Latest / Daxko Fitness Forward / Episode 1: Medical fitness that gets paid. Jeff VanDixhorn with Chris Craytor

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Episode 1: Medical fitness that gets paid. Jeff VanDixhorn with Chris Craytor · Daxko Fitness Forward

• speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: This is Fitness Forward, conversations shaping the future of fitness. speaker-0: I'm Jeff Van Dixorn, CEO at Daxco, and I have the pleasure ⁓ speaking with Chris Crater today. Chris Crater ⁓ is the CEO of Atlantic Coast Athletic Clubs ⁓ and also Weld Health. So ⁓ welcome, Chris. Great to have you on the first official podcast here at Daxco. speaker-1: fantastic. Thanks for ⁓ inviting me to participate and ⁓ looking forward to the conversation. speaker-0: So Chris, you wear a couple hats and ⁓ you have your your club operations hat, ⁓ and then you have your Weld Health hat. So tell our audience a little more about ACAC, the offerings you have and kind of your history ⁓ in getting involved in the club business. speaker-1: Sure, happy to do that. First, I want to talk about my history with Jeff and Daxco. We got to talk about this, Jeff. So a long time ago, when Jeff, as the founder of Club Automation, ⁓ was building that brand before it was acquired ⁓ by Daxco, ⁓ the accounting firm that we use at ACAC also is based in the Chicago land area, like Jeff. And our accountant came to us and said, Hey, you know, my neighbor has a club operating system. And we thought, wow, that sounds super legitimate. That sounds great. Like, let's talk to your neighbor, right? ⁓ But we did. We talked to Jeff early on. And over the years, we kept the relationship up. And we actually were a CSI customer who had switched to was making the switch to club automation. And so the day we went live with Club Automation ⁓ was the day that our that Daxco actually announced their purchase of Club Automation. So ⁓ you know, we've been a Daxco customer, I guess, concurrently for a very long time, CSI and now C A. ⁓ and obviously. ⁓ we can we can voucher for the legitimacy of the man member management system ⁓ now versus the my neighbor just has one. So anyway, I've been with ACAC twenty one years. So I came here in 2004 out of the hedge fund industry and thought it'd be super easy. And like most operators, you find out that it's not. ⁓ I think Red Larie from ⁓ you know, obviously down there in Louisiana, very, very well known operator, said this simple business, but it is an easy. Yeah. ⁓ And definitely find that to be true. So we're 14 clubs, about 70 something thousand members. ⁓ we're about to build our 15th, which is next year, ⁓ should be be up and running. And we're a family-owned business, so independent club operator company, ⁓ based here in Charlottesville, Virginia. And we tend to be a multi-sport operator for those who don't know us. ⁓ I think camps, pools, spas, training, tennis, all of the above, ⁓ even a preschool, ⁓ with a focus on medical wellness and really introducing people to exercise. Who typically weren't part of the club member ecosystem. So how do we get more people who believe in our product ⁓ to use it? How do we find a way to connect them to the people and the facilities that allow them to reach their health goals and be part of a growing membership community? ⁓ you know, the other, the other business of Well Health was really related to our medical wellness programming and finding a way to collect the data and share the data that we were gathering, which was proving that by the way, exercise works and helps keep people healthy when they use it. ⁓ which shouldn't be a surprise. But you know, it's since it's evolved into really being an electronic health record and and clearinghouse for healthcare payments inside of community-based organizations. So we work with about 10,000 locations around the country. So think health clubs, YMCAs, you name it. ⁓ we support programs like check-in programs, so very popular insurance aggregators like those from Tivity or OnePass or American Specialty Health. ⁓ we also can do claims reimbursement. So for those who actually have ⁓ healthcare contracts and are paid through traditional insurance, Well does facilitate those as well. ⁓ it's a growing company and clearly is ⁓ filling a need in the industry. So that's a little bit about speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. Good good good ⁓ good update on the history. I actually remember I was on a run in my neighborhood, happened to stop and talk to my neighbor and ⁓ and ⁓ we started exchanging notes about businesses and ⁓ that was the way ⁓ I first connected with ACAC. So wow that that's a flashback, Chris. A long time ago. So ⁓ so I I've been to ACAC, amazing facilities. ⁓ and and I think also a a culture ⁓ that's helped you be successful and You you said something ⁓ when you started and and I think it's just so true. Having owned and operated clubs since nineteen ninety-five myself, ⁓ it's not complicated, but it's hard. Talk a little bit about, you know, just the culture that you build at your clubs, ⁓ to execute on a day to day basis, ⁓ and and maybe just some of the things that are like non negotiables for your organization. speaker-1: You know, I think that from a cultural perspective, we give the benefit of being around since nineteen eighty-four, ⁓ when the first club was founded by Phil Wendell. and really in our current iteration as a wellness, fitness and wellness company since ninety-eight, I would say culturally there's a few things that stand out. One is we try to take care of our people, you know, our first core value is people first. So a lot of operators are surprised when they come to visit us that we have such longevity in a lot of positions. You know, I think whether that be at our membership advisors or our facilities directors or group exercise instructors, we have a tremendous amount of longevity because we do our best to take care of our team members. ⁓ I would also say, you know, from a cultural perspective, you know, we try to be a welcoming, service-oriented culture. So I think that, you know, we we have a reputation from an industry perspective of being a sales first culture, not a service first culture. And I think, you know, providing a a high level of customer service to our members. ⁓ every single day, I think is something that we hang our hat on. And so that manifests in a few things. One, they tell their friends they had a great experience. Number two, they tend to stay a little bit longer. ⁓ and then the last piece of it is I think importantly, if if we're able to make important ⁓ impacts on the lives of our members and guests when they come to see us, then we're very likely gonna forge a longer term relationship. And that relationship is not, you know, something where it's transactional, it's something where we really feel like they're part of a club, they're not part of a gym. We're a place that you belong to. We're just not a place that you visit. And I think really being able to have that be front and center for everyone who works here, but also for us on a leadership level, you know, making sure that the decisions we make ⁓ in terms of where to deploy capital or should we build a new club? Or, you know, what should our approach be to pricing our new programs is all coming from that spirit of making sure that we create that environment, that community for our members that Quite frankly, we would love to join ourselves if we were associated with speaker-0: Yeah, well you you can walk right across the ⁓ parking lot ⁓ from your corporate office, so no no excuses that speaker-1: Mark, we we can well we can. I mean, I I would say that's the toughest GM job in the business because we're all right here. So kudos to Jill who ⁓ who who has been running that club for a long time because, you know, she gets all the scrutiny. but yeah, I think, you know, for all of us here, like being able to walk over and see it is is pretty important. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. I actually have that same situation. I'm sitting in our Dax School office in just north of Chicago and across the parking lot is ⁓ one of the clubs I own. So ⁓ it it I I always say ⁓ if I want to be inspired, ⁓ I walk next door ⁓ to really understand the work that's being done on the front lines. So I think you guys have that safe opportunity. speaker-1: That's a nice perk of the CEO. You get to pick where the office is. ⁓ I just want to point that out that I think then it came fine that the final decision, Jeff's like, ⁓ I think this is a great location. speaker-0: Tends to happen that way. So so Chris, Chris, you mentioned obviously people, huge part of being successful and building a great culture. You all have done that ⁓ very clearly. ⁓ You also then mentioned ⁓ what are you investing in? What are the things that are kind of around the corner? So I'd love for you to talk a little bit about, you know, what are you seeing as either opportunities for ACAC, trends in the industry, what are the things that you are investing in as an organization to kind of take the next step. speaker-1: Yeah, it's a good question. I think one is there's so many different kinds of brands in our industry. And I would just say that for any club operator, investing in a way that is consistent with the brand and the perception of your brand by the consumer is pretty important. So, you know, I think if, for example, we're not known as a ⁓ a powerlifting gym. Yeah. Right. So for ACAC to scrap its fitness floor and put in a bunch of powerlifting equipment is probably a bad idea, even if, by the way, ⁓ the market for that kind of that kind of ⁓ facility is increasing. Right. So, you know, for for us, I think the the themes that will drive our investment are going to be ⁓ first and foremost, ⁓ creating opportunities for ⁓ social wellness and connectivity amongst our members and team. So I think a focus, you know, all of our clubs have significant social areas, ⁓ seating areas, cafes, that type of thing. ⁓ you will see an evolution of that. I really feel like For in this world that's coming out. And I listened to this interview with the head of Eli Lilly. So ⁓ he's talking about next year they're gonna have a pill, like ⁓ you know, a Manjaro pill, essentially. and what happens then, right? When you can achieve a lot of your health goals by simply taking a pill, what is it that will drive you to come to the club? Yeah. ⁓ you know, and I think that there are a couple of things there. One is, you know, obviously the sense of community that the club can bring you that you're not gonna get sitting at home doing a virtual workout in your basement. Yes. ⁓ it's just not not the same. And so how do we foster that environment that lets a traditional club owner, ⁓ you know, maybe back in the, you know, in recent history, a country club would offer that type of connectivity. But how do we create the opportunities for for our members to to socialize and feel like they're part of something bigger, as opposed to just simply ⁓ lifting some weights and then putting them back down or getting on a piece of cardio machinery? ⁓ the other areas of investment for us is I think. We're continuing to, you know, explore the same themes like in terms of recovery. ⁓ you know, we've had some success in building recovery ⁓ centers in our clubs. ⁓ we'll continue to expand that. ⁓ and I think move beyond even what we traditionally have done in terms of creating spaces for our members, not only to have this on an individual basis, but also on a on a collective basis. Yeah. ⁓ and then the final piece of it I think we're all talking about is, you know. But at least me as like, okay, what's your mix, right? So how much cardio, how much strength, you name it. I still think that ⁓ while we had this big move away from cardio equipment where a lot of operators were reducing their cardio footprints. ⁓ I do think that we continue at our club to see strong cardio use. So we're not ⁓ really making a heavy, heavy trade, maybe a slight reduction, but we still feel like our allocations are pretty solid. And at busy times, ⁓ we're gonna see a a pretty, pretty full fitness floor in all aspects of what we're off. speaker-0: Yeah, that's great. Yeah. And and on the recovery side, is that something you are planning to include in your membership or is it going to be an add on and how are going to manage that? speaker-1: Yeah, we've currently done add-ons. I think our in our newest club, there's a high likelihood it's built into a a tiered membership model. you know, I don't know that there's a right way to do it, a wrong way to do it. ⁓ but I feel like there's a ⁓ there's been an appetite on the add on basis. ⁓ but I feel like in some of our new facilities it will be so integrated into what we're doing that it'll be very difficult not to include it in the core member. Yeah. ⁓ speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: The last piece I'll mention is technology, because you're a software company and let's talk about technology investment. You know, we will continue to invest in IT ⁓ in a variety. I think what is amazing is if I sat down and wrote down all the different technology providers that we use, I would be surprised. It's almost like one of those ads where they talk about they meet somebody on the street and say, How many streaming services do you pay for? you know, it's such a technology industry. I feel like for us, it's going to be about. You know, people ask about AI or people ask about this. I think for us, it is what can we do to help benefit the consumer and make it easier for them to purchase our product? At the end of the day, most of my investment is going to go into that. ⁓ I will say we we built our own little, we're actually it's rolled out as of now ⁓ in a kind of a pilot. We built our own custom AI agent ⁓ for internal use ⁓ to make it easier to scrape our internal SOPs, our website, you name it, for our frontline staff to use so the team can use it. ⁓ at any point. And the use cases are pretty simple. Someone calls on the phone and says, hey, what are your hours? Yep. Look, I I love our website. It's being redone. It's gonna be great this year. But sometimes it's hard to find information on the website. ⁓ and sometimes people would rather say something when on the phone with a member or in front of a in front of a guest than say even if it's wrong. Yeah. And so we want to create that opportunity for people to get the right answer quickly using law, you know, ⁓ language models as opposed to a hunt and peck. ⁓ likewise when people want to look up something internally, like, hey, what's the, you know, free membership policy? How many hours do I need to work to get a free membership? Or, you know, what's the mileage reimbursement rate? I don't have to send 10 emails to the entirety of the company trying to track down who the right person is. I can pretty quickly get to the answer I want. So I'm excited to see how that goes. Obviously, it'll require some care and feeding. ⁓ you know, it's really fun to plant a garden by the end of by but by by August, it's a hot mess. I think that like there's a little bit of this that we got to maintain it and and live with it. So I'm excited to see how it's adopted, but I feel like it's something that that our team is excited about using. speaker-0: Yeah, I think ⁓ we could do a podcast on AI, which would be a fun one. And I I I was ⁓ you know, ⁓ talking about this yesterday and ⁓ I feel like a year ago it was moving quickly in the last three to four months it's moving at light speed. ⁓ you know, and and like Eucharis, ⁓ you know, we're we're heavily investing in AI and initiatives and even like our trend, you know, it was embedded through our whole organization, whether it be know with copilot and and writing code and you know you have you up you have a a technology company too and so you leverage that and using agents for internal you know ⁓ customer service and how do we roll that out because again we have a lot of knowledge articles that we can feed that agent and they can get really smart really fast on how-tos on our software platforms. ⁓ and the part now that we're really moving heavily into is product. ⁓ and so the difference before Was maybe like, ⁓ you have an AI council and you look at AI across engineering and product. And actually now we are hiring, you know, gonna hire AI product managers like an engineering teams that that's what they do. So the it is just moving really quickly with the all ultimate benefit of, like you said, like how do you make that technology ⁓ applicable and helpful to our customers, to clubs? members and connecting with their members and making it easier to interact with the club. So I I think there's a lot of fun use cases coming up now where a year or a year or two ago it's like, whoa, AI, AI. But like what can it really do that helps efficiently? So it's gonna be fun. speaker-1: Well, I think we don't really know other than to say that anybody who says that it's not going to change the way we work is crazy. I mean, yeah. Look, I have teenagers and yeah, college students and let me tell you, like, you know, there's a lot of work being done using AI agents now. Yes. ⁓ I will just say it also in a fundamental way changes the way that we get used to looking things up, right? Or learning information that the idea of trying to figure stuff out is gone and the and what's coming is I'm just going to ask a question and get the answer I want. ⁓ you know, my fear has been, and the re our strategy of doing it as an internal agent as opposed to external, has merely been just I don't want to be in a situation where ⁓ I'm disappointing the the external audience, right? And these things they they're not perfect, right? I'm not gonna say that some kind of you know service agent's gonna be perfect. We're not gonna be perfect. I will say though that. You know, if you fundamentally look at it from how it's going to change like a CA world. Yeah. Right. How am I going to get the information I want out of CA? Like it's not that far. Like right now, I have a bunch of reports that I can. I can run the accounting groups report or whatever. I can now type into, I mean, I'm guessing this is your roadmap, is I can type in and says, please run the accounting groups report for these clubs from these dates. And then it'll just happen. I don't have to set filters and and look at it up in the way that I used to. So I think it's gonna be super fun and I think it's gonna be a nice benefit for the club group and I club groups that you work with, and I agree that. That's probably an entire podcast. And I'm not really the person to lead it. I'm excited that our software vendors and partners are ⁓ are actually exploring that and that'll be obviously to our benefit. Yeah. I mean, the cool thing about AI is they have to do it to remain competitive in a competitive environment. And so what's fun is that we get to have the benefit of that necessarily having to, you know, spend all the money directly ourselves. Yeah. speaker-0: Good. All right. So let's move into a topic that you are clearly an expert on. ⁓ and for lack of a better way to maybe describe it as, you know, it well, you talked about, you know, you guys had gotten into medical fitness and and I remember being an ACAC and just your assessments, you know, when people came in, it was very medically oriented. You were connecting with doctors' offices and it it was a part of your approach, as you talked about. And then ⁓ you founded Wild Health as you talked about the beginning. and I remember even when you founded Wild Health, it was a number of different applications and kind of figuring out, you know, what what's the real value prop here for this technology? ⁓ and it seems to me like you've really ⁓ gotten into a really valuable ⁓ tool with Weld Health. ⁓ so I'd love for you to talk about medical fitness reimbursement, what's the landscape, you know, the FIT Act obviously didn't pass, but there is more of an appetite for preventative health and And clubs are all trying to figure out how do I how do I do this? How do I capture that revenue, those membership units, ⁓ in a way that is, you know, manageable overall. speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓ I think a lot of the industry has been beating their head against the wall because for a long time, like in my twenty one years here, because it's this idea that, man, what we do is literally the cure for all sorts of ailments. Yeah. Why can't we connect better to the medical community? And why are they so unwilling to pay for our services? Right. I mean, someone who personal trains once a week is probably going to be healthier than somebody who doesn't. I mean, that's like kind of an easy one. And compared to a lot of medical services, especially downstream as relates to chronic disease, that's really cheap. ⁓ I do think unfortunately logic is not the prevailing ⁓ kind of operating model for healthcare, right? I mean, you're looking at, okay, well, and I remember this very clearly and and it's a story from 2019. A gentleman from one of the healthcare partners, I won't besmirch anybody here, was talking at a conference and someone asked that question is what do you think about prevention and and why, you know, are you willing to fund it? And his answer, which was very honest, was I'm willing to fund the prevention as long as it occurs in the next 18 months. Because the commercial healthcare providers is like, Well, look, you're likely gonna switch plans. We're gonna get bid out, and your corporation who's sponsoring you is gonna move on to the next vendor. And then now I've prevented them and now they're getting the better deal and I got left holding the bag on the payment. So, you know, I feel like there is that was this prevailing attitude. I will say there's some shifts that have happened. ⁓ And even I was involved with a group yesterday that's working on ⁓ how to create payment models for preventative healthcare. And there is a push ⁓ you know, at a very high, you know, federal government level. ⁓ obviously Dr. Oz ⁓ being involved, and he's certainly an advocate for for our product of of exercise and and and physical activity. So, you know, I believe that we are seeing some very positive signs towards. A new approach to preventative health. The question I have is going to be whether or not our fitness industry will want to jump through the requisite hoops. So the the the real answer, there's a there's a ⁓ Medicare diabetes prevention program is a reimbursed program. ACAC is a supplier, so we have folks who come to us and their program is paid for by Medicare and we run it and it's great. Well Health also serves a number of people who are running this program. But the number of people who are Enrolling is far less than the number of people who need it. Right. And it's very difficult to become enrolled and become a supplier. There's so many hoops to jump through that most commercial health clubs just aren't going to do it. And we're it's like, well, wait a minute. I have a million things that I need to worry about. And why would I bet a a lot of time and effort on uncertain future? So I am optimistic that some of the the change in attitudes related to prevention will prevail. I think between now and next summer, there'll be a lot of work done as to whether or not Medicare has the ability to cover more than it currently does. I believe the biggest opportunities are going to be in Medicare and Medicaid, ⁓ in terms of covering prevention. And the reason why I say that is with Medicare, it's the plan you never lose. Right. So once you're on it, thinking about it from a federal government perspective, about one half of the US ⁓ seniors are on Medicare Advantage and the other half are on traditional Medicare. But living better longer is a great idea. You know, fall prevention is an area that is getting a lot of attention and focus. ⁓ falls after age sixty-five make up one third of ER visits and often lead to a severe degradation of life and potential immobility and a variety of other health conditions. So if we can, you know, essentially in some ways ⁓ mitigate fall risk or we can reduce the the rate of falls among our senior population. What kind of impact would that have on the total spend of Medicare? And again, Medicare is paid for by all of us as taxpayers, right? So there's this incentive then to invest in prevention there. And similarly in Medicaid, right? Where again, the US taxpayer is going to be on the hook for these expenses. You know, what do we do to make sure our Medicaid population remains healthy? It'd be great if there was a ton of what I would call mobility out of Medicaid, right? On the other hand, there are a lot of people who are on Medicaid and will remain so for a long period of time and don't have that. 18 month rule that maybe a corporate sponsored plan would have. So in those environments, there's going to be a lot of opportunity to create pathways for preventative health reimbursement. I'll give you one ⁓ kind of more tangible ⁓ thing that we've been working on at Weld, which is ⁓ direct referrals out of ⁓ Epic or other, you know, electronic health records. We actually did a work with with Epic this summer ⁓ of basically doing a proof of concept of direct referrals from The electronic health record system directly to a health club or YMCA. And that would allow, and I say YMCA is go DAX, Go ops as well. Okay. And Reclick as well. Okay. So, ⁓ but the idea that your doctor can send a referral for a program that is filled inside of a club or a Y, like a prescription. Like when you go to the doctor now and they call in a prescription, it's like, ⁓ you know, you need some antibiotics or something, we're gonna call in what pharmacy, literally having the same conversation. about a prescription for exercise or a prescription for fall prevention. And so we built the electronic pathways that allow that referral to show up inside of the club environment. That club then to ⁓ basically, you know, have this individual either directly sent into their member management system. Yes. ⁓ all the data recreation can happen there with their coaches or trainers. And then that data can also be sent bidirectionally back into the healthcare providers ecosystem. So that is something that Weld Health has built, I think What I will say is it's a cool opportunity. And the reason why it's a cool opportunity is now we can be seen as a resource, right? A community resource for physicians who, quite frankly, don't know how to prescribe exercise because it's not the focus of medical school. I mean, medical school is focused on treating illness, it's not focused on recommending what I should do if I'm 20 pounds overweight. Yeah. And we as a health club you know ⁓ industry have an opportunity to service those folks. The challenge will be can we actually get the reimbursement model set up to where clubs will feel like it's a good use of their time? Yeah. ⁓ I mean, no one wants to say, hey, we're we're gonna get a referral for a program. ⁓ insurance will pay us a hundred bucks, but it's gonna cost us five hundred bucks to deliver it. No one's gonna do that, right? So I do think there's a lot of work ⁓ that has to happen operationally. I will say that the data is on our side. ⁓ so from an ACAC perspective, we have long received. Referrals for exercise, essentially prescriptions filled, not electronically, but either the old school way, like a fax, right? Coming through. and our history has shown that those prescriptions are filled at a 70% rate. And if you know anything about ⁓ medical prescriptions, they're filled far below four ⁓ 50%. So we're seeing, you know, 75, 80% greater referral ⁓ filling of prescriptions for exercise than we did for actual medicine. And why is that? I think part of it is that. We as health club operators and fitness operators love new members and love new referrals. We love it. So, and it and it's not just a doctor then or a clinician pushing you to get something done. You have somebody on the other side saying, We would love to come have you come in our door. We want to market to you and bring you in. And hopefully this program means that A, you can get healthier and B, you become a long-term client, right? We'd love to have you as a member. So I think that that dynamic is pretty special. And I'll leave you with this last stat. There's a long, long, long answer. But you know, there are seven times as many health club visits in the US as there are doctors' visits. Seven times. And we only are reaching 20-something percent of the population. I may add. Right. So the average American goes to the doctor about three times a year. Obviously, there's some frequent flyers and some people who never go. but I would say that if you look at that as a health club, you're over seven billion visits a year in health clubs. So what can we be doing with that data? What can we be doing? with that activity because in today's world where you know my kids will regularly order like DoorDash Chick-fil-A for an ungodly amount of money ⁓ and ask and tell me about it later by the way this is not an authorized expense and don't want to leave their couch for any reason yeah right what what value is there in someone getting up off their butt to come check in and I think a lot so a lot of fun I think ahead of us ⁓ we've been down this road before So I don't want to be in the situation where we're ⁓ a fool me once, fool me twice. But I will tell you in some of the conversations that I've been in, it does feel like there's a lot more ment momentum on a federal government level to push for preventive. speaker-0: Yeah, for sure. I I I I couldn't agree more. So Chris, talk a little bit about Weld and the technology you provide ⁓ to make this easier. both from a submission standpoint, from a, you know, a payment standpoint. You talked a little bit about the referral side, but talk about the actual like process and what you guys do. speaker-1: Yeah. I mean, well, I'll start with the on the basic level, which most club operators are probably most familiar with, right? Which is a check-in reimbursement program run by a third party. and you know, the weld solution essentially allows for easy validation of members to make sure that they're valid, the creation of a member record in the member management system, the tracking of activity over a period of time, usually over the month, ⁓ a submission of visits and a reconciliation of payment. And the idea is that a few things. One ⁓ the front desk at any particular location can be overwhelmed. And oftentimes to train up a front desk to know all the differences between all the insurance programs and all the different pro I mean, the people come in, they don't know what program they're in. So we fundamentally wanted to take some of that burden away. ⁓ second, I think what we found is that too often the data gets messy, right? So no one knows who's valid, who's not. So clubs are giving away lots of free membership to people who should never be checking in. Because they got somebody, Jeff, you signed up for an insurance program and you checked in in May and all of a sudden you lost your insurance at the end of the year. What was actually being done at know in next January to make sure that Jeff didn't have access? Right. Who's paying attention to that? Right. And then the last piece of it is human error was creating a lot of problems, like the wrong ID, the wrong information, assigning someone to the wrong program, you name it. And people were valid members, but inappropriately being transmitted back to the payer. And so what clubs were doing is saying, ⁓ I got five grand last month and I got five grand this month, everything's great. We're not realizing they should be getting 10 grand, right? Yeah. Right. So so I think what we found over the in in doing this for a long time is we've been able to ⁓ significantly clean the data and give operators more confidence in that the people that are in their facility are the ones that should be there and that those that they are ⁓ those that they're getting paid for, right, are are speaker-0: Teams buy. speaker-1: Or they should be getting paid for, are actually in fact getting paid. So to kind of put this in around terms, like error rates for we've seen error rates in bad data as high as 50%, where a club will have 50% of their members who are in these programs in their database are in some way either ineligible, wrongly entered, you name with some error. Yeah. And typical for WELL, like our, you know, we want to see error rates below 1%. I mean, we have a lot of them that are way, way less than that, but like think 0.1% error rates and that kind of thing. So we want to eliminate that side of it. ⁓ and it's been net helpful. ⁓ we work with a lot of large brands. I won't go into them here, but I think that it's just safe to say that we eliminate a lot of the burden of running these programs. And so then it encourages the the clubs to say, okay, we'll keep doing it. Look, I I know that in many cases people, these aren't the right fit for the every club. ⁓ but that's also something that's like, you know, I think ⁓ pretty valuable. It's several billions of dollars of payments from these providers throughout the ecosystem. ⁓ the club ecosystem. So it's it's here. I don't think it's going anywhere. It is for Medicare Advantage to share this, is one of the top four benefits of Medicare Advantage. So it's like vision and dental and fitness, right? Like that's like you're in that mix. So it's super popular. I don't think it's going anywhere. Our senior population continues to grow. So I think finding a way to let clubs take advantage of this is really important. And then on the purely medical side, I would just say that. You know, being able to streamline the process of creating claims and billing is a huge issue. So for those who are doing it, you know, we're getting in the kind of ⁓ call it mid ninety percent of first time ⁓ claims being paid. What I mean by that is medical claims billing is an art form. ⁓ yeah. And being able to submit claims that are accurate and paid the first time is really important, especially in our world where our claims are not ten thousand dollar knee surgeries. So we we're now in the mid nineties in terms of first time payment from all of our claims. Which allows those who are sort, you know, kind of availing themselves of that service to feel like, wow, okay, this is worth it, right? and so we've become experts at getting paid. ⁓ it's still tricky, ⁓ but I think we've done a really good job of making sure that our our club clients get the money to which they're entitled. speaker-0: Yeah. No, it it it's amazing. And you know, one, I completely you that there is a positive momentum here, ⁓ which is encouraging just for the health of our country in general. ⁓ and audience, ⁓ we've been partnering with Wild Health for a number of years and we we see an incredible benefit ⁓ to our customers, you know, and again, this is integration with the member management system. The speaker-1: Agree with you. Yeah, just for our audience. ⁓ so speaker-0: the records are moving across. It applies to a statement. And to your point, Chris, like nothing's falling through the cracks or as little as possible is falling through the cracks. So there he is a huge benefit, you know, and ⁓ I I think Chris, we can post on here just, you know, how people could find out about you guys, but Wild Health is spelled W E L D Health, correct? speaker-1: W W E L L D two hours. You're all right. It's fine. So I I I take no offense. ⁓ but yeah, it's been it's been a ⁓ it's been a ⁓ obviously feel the need for the for the industry. ⁓ and so we've been pretty happy with ⁓ the growth of it so far. Okay. speaker-0: Well, Chris, thank you so much for your time. ⁓ thanks for ⁓ everything you're doing. Not, you know, at ACOC, ⁓ Weld. ⁓ you didn't mention you were the past president of HFA, URSA. So I I know you've given a lot of your time to this industry. We appreciate it. ⁓ we appreciate you as a customer. So, and ⁓ that thanks for ⁓ kicking us off. speaker-1: ⁓ dude. It's my pleasure. And I would just like to say that big shout out to Jeff and the and the Daxco team. I think we deal mostly with the club automation team, obviously, but ⁓ just really fantastic people. And ⁓ you know, we've been a been a happy longtime customer. So thanks for having me on. Thank you.