Latest / Zero Friction / Medical Device Reimbursement: Approved but Not Paid | Darren Selsky, Medalytics Consulting Group

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Medical Device Reimbursement: Approved but Not Paid | Darren Selsky, Medalytics Consulting Group · Zero Friction

• speaker-0: raising money to get to this point and then you know the clock just stops. Nobody wants to be, you know, that hundred and ninety-ninth person or two hundredth person that they're looking at that screening. Right. Right? That's not even what they went to school for. If anyone just talks about how they're just using AI and that's the focus, that's not what it is. It really needs to be about what I would call augmented AI, right? Let's augment it with the brain, augment it with that human intelligence. As much as you need the right product, having that economic story is as much or even more needed, you know, in today's environment. It I think it's living in the comfortable in the uncomfortable is where I have learned the most. speaker-1: Revenue doesn't stall because your team stopped trying. It stalls because of friction. Hidden gaps in process, execution, and visibility. I've spent 30 years carrying the number in MedTech. On zero friction, I sit down with other commercial leaders who find that friction and fix it. Removing friction, architecting revenue, powered by AI. I'm Terry Kuchalucis. Let's get into it. Welcome to Zero Friction Podcast. Terry Cuciluc is today, and I am fortunate to have another industry veteran with me today, and one that has spanned across multiple different market segments inside the medtech health tech space. So we're looking to get those different perspectives as well. He's also leaned in to become an entrepreneur. He is a fractional leader across several different companies. And so Welcome to have you here today, Darren Selski. He has a consulting group called Metalytics Consulting Group LLC. And Darren, why don't you give us a little quick background on yourself personally? Tell us a little bit about your company, and then more importantly, who are the people that you are designed to serve? speaker-0: No, absolutely. I appreciate the opportunity to be with Terry. personally and by far the most important, you know, component here is you know is to me it's family. You know, I've a family guy, I have my incredible wife who keeps me going every single day, and three daughters. so I have been humbled, you know, over These many, many years, and I am just a fortunate person, you know, to be where I am and to be surrounded, you know, by the love, you know, of family and the support of the family. And that's why I'm doing what I'm doing. All right. That's why we do what we do, right? We do it for the loved ones in our life. And from a business side, yeah, an industry veteran. it's it's hard to believe. I've been in the med tech industry for thirty plus years. And my background is I s I started as an engineer. I have degrees in both biomedical as well as electrical engineering. And then went over to the dark side from a business perspective and have worked for large organizations. I worked in the hospital space, worked for large organizations like Siemens, yeah. And Terry, that's where we've, you know, sort of our paths have crossed. Yeah. I worked for Hologict. I worked for St. June Medical, which is now Abbott in the implantable, cardiovascular, implantable space, in the implantable cardiovascular space. And worked for digital health companies, as well. And back in twenty-four, I just had this opportunity where an organization that I was with, Yeah, we had a PE exit. And I just had an opportunity to take a step back and say, what do I want to do? you know, with the rest of my career. And yeah, I made the conscious decision that going back into corporate America, yeah, wasn't necessarily what I wanted to do. I felt that My skills and experience and passion, I think, more than anything else, was to jump in and help these small to mid-sized organizations commercialize solutions and bring the right solutions to market. And so I put that toe in the water and fortunately I was able to take a deeper dive. And things one thing just led to another and references turned into other opportunities. And I just been doing this for the past two plus years. And it's been, yeah, it's been a phenomenal roller coaster. And it gives me that opportunity to really diversify and to work across different segments. So it's yeah, so I I appreciate that question. speaker-1: That's great. And what do you feel like you've gained and what do you feel like 'cause I've done the same thing. So you and I, you know, like you did it a little earlier than I did, but yeah, what do you feel like you've gained by becoming an entrepreneur and becoming a and local expert for companies that are trying to innovate and get things to market. Number one. And then I'll then I'll ask you like what do you feel like you've lost or maybe, you know, that opportunity of leaving big corporate America and, you know, going the other direction. speaker-0: So what have I gained? There's so much. I one is I gain the opportunity to re-energize myself and re-energize that passion. And working with these smaller organizations that are either just kicking off their commercialization activities, are about to submit and go through the FDA regulatory process. And they have just just breakthrough capabilities here, whether it's true breakthrough technologies as classified by the FDA or just breakthrough opportunities to really change the dynamics in the market. These are the types of organizations I love working with. And that's what I've gained so much from. And it's so incredibly humbling. Because we've been with such large organizations, right? Whether it's with Siemens, or Hologic St. Shum Medical, these multi-billion dollar organizations, yeah, and they're incredibly process oriented and you do what you do, and things unfortunately take, yeah, an inordinate amount of time to get done. speaker-1: In energy in energy, by the way. speaker-0: And my God, and energy and cost and so on and so forth. And when you work with these smaller organizations and you have a seat at the table, you make a decision today and the impact starts occurring tomorrow. speaker-1: Right. speaker-0: And there's so much energy there and it's just it's really who I am. And that that's what I've learned about myself, you know, over these past couple of years, really doing this. And it's just so incredibly exciting. And it also gave me an opportunity to reconnect with other industry veterans and even colleagues, you know, who have made sort of that similar leap, maybe not necessarily doing you know, consulting and fractional work, but they've started their own company. speaker-1: Right. speaker-0: And reconnecting with those folks, you know, unfortunately, you know, when you're in this and when you're in the industry for 30 plus years, you build up, yeah, a referral base and experience, and expertise, and just fortunate that that's helped me gain yeah opportunities. speaker-1: You know, it's really I I totally agree with you that, you know, the impact that can be felt in these smaller organizations that are, you know, either getting something to market or they're they're single digit million dollars and they're trying to scale and and get to the next level for the next round of funding or whatever the next mission is. But you're right, like they they count on you and Which is gonna lean me into your t-shirt real quick because I think, you know, what you and I both really cherish is accountability. And that's what really when you're working for this these smaller companies, they don't have a long list of money. They don't have a long list of people. You know, they're counting on you. And can you give me a little background on the shirt? Because it's it's sticking out there like because I said I would, and I and I think it's such a true statement, and I'd love to kind of lean into that. that topic with how we we work with our customers today, these small customers that are counting on us to help them get to that next level. speaker-0: No, absolutely. And just a quick background and give credit where credit is due. So there's actually an organization that is called because I said I would. And yeah, I attended the the radiology administrator meeting, the AHRA, and one of the keynote speakers was a gentleman by the name of Alex Sheen. And Alex Sheen walked out onto the stage wearing the same t-shirt. And I had no idea what I was walking into listening to this person. And for the next hour, I was just mesmerized, not only by his personal story, you know, and his business story, but just seeing how he captivated his audience. And yeah, the statement here really comes from a promise that he made on a personal level to his father. And he explained what that personal experience was, you know, when when being with his father, yeah, when his father was was very ill. And it was just so incredibly, you know, relatable on so many different levels. That it just had such an incredible impact on me. And then from a business perspective, you know, as you mentioned, it comes down to accountability. And if you're doing what we're doing, and organizations are relying on you to come in and helping them bring a solution to market, put the right commercial access program in place, you have to be accountable. You have you're committing your time, you're committing your expertise, and you need to deliver. So that's really what it means to me. And I I have to live by it, right? I have to live by it every day because it is what I do. speaker-1: You know, what do you miss about the big company? I mean, you and I both work for, you know, we were both in cardiac rhythm management device and we both work for arguably like Siemens is probably one of the most brilliant IQ companies on the planet, you know. Yep. You know, so such a highly intelligent, highly engineered, highly precision organization, right? And, you know, while That precision sometimes can be really, really frustrating, but they, you know, they they do make great product. What do you miss about that big a big company atmosphere? 'Cause I I I know what I miss and I I I kinda w you know, I wanna I want you to share and I'll share, you know, kinda like what that looks like. speaker-0: I think it's a couple things. One, I would say that resources is certainly something that I miss, right? Because you just don't have access to those same types of resources. And you just need to get creative, you know, with those when you're working, you know, within a team of just a few people. And and it's not just me and doing what I'm doing, you know, it's really networking and You know, working with highly skilled people that bring other types of capabilities. I work with someone who has unbelievable regulatory experience. And you know, I leverage that person, you know, when that's a critical part of the project we're working on, and leverage another person from a health economics and outcomes perspective also. So that's piece you miss. You know, and then the other piece you miss is the engagement. Yeah, with individuals, right? Either with your own team members, you know, or with colleagues and just being able to banter ideas back and forth. Whether it's business ideas or even just sort of personal stuff. Right. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: And y you miss that engagement probably more than anything else. So yeah, today really that occurs with the companies I'm working with, right? It's I I'm not just a third party outside contributor. When I engage with an organization, I'm part of the team. And so whether it's remote or on one site, yeah, you just make the most out of the time that you have in person or engaging with them to make up for that. But I would probably say it's that level of personal engagement that at least I miss the most. speaker-1: Yeah, I agree. I think the camaraderie is like how I kind of classify it, put it in that category that is the one thing, you know, we're out here for the most part, which is making my brun my brain kind of think about opportunities maybe. But like we're out here on our own little islands a lot of times, right? And so, and we're all committed to the things that are in front of us and Frankly, as a solopreneur or an entrepreneur, like there's typically not enough hours in the day either. you know, maybe there's an opportunity where, like, you know, and especially from a med device perspective, maybe we could create a a group or a community where, you know, like those kind of things could be, you know, we could take our like selves across the board and and build a community of others and share and be successful together and kind of have that kind of unique situation. speaker-0: I completely agree. And that's one of the things I try to do every moment I can is so I live in Austin, Texas. It is definitely a technology hub. it's a growing medical d technology hub. And there's a lot of incubators. And just becoming members of that is really important because when they do have those events, you know, those social events, those events where they bring in speakers. I try to get to and it's just an opportunity just to mingle with like minded individuals. speaker-1: Yep. That's so cool. so one of the things that you're you know you and I've kind of talked a little bit about this before when we were warming up in the green room is what are the big problems that your clients are seeing today? What are you all facing in terms of new technology introduction or scaling to the next level like Got like the top two or three big obstacles, big friction points that, you know, seem to always be looming in there in in the way there. speaker-0: Yeah, my goodness, Terry, there's so many. I mean, market access and just a breakdown market access. It is one, it's regulatory approval, right? We all know that, especially if we're living in that type of world where regulatory approval, you know, is is needed. and the other huge one is reimbursement, you know, as well. And I'm working with organizations that are either breakthrough or step. And in a previous world, if you have breakthrough technology, you're getting reimbursement. Period. Okay. I mean, there's so many different opportunities that are out there to do that. Now it's so much more difficult. Okay. Or I'm working with another organization and we just rece and we received step from The FDI, which is to say technology program. And it's kind of like breakthrough for cle for class two devices as well. And in the previous world as well, it would have been much easier to get reimbursement. Now it's not, it's just such a difficult process and just a such a lengthy process to get there. Because you go through the efforts of building the technology, validating the need, well, validating that this. That there is a need in the market for a technology. You build a technology, you engage that third-party engineering firm or software firm, you know, to build it, and you're putting a lot of resources, you know, into that pathway. And then you're going down the regulatory pathway. And that's an incredibly costly exercise. And you would think that if you're going through that and you get all the approvals, all the check boxes are checked. Getting to that next level, you know, for reimbursement because you're proving that there's a need, you're proving that there's an improvement in clinical outcomes, you're proving that there's economic outcomes associated with it. Why should it be so incredibly difficult to get that level of support from a reimbursement perspective? And that there's just so much friction. And you're raising money to get to this point. And then, you know, the clock just stops. And you're like, my goodness. And this becomes this incredibly vicious cycle, you know, that you're just going through to try to get there. And it it's just hard. It's really, really hard. And so I've seen this time and time again. So I think things need to change. and yeah, it's it's It's the people, yeah, I think like us, yeah, that just keep on pounding the pavement and pounding away and delivering these right solutions to market that something's gonna break and it's gonna give. speaker-1: You know, and and the implications are just beyond what's obvious as well. So, you know, you have your hard costs right in front of you where you have companies that are burning cash every day that can't afford to burn cash. They need to and and these are the things that prohibit f cash from coming in the door, number one. Yeah. You know, we also are going through this phase of you know, the venture capital money, the private equity money is not You know, unless you need forty, fifty, sixty plus million dollars, those guys aren't even interested. They're not interested in investing five or six. And so that now you have this new category of raise in the five or six million dollar range of seed capital or series A capital to get you into the commercial phase. Now, you know, that money is like, where is it? And now you've got to go get creative with you know, vr friends and family money or angel money or single or multifamily office money. And those take extraordinary efforts. They're not obvious investors. You have to go find them. They all they they don't invest for just financial purposes. They have mission and intent and purpose behind what they do. And so that's the one piece where as venture capital They want to see you having a run rate. They want to see three, four, five, six, seven million dollars. And if if these companies aren't planning the right way, that vicious cycle is like that money's drying up where they desperately need it. They've just spent, you know, two, three, four, five, seven years getting something to market through a regulatory, through a product design and a regulatory pathway, right? And They've probably hopefully have invested in some sort of reimbursement path strategy along with that clinical reg path, right? and that used to be the hard part. Okay. Like that was the hard part. Now it feels like the hard part is when you get to market, now you gotta go to commercial. And now we have this new environment. Well, it's not new, but it's becoming more tricky. Is that we have this hospital value analysis committee? So speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: that's another like whole different set of you know, extremity of complexity that is coming with you that will delay revenue for six, nine, twelve, fifteen plus months as well. speaker-0: So Terry, it's it's it's so funny just bringing this up. So I am working with several companies right now that are outside the US market and this is the number one topic. Right? What do I need to do to navigate, you know, that value analysis committee? Right. Help me. What's the right what's the right messaging? What what do what you know what what do they need to hear? And so as much as you need the right product, having that economic story is as much or even more needed, you know, in today's environment. speaker-1: Yeah, if you're not building yeah, if you're not building an ROI next to your next to your product, you're screwed. I mean, you you're flamed. Forget it. Like you're not gonna you're not gonna get anywhere. Like you have to bring like if you're not bringing value to the healthcare system with your technology, man, like you know. Value speaker-0: Totally. speaker-1: comes in many ways. It can be cheaper, faster, better quality, whatever it is, but You're gonna have to figure out a way at the bottom line of that spreadsheet saying that my product is going to have an implication or an impact of X amount of dollars or X amount of hours or you know, whatever it might be. speaker-0: It completely right. And you need to be able to bring that in an evidence based way, you know, to these value analysis committees as well. You need the data, right? It's data, data, data. You need to have it. It needs to be measurable. it needs to be referenceable. And that's the other thing as well, right? It's you know, you go through this whole process that we spoke about in terms of, you know, commercialization and bringing the solution to market. You know, the other major expense is doing some type of a post market study, right? Or a clinical trial. And those are incredibly costly as well. And so it's a combination of bringing the clinical outcomes and that from an evidence perspective and the economic evidence as well. All these are critical components of a commercialization strategy. And they've always been there, but even more so in today's environment. speaker-1: Well, that's a great topic. And I think that's a great for the founders and innovators out there in the audience. This is, you know, building a great product, but also making sure that you're measuring the economics behind it. Because unfortunately, our healthcare system in many ways is totally capitalistic. So you're either gonna have to save money or help somebody make more money and have reimbursement behind it. in order to get those adoptions in the right way. Just bringing something better to market is no longer gonna get you there. Right. you're gonna you're gonna have to do other things. speaker-0: It it is. And I mean, as I mentioned before, it's making sure you got the right you know product. So you gotta do all the discovery work, all the diagnosis of what the industry really needs. You gotta experiment and then you gotta translate all that information that you learned into the right strategy to bring that solution to market. And that's yeah, that's my focus. That that's that's what I love doing. speaker-1: Let's pivot a little bit. I got a I got an exciting topic that I want to pivot on. And something that you and I talked a few months ago about. And it's around AI. And I think, you know, you and I both have spent a little time. You know, we worked with at Siemens, which is one of the largest AI patent holders in the world, no matter what category you're talking about. But, you know, you and I have been watching AI in the commercial space, right? And so From your perspective, when you're looking at AI, and we can look at it from a customer, like what product offering is first. So what do you think is real? And what do you think is when it comes to A? speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Like, you know, like what what's what's a real impact and what's what is really noise? speaker-0: Wow. So let me start with the noise, right? Any organization that is just talking about AI, and this is how they're they're coming up with their results or they're improving outcomes or so on and so forth, that's noise. Yeah. Organizations that understand the value that AI can bring, but augment that with the appropriate human resources, I think is the real thing. And I can give you a couple examples. So I was really fortunate to work for probably one of the first organizations that really leveraged AI. And that was when I was with Hologic, okay, and women's health. Yeah, mammography screening. And there's no important place, I think, for AI than there. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: And but the way that they're doing it makes all the sense in the world, right? A radiologist, you know, can review 200 screenings, you know, looking at looking for some type of breast cancer, you know, in a single day, sitting in their dark room, looking at this 12 megapixel screen. Nobody wants to be, you know, that 199th person or two hundredth person that they're looking at that screening. Right. Right. That's not even what they went to school for, right? They went to school to diagnose, you know, what is different. And so what we did and they've continued to do, and they are s incredible experts at this, is being able to parse out the normals. Right. And you parse out the normals, and one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer. And if you can parse out those normals, Then allow that radiologist, yeah, to really find speaker-1: Or at least half of them, right? Like take half of and just pfft wipe to the side, right? speaker-0: More it's you're looking at you're looking at less than half of them. And that's that's the true need for AI in med tech. speaker-1: Especially in imaging. I mean imaging is just ones and zeros anyhow, right? It's all digital. So, you know, I you could almost argue that, you know, a robot might be able to read an image better than the human eye in some ways. speaker-0: Yeah, I mean it's the same thing. So as as I'm also working with a company in arrhythmia management. And it's the same thing, right? An ECG is an ECG, but there's some imperfections, you know, that you always need to just be looking out for. And if you can rule out the normals, then allow that expert, whether it's the physician or somebody else who has that level of training to identify what's wrong and then focus on that. speaker-1: Yeah. Just focus on the stuff that's critically d you know, that you need to look at, right? speaker-0: But in every case, you need that human involvement. Right. I mean, I hope that we don't get to a point where all it is is AI and you're really taking, you know, the true expertise, you know, which is the human brain, out of the equation. And so if anyone just talks about how they're just using AI and that's the focus, that's not what it is. It really needs to be about What I would call augmented AI, right? Let's augment it with the brain, augment it with that human intelligence. speaker-1: Yeah, I totally agree. And, you know, I had a really interesting conversation with another founder for a company that does governance and AI integration for healthcare systems. That's their whole job is they sit in the center of these large healthcare systems and they help them build structure and process around How do they take the AI d the AI ideas and bring them in and then quantify objectives, build scientific processes around measuring before and after so they can actually understand the impact? And there's there's some things going on with with with AI and healthcare. It's fact it's a healthcare is the third fastest adopter of AI in the United States behind banking and financial and insurance companies. Okay. So those two. And there's just a lot of in you those all these industries have tons of information that people are processing. So it's AI has become a real data processing efficiency agent. But what they're finding in healthcare is that AI today is not saving the hospital system any money. Okay. So there's no operational economic efficiency that they're finding. Number one. But that's because they're experimenting and some things are working and some things aren't working. They are finding a little bit of top-line improvement that AI is helping them from a revenue cycle management perspective. That they're not having the errors on the billing and they're getting their money faster and they're more efficient and effective and capturing the money they need to capture. Yeah. The biggest impact, which will probably be the biggest savings down the road, by the way, is that employee satisfaction where AI is being implemented in departments is skyrocketing. So the mundane, repetitive administrative stuff that people did not get in the healthcare to do speaker-0: Uh-huh. speaker-1: can be taken over with administrative agents and agents and workflow agents. And now people can spend more time actually providing care and human touch. And so You know, and people are gr people are are sort of moving in this direction where it makes them feel more productive. you know, physicians can actually go to bed before eleven o'clock since they're not doing work at two o'clock in the morning anymore. So, speaker-0: So the cloud. speaker-1: you know, so all these different technologies are are creating better job satisfaction, which frankly a lot of the headcount costs in healthcare are due to the fact that people are leaving healthcare, number one. If they're not just leaving healthcare, they're switching hospitals and moving around, which leaves job openings and leaves hospitals needing to pay twenty, thirty, forty percent premiums for agency work. And so I think what they'll find is over time by having greater employee retention, you'll see that there will be some opex benefit down the road when they're replacing, you know, thirty to forty percent of their employees every other year. speaker-0: Yeah, no, I agree. And another example is the use of a gentic, yeah, AI and just reaching out. Yeah, just patience to for reminders. Right. It's like, okay, yeah, Mr. Smith, did you take your, you know, dot dot dot? Or I'm reaching out to somebody perhaps that has an implantable device. we d haven't seen your transmission, your interrogation come in. Can you make sure that your monitor next to your bed is plugged in? Yeah, just little simple things like that that you can offload to an agentic to an agentic capability. Yeah. Is also where you're going to find that. And yeah, it's it's the tedious work. speaker-1: It really is. And and you know, and I'm one hundred percent the whole, you know, 'cause I spend most of my time designing AI and commercial workflow from a from a marketing and a sales process perspective. And and I always lean on the fact that this is not designed to remove people out of jobs, right? It it really I mean, over time you might find that yes, there might be three or four percent savings with headcount sort of shifting and things like that. But that happens in any company without AI. What I really believe is that we're the impact of AI for commercial organizations is the fact that now you can take your hundred percent capacity and now that person can run at 150 or 175% capacity because the you know First of all, intelligence is becoming commoditized with AI. So your ability to grasp information and go get it and bring it back in a very organized format is extremely high. AI is much more consistent in delivering consistent behavior than humans are. They can deliver over and over and over again the same day, you know, every day the same way. and the other side of it is most people come to work in these big companies and even small companies, but They come to work to put a ten hour day in with eighteen hours worth of work to do anyhow. So, you know, they're never they're never finding their way to the bottom of their pile. That pile just tends to fall to the floor over time and you really figure out what's important and what's not. speaker-0: Yeah. No, I agree. I I yeah, there's there's so many efficiencies to be gained. What does scare me, you know, especially with small organizations, is the information that they are uploading into these AI tools because they're putting their intellectual property, yeah, into into the web, right? Into into these solutions that Yeah, they're learning tools. And as soon as that's done, it's just using it for other prompts, you know, from other organizations or other people. And that's what worries me, right? More than anything else when working with some of these smaller organizations. You yes, we understand the value that it can bring, but let's also be careful at the same time. And that's just one of these things that we just need to be very cognizant of. speaker-1: You do and you just need to make sure that you get use your paid subscription and you you firewall your technology and you know, all those kinds of things. So where do you feel like AI from a commercial perspective, where do you see it like adding the biggest impact for your clients? speaker-0: Well, I can tell you how it helps me. Right. So it helps me get from A to you know, A to Z a lot faster. Okay. So I use, you know, my AI tool of choice. And, you know, for me it's making sure that I'm asking the right questions. And then, yeah. Going back and refining, you know, what those prompts are and then getting the output, refining again and again, and but getting there in a much shorter period of time than it I would have done a year ago. speaker-1: Right. speaker-0: Right. Or building that PowerPoint, you know, or building that cell sheet. You know, what those things that just take time and I would have normally leveraged a third party, right? A third party to help me build a presentation. Okay. To bring that creative capability. So it saves me time and it saves me expense. You know, or going to a third party marketing agency and it's like, here's the ideas. I need we need to build a brochure. I need to build a a sell sheet, you know, for the team. It helps me get from A to Z a lot quicker. Okay. And then if I can get from A to Z a lot quicker for an organization that I'm working with. Then that gives them the ability, you know, to roll this out to their sales team and let them start selling a lot quicker with the right messaging. Okay. So that's how it really helps me. And I see that sort of they're using the companies I'm working with are doing exactly the same thing on their end. Right? Everybody is using it. Right. And it's you know to find somebody not using AI is. I mean, we've come so far so fast is unusual. And that's the way organizations are doing it. Let's take the tedious processes that I would have had to outsource somewhere else. And let's just do it internally. Let's make sure we're asking the right questions, getting the right output, refining over and over again, but even refining over and over again, I get to that point a lot quicker. speaker-1: Got it. Well good. anything else you want to leave the audience with today in terms of we're sort of wrapping up our our 30 minute window here. speaker-0: Yeah, I would just say the commercial process, you know, has just I mean it it's gone through so many different changes, whether it's, you know, a result of AI and how we leverage AI to get from one point, you know, to the other, you know, a lot you know, a lot faster. But as we spoke about before, yeah, there's a far greater lens on what are those economic outcomes. Right. And whether it's just making sure you have the right message and the right content to present to the VAT committee. You know it's also about what's the user experience going to be as well. And it wasn't always like that. Right. It's like the organizations were in more in control and now you're seeing, you know, the customer more in control. And that's I'm finding more more of my time being spent there, it's like, all right, how do we create a better user experience? Okay. And that's probably maybe it's because of there's so many AI tools out there and there's so much that we've done over the past, you know, so many years, the user experience is becoming so much more important. And then the other thing is in servicing as well and building in servicing strategies, you know, for for organizations. And how do I help out the support team? And whether it's helping out the support team with AI. Which is helping the support team do what they do a lot better and making sure, you know, they're properly prepared with the right questions that a customer is going to call them about, you know, related to a specific type of technology. So yeah, it's thing things have things have shifted. It's it's it's I think it just it's yeah, we're we're just on this sort of, you know, this process improvement. Yeah, pathway and then also is like every step of the way I'm collecting data. And how do I take that data and turn that data into something that's meaningful as well? Everybody wants analytics, but speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: let's not grab data for the sake of grabbing data. Let's grab the right data and then turn that around into something that's insightful for the organization as well. So yeah. Different than what we've done previously, but I think it's Far more need it's needed and to me it's a lot more fun. speaker-1: I agree. And there's a couple of things that really resonated with me what with what you just said. There's like one is the whole, you know, customer experience part. And so just simple things like you can actually buy a car in ten clicks. Like, you know, Tesla's created this whole, you know, Elon Musk, whether you love him or hate him, you know, was like, Why can't I order a pizza faster than I can order a car? And so he, you know, created an an atmosphere in this company like I I you need to go figure out how to do a car in ten clicks or less. And it ends up there's only two models per series, but you know, it's done a lot of things in terms of, you know, creating and now people expect that experience, whether you're buying a Tesla or whether you're opening up an Apple product. I mean, you know, you think about like these companies that do that so well, right? Why can't we do it in the medical device space the same way when the box opens and it pretty much gives you the same experience? Right? Why can't we do those things where, you know, and again, you and I have grown up in an implant world where, you know, if you're not there, your stuff's not getting used. And so like you know the whole rep environment is trying to stay in the OR and I and I listen, I get why that's a value differentiator and I I know that's a very controversial topic, but For me, if I'm launching a new technology, the best thing that I could ever do, right? Is to have the right people promoting the product to get it sold, having an extremely elegant customer experience startup phase and integration phase. And then having people support with, you know, stopping in and training and those things. But, you know, let's face it, the world is wanting a much more asynchronous relationship with vendors. Let let's face it. Hospital systems. When you walk in the hospital, now they make you pay for your scrubs, they make you get a badge, and they put a red bonnet on your head. Right. So they're that's that's screaming to me like we really don't want you here, but if you have to be here, we're gonna go make it as unpleasant as possible for you. Yeah. Right. And so, like, if you lean into those things the right way, and to me, it's kind of screaming is like, make your product so you don't have to be here. And frankly, The companies would probably have a much better efficiency on the bottom line if they didn't have to have, you know, six sales reps running around the same hospital every day, right? speaker-0: We have been trying to do that for years and years, but I think we're finally at a point where we're we're gonna s we're gonna see it materialize. Absolutely. speaker-1: Because again, if that's how you got there, most companies are fearful of like, Well what if I can't w you know, like if I can't wait in the hallway and and look at the doctor and make sure it uses my implant and out in the hallway all day long waiting for an implant. I mean it's crazy. You know? You'd have literally like six or seven sales reps making two, three, four hundred thousand dollars a year sitting in a hallway begging for an implant. It's crazy. I don't know. speaker-0: Absolutely. speaker-1: So anyhow, one last question for you before I go. It's a question I ask everybody. And so I'm gonna ask it really slowly because I didn't prep you for this. All right. So so I'll ask it really slow. So if you have current day Darren, all right, and if Darren could go back to twenty-two-year-old Darren, speaker-0: wait. speaker-1: all right, and current day Darren can only offer twenty-two year old Darren one piece of advice. that you have learned through your experiences in life, and it can be a personal advice, it can be professional advice, it can be financial, whatever it might be, what would that one piece of advice you would go give yourself that would provide you a much smoother pathway than you've already taken? speaker-0: Today. speaker-1: And hopefully I gave you enough time to think about it and ask some questions. So I'll I'll throw another fifteen seconds in for you so you can kind of, you know, process a little more. But there we go. speaker-0: A twenty two year old Darren knew what Darren knows today from a financial perspective. yeah, I would have invested in many other organizations and yeah I would have, you know, in the middle of, you know, somewhere on my own yacht. But other than that, honestly, it's taking a risk. And I think it is living in what's uncomfortable. Right, living in the uncomfortable of doing something for yourself. Right. And it's I guess being an entrepreneur is what really has, you know, sort of changed my mindset. Right. I don't know what tomorrow's going to bring. You know, as soon as I'm done one project, do I know when the next project's gonna be there? Not necessarily. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. speaker-0: But I think it's living in the comfortable, in the uncomfortable, is where I have learned the most. And it took a really long time. I mean, being working for large organizations for 30 years before I decided to do this. Yeah, I I wish I had that, you know, that's that different sense of risk to do something like this, and that passion to do something like this. And I guess. I mean there's I mean we have family to support, right? So that's what we do, what we do. But yeah, I yeah, I just finished this funny book. not giving kudos to anyone. I can't even remember what the author's name was. And it was called Die With Zero. speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: And somebody recommended this book to me, and it's pretty much really about. experiences. Right. And, you know, I cut it's kind of funny. I we got the book, I put it on our kitchen island. Our kids came home. They saw it and they're like, speaker-1: What? Right. speaker-0: But it's really about those experiences. And there's certain experiences that when I was twenty two, if I did, it would have made me far more fulfilled today. Okay, because this is what this person, you know, speaks about. Right. And every stage of your life, there's experiences that you can't do in a later stage. Right. We're all in this sort of go-go. At some point we're gonna be in a slow go and ultimately we're gonna be in a no-go. So would I have shifted that time and there would have been more go go for me, that would have been a lot of fun. speaker-1: Sure. speaker-0: Yeah, well, yes. speaker-1: Well, that's great perspective and great advice, by the way. And, you know, it's been great seeing you again, Darren. Number one. Number two is I love what you're doing. I love how you're doing it. You and I will definitely have to figure out how to do more collab and and work together. But like I think we're both in the same boat. We both are fighting for the same kind of things. And it's been a real joy kind of connecting with you again. Thank you so much. speaker-0: It's been wonderful.