these visits that aren't needed, right? People show up in the ER all the time. I took my blood pressure. It's 200 over a hundred. Did you call your primary? No. Okay. So you can really help with the cost savings there. of these. Terry Coutsolioutsos: That's all right. We'll wipe that one out. We can delete that. We'll just do a quick pause and you can regroup. It's all good. Kathy Rees: So, so you can help with health costs and people having unnecessary visits right to any are very expensive. Terry Coutsolioutsos: So, you know, you bring up a really a lot of good points here and I'm just trying to figure out like from your from your reach out perspective, you have corporate, you have healthcare caregivers. I mean, do hospitals prescribe these types of things at discharge? I know that like Kathy Rees: and sound. Terry Coutsolioutsos: you know, I've had my mom like leave the hospital with you know, a hip replacement and we had you know all sorts of at-home care prescription, transition of care. why aren't hospital systems and why aren't why isn't the healthcare system prescribing this on the way out the door as an option? Kathy Rees: Yeah, I mean, it's a great. great question, but they would probably have to say to the patient, well, you can try your insurance company to cover it, or you could self pay. There are codes for health coaching. There are ICD codes. They're just not paying right now. So once the government Terry Coutsolioutsos: You're not. Kathy Rees: says, and that is what the National Board of Health and Wellness Coaching, that is what they are really fighting for, to get it paid, to get the ICD codes recognized, get it paid for. Because that changes things. that really changes things because then the hospital can say we want to get a health coach and the hospitals can then discharge every new diet. Terry Coutsolioutsos: There's no conditions or indications where a health c coach would get paid for anything, no matter what. That's crazy. Wow. Kathy Rees: It's not a reimbursable code at this point. Terry Coutsolioutsos: Okay. Kathy Rees: And that's like I said, I, so that's what, you know, once it becomes reimbursable, then physicians will be like, okay, let me, it would be a game changer. especially if they knew our company is a dependable company that we have the AI that's dependable. give us that new patient that just came in and has diabetes now let's get them started right away with a health coach. Let's get this person that was in here for a flare with their RA. Let's get them started with a health coach. It would be fantastic and ideal to go from a hot with a newly diagnosed condition to being set up with a healthcare machine. Terry Coutsolioutsos: You know, and you just you know, everybody's on Facebook and you see what's on meta, whether it's Instagram or Facebook, and you you see these wellness coaches or fitness coaches or dietary coaches or whatever and it's always, you know, big, lean, sexy bodies and and that kind of thing. I and I get why that is appealing for people that are looking for that. Actually think you have a different patient group though. Like you have patients that are in pain and patients that have problems and I think I think there's a pathway for Kathy Rees: Yeah, yeah, we have pictures of that. Terry Coutsolioutsos: that. Like it's you know, like people who are in pain want to get rid of pain. I I mean at the end of the day that is one of the biggest motivators in the world, is pain and it's it's not comfortable and having somebody that can do that proactively. in multiple ways, whether it's health, whether it's sleep, whether it's fitness, whether it's maybe some supplements along the way too, whatever it might be, but at least you're dealing with a medical practice, like a medical practice that a physician is running under that jurisdiction with a certified health coach. Kathy Rees: Great. Terry Coutsolioutsos: I would think that would be something that c you know, for people that have pain that we could go find and and find them. Because I know when people are in pain they search f they search they're searching for solutions every day. Kathy Rees: Wow, all the time people are looking. And I get it, there's a lot of influencers out there and people that will look to them and things that work for them and that's their, but really if you have a chronic condition, you need some evidence-based information. You cannot just take off the internet Terry Coutsolioutsos: No. Kathy Rees: whatever you hear. Terry Coutsolioutsos: evidence based and you need somebody that that actually understands how the body works and how the mind works and how recovery works and you know I'm I'm for the first time in my life I've been a a four to five hour guy of sleep my whole life. And I'm now understanding finally the importance of rest and sleep. And I and I measure it every day. And some days I'm good at some days I you know I acknowledge like last night I I had a meeting with somebody in Israel this morning so I was up at three four five today and you know, but that doesn't you know, that that was four hours and fifteen minutes of sleep and that's okay. That's you know, I'll have a little deficit for a day and then, you know, we'll make up for it. But how do you Kathy Rees: Sleep is one of the biggest things. think sleep is a really important, and people don't understand that either. like, can't, you know, most females will tell you, I can't sleep, you know, I have a problem with sleeping and I don't want to take medication. And there are therapies out there that work. Terry Coutsolioutsos: Putting your phone down at night helps too, right? Like getting rid of the blue screen and, you know, all the crazy things that that phone Kathy Rees: There's easy things. I remember when I first started going, the health coaching, I had learned that just anything in your bedroom that has any lights, which you all have cable boxes and you have your phones, you got to really black out. Just put on a sleep mask. Now it took me like three different masks to find one I was comfortable with. But that, having a 65 degree bedroom, the difference it makes. So there's a lot of things that you don't have to take medication for, that you can work with a coach on sleep, and there's drastic results in improvement. Terry Coutsolioutsos: So where do you think you go from here? So like, you know, where's where where does the business go? Where do you find your patients? You know, what's the big vision for you? Kathy Rees: I think the big vision is we need to get health insurers to recognize that health coaching is going to save them money. And it's not a quick fix. It's a three to 12 month patient enrolled. Every new member that has a new chronic illness, get them enrolled. And if the ICD codes don't come through, the insurance company should pay for it. Because we're the ones that are going to be, you're the expert, the member's the expert in their body, but we're going to be able to help them with that. each diagnosis and what they can do. So it's we really need to get the words out there that health coaching is that. medium between the physician and the patient and we can help and a good certified health coach really does. They're that cheerleader for the member and they're the one guiding them but they're collaborating and they're never going to say to them, why didn't you do 30 minutes last week? We're not here to tell you what you should not do or why didn't you do it? We're not here to ask those questions. We're here to help you. What was the struggle? How do you think we can make it better next week? listening. The health coach has to listen to the member. Terry Coutsolioutsos: Right. And do you think the the member acquisition if it's not insurance and the interim until payments or I C D codes are reimbursed, it's it's direct to consumer type of advertising? Is that the market where you think you have to try and go figure that out? Kathy Rees: You have to try and figure that out. We do. And I think AI will help us with that. We're one of the unique companies that are using AI. So if we can figure out how to advertise it and how people understand it, we're not an AI only company. We're a hybrid. We are a health coach in person, just like you and I are talking, and then the AI. Terry Coutsolioutsos: Well, you know, I think augmented augmentation has always been my preferred method of talking about AI is, you know, doing and I do AI architecture every day for for companies on the revenue side and it's never about replacing anything. It's always, you know, the conversations I have with other commercial leaders are about let's make your team smarter, let's make them work faster, let's make them more efficient, let's create more consistency in how we handle things. because that's the beautiful thing about AI is that once you've coached it it's it's pretty much Kathy Rees: Ow. Terry Coutsolioutsos: 247 365 and you know it never Kathy Rees: Yeah. Terry Coutsolioutsos: has a bad day. It's it's not in a bad mood. you know it it it may not you know stretch like humans can but it has that consistent behavior and responsibility every single day and that's the one thing that you can always count on. Kathy Rees: I'm always amazed when I go back in and ask a question, and I'll be like, well, Kathy, you said this before, and now I'll be like, wait. Terry Coutsolioutsos: Did I really? I I did the same thing and I went Kathy Rees: I all right. But yeah, I think it's very helpful. just actually used this morning to say, how do I communicate with my physician, my primary physician when I go in and I feel as though she is not listening to me and I don't want it to be a defensive conversation? What Terry Coutsolioutsos: Right. Kathy Rees: do I say? And it was like, okay, I'm going to use this conversation and you know, but it was so helpful. Terry Coutsolioutsos: Well, it's great, you know, it's always great to have sort of like you can role play with AI if you want to, you can provide perspective. so where do you go from here? You try to get the insurance payment, you try to do some direct consumer outreach. Is there any like data out there that says like, you know, recovery is like this with a health coach and like that without a health coach? Or, you know, are there particular disease states that health coaches have greater value for than others and things like that where you Kathy Rees: There are studies out there. There are studies out there. There are studies that have been done with a health coach with back pain. I mean, we know back pain, big, big issues. So there are studies that show that health coaching can help with that. are studies. We did studies on the RA and the flares, name out of flares. So without a health coach and with a health coach, yes, there are studies out there saying that that health coach can improve. Are there enough studies? No, there Terry Coutsolioutsos: Right. Kathy Rees: really aren't because I don't think enough physicians are educated on the benefits. of a certified health coach. Terry Coutsolioutsos: Do they do they do any other practices that you know of actually incorporate health coaching in their practice as a sort of benefit or a side benefit as a a service? Maybe even like a concierge service along the way along those lines? Kathy Rees: I think there's a lot of physicians offices. I think there's a lot of insurance companies that say we have a health coach. We have a nurse health coach. You have a nurse who is coaching someone on taking their blood pressure medication, but are they asking them about their stress and they're and they're be like, no, that's not a certified health coach. Nurse who's coaching on health. So that's where the confusion comes in. A lot of times too. We've talked to see how I didn't realize that. the nurse coaching member isn't the health coach. So a lot of education needs to be brought. And again, the field of certified health coaches is only 10 years. Terry Coutsolioutsos: So tell me if like, you know, let's say I had a disease state, like what would my initial health coaching experience be like with you? If you you know, you were my coach. How would that sort of look and feel? Kathy Rees: So if I was your health coach, would say to you, upon meeting, explain what a health coach does. I would Terry Coutsolioutsos: Okay. Kathy Rees: then say to you, Terry, in the next six months, where do you see yourself? Terry Coutsolioutsos: You know, I'm in a lot of pain and I'm really depressed and like I don't think I'm gonna get out of it. Kathy Rees: And I can understand that. Now, I would give you a questionnaire to fill out by next time Terry Coutsolioutsos: Right. Kathy Rees: you come. I'd you to fill out this questionnaire so I get to know you a little bit better. But tell me a little bit more about your sleep. Terry Coutsolioutsos: I'm in so much pain I can't fall asleep. Kathy. It's it's awful. You know? It's all into my hands Kathy Rees: And what pain where is your pain that right now? Terry Coutsolioutsos: and I have this rheumatoid arthritis and it's you know it's affecting my whole lifestyle. Yeah. Alright, Kathy Rees: And don't call her. Terry Coutsolioutsos: well we'll start that over again. That's good though. Good thing Kathy Rees: I'm to turn this off because I did have it off. Terry Coutsolioutsos: you know the editor, that's all I gotta say. That's you know it's it's perfect. Kathy Rees: Great, I'm sorry. So I would ask. Terry Coutsolioutsos: I mean, we don't have to do this role play thing. I was just trying to kind of like, you know, maybe there's a quick way, and well this this is sort of a sidebar. We're going to do a little mini time out here. But like, what I'm trying to do is like like how can we get somebody excited about like this is what a health coach process might look like. And, you know, it's probably very painless. It's probably psychologically beneficial as well as is physical beneficial. I can already just tell by the how you manage the conversation. where you're just making people feel better that way. It's just, you know. Kathy Rees: And I think that's important to know like here I'm here to listen to you. I want to know I want to know about your lifestyle. What is it that you're doing for your lifestyle? What time do you get up in the morning? What's your day like at work? Are you stressed at work? What would be your goal if I said to you one goal right now? What is the most important thing of everything we talked about? Whether it's sleep, nutrition, pain, what is your number one goal in the next? Three weeks for you to work on. Terry Coutsolioutsos: You know, and I just and again I just I I don't have the problem but I just I know people that do have the problem that they're in so much pain that they they can't go to work, they can't sleep, they you know, it's really it's awful. Kathy Rees: It is. is. Chronic pain is very disruptive in life. Very disruptive. Terry Coutsolioutsos: You know, and and I can't believe that there's not a payment mechanism to fix it. Kathy Rees: Well, I think that's the point. There's no payment mechanism we're paying for. Terry Coutsolioutsos: We both know in healthcare if there's no money, there's nobody running at it either. That's the that's the it's Kathy Rees: Exactly. Terry Coutsolioutsos: you know, even you can I can rem I have launched some of the most spectacular technologies in the world and I've had hospital administrators say, I'm not getting paid for it, I don't care how good it is, you know. Kathy Rees: That's exactly what it comes down to. And that's where you want to see the changes. You want to see changes in. We, a health coach can help. They can, you'll see the changes in your cost, but it's not going to happen instantaneously. It's not going to happen for six months to a year. And that person has the health coach. would be, that's where you want to see the studies. You want to see the studies 12 months, 24 months, 36 months out with a health coach. And then those that don't have the health coach. Where did we have that 20,000 a year in savings because they have things under control with their pain, with their, with their showing up. any are with their missing work. Terry Coutsolioutsos: Well good. Well, I wish you the very, very best. Like I really think this is a an an amazing platform. Before I go, I always try to ask my guests one question. It's my it's my goal is to have a full episode of this answer. And so if Kathy could go back to either 18 or 20 year old Kathy, one of those points in your life where you're gonna make a right-hand turn or a left-hand turn, right? And those those choices that change your life forever, right? Like there's just, you know, that's a directional choice. What is the one piece of advice that current day Kathy would give younger Kathy? Kathy Rees: advocate for yourself. Terry Coutsolioutsos: Advocate for yourself. Love that. Kathy Rees: I will say I am pretty outspoken and in my career, have advocated and every physician that you would talk to would say, my gosh, Kathy advocates for the patients all the time because I listened to people and I wanted to hear what they had to say. Did I advocate for myself all the time? Probably not. And I really, you have to advocate for yourself if you, and honestly, I don't know if it's still being recorded or not, but I, Terry Coutsolioutsos: It is. We're still recording. Kathy Rees: I Terry Coutsolioutsos: We're good. Kathy Rees: am a fairly healthy person and I'm an active person. And I saw my physician, I saw a cardiologist. I said, how the strange thing when I'm walking, I'm getting a tightness. Okay, here's your blood pressure medication. Here's your cholesterol medication. Let's get you scheduled for a stress test. I didn't get stressed. I didn't get scheduled for over two months. I had it done on Friday. I was in the cath lab, emergently. Had two scans put in. Terry Coutsolioutsos: wow. Kathy Rees: And I was very lucky. I could have had any, it was my main artery, 95 % blocked. Terry Coutsolioutsos: Wow. Kathy Rees: So anytime I was walking, I could have not been walking. But I have to go back to these positions and just say, look, I did mention it. Like, you got to pay attention to women. If I look healthy and I'm active and I'm not really complaining, but I tell you something, you got to listen. And that's my opinion. that's, you know, that's what I, that's why I've always been big on listening to your patient. But I'm like, gosh, here I am. I experienced it. Terry Coutsolioutsos: You know, advocating for yourself and just you know, I spent thirty years in the cardiovascular space probably, you know, working for a company of one of those stents that was placed in your body the other day, by the way. And Kathy Rees: I love it. Terry Coutsolioutsos: and women do have and this I'll just go in the the soapbox a little bit, where women have totally different symptoms than men do. And they typically go undiagnosed eighty percent of the time, by the way. because they don't have the left shoulder pain and they don't have, you know, the screaming symptoms that most people pick up on. and they're neglected from a cardiovascular persp perspective. And so American Heart Association and a redress campaign is all about what you just went through. And so I wish you the very best for you know your recovery and I'm so glad that you know that ninety-five percent blockage in your left man did not make your husband a widowmaker. And and that's you know kudos Kathy Rees: That's what they said. So, yeah. Terry Coutsolioutsos: for you for for advocating. So awesome. Kathy Rees: No, I really did and I have to tell you I put it into AI and said, look, this is what I'm having but only when I'm walking. And I knew, I just knew something wasn't right. I have to, you know, I have two, the two physicians I have are younger women and I'm like, you're the ones that really have to pay attention. Terry Coutsolioutsos: Yeah. Well good. Well thank you for being here. We wish you the very Kathy Rees: See ya. Terry Coutsolioutsos: best and I I can't wait to continue our conversations. Kathy Rees: Sure, anytime. Thank you so much, Tari.