Latest / Becker's Healthcare Behavioral Health / Tammy Boyd, Chief Revenue Officer at Lakeside Neurologic

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Tammy Boyd, Chief Revenue Officer at Lakeside Neurologic · Becker's Healthcare Behavioral Health

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This is Laura Dirdo with the Becker's Healthcare
1:16
podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by
1:18
Tammy Boyd, the chief revenue officer at Lakeside
1:21
Neurologic. Tammy, it's a pleasure to have you
1:22
on the podcast today.
1:24
Yeah. I am really excited about being, on
1:27
your podcast and,
1:28
appreciate the invitation to join you today. So
1:31
thank you.
1:32
Absolutely. Well, I know we've got a great
1:34
conversation planned. And and, really, I'm looking forward
1:36
to learning more about, you know, how you're
1:38
thinking about growth and development and what's next
1:41
related to Cyner Logic. But before we dive
1:42
into my questions, can you tell us a
1:44
little bit more about yourself and your background?
1:47
Sure. Happy to. So, I'm the chief revenue
1:50
officer for Lakeside Neurologic. We're a post acute
1:53
residential transitional living facility for neuro rehabilitation
1:57
and neurobehavioral
1:58
treatment.
1:59
My career focus over the past 20 years
2:02
has been in the health care sector with
2:04
the majority of it in specialized
2:06
rehabilitation
2:07
for brain and spinal cord injury,
2:09
medically complex patients, and other neurological
2:12
diagnosis such as developmental disabilities, autism spectrum, and
2:17
birth injury, and other medical injuries.
2:20
At Lakeside Neurologic, one of our niche service
2:23
lines caters to catastrophic
2:25
and complex care for injured workers in the
2:28
workers' compensation
2:29
industry.
2:30
And at Lakeside, I oversee all of the
2:32
corporate business development efforts concentrating on growth, client
2:36
services,
2:37
medical outcomes,
2:39
analytics, and brand positioning.
2:42
And our value proposition
2:43
is a holistic approach that includes an interdisciplinary
2:47
approach
2:48
of care led by experienced and specialized clinicians
2:52
and care staff to ensure positive outcomes
2:55
and value based care.
2:57
Our goal is to help individuals
2:59
with very severe injuries like a brain injury
3:02
regain their independence
3:03
and return home to their communities,
3:05
their employers,
3:07
and maintain their quality of life.
3:10
Lakeside neurologic
3:11
is licensed for a 132
3:14
beds providing care for adults, adolescents, and pediatrics.
3:18
Our three core service lines include
3:21
intensive rehabilitation,
3:23
supported living, and a community integration program.
3:27
And part of,
3:28
my background also involves
3:30
philanthropy.
3:32
I believe as a leader, it's important to
3:34
give back to a community that has helped
3:37
me succeed, and I've been involved in a
3:39
couple of children's nonprofit organizations.
3:42
Since 2017,
3:44
I've been a servant leader with Kids Chance
3:46
of Florida.
3:47
I currently serve on an executive board as
3:50
the vice president,
3:51
providing outreach communications
3:53
and digital marketing strategy.
3:56
Kids Chance of Florida is a nonprofit with
3:58
its mission to provide scholarships for children but
4:01
children of injured workers
4:03
established in 2015.
4:05
Kids Chance of Florida has awarded
4:09
$375,000 in scholarships to 85 deserving Florida students.
4:13
We have a very robust state chapter with
4:15
all volunteer board and ambassadors from across the
4:18
state.
4:20
It's inspiring to work with many like minded
4:22
caring professionals who wanna make a positive impact
4:25
in the lives of others.
4:27
I've also been involved with another children's charity
4:30
through the Workers' Compensation
4:32
Institute.
4:33
It's a Central Florida nonprofit,
4:35
Give Kids The World Village,
4:37
the place where happiness
4:38
inspires hope.
4:40
Their mission is to provide critically ill
4:43
children and their families from around the world
4:46
with week long cost free vacations.
4:48
It was established in 1986,
4:51
and they welcomed over 200,000
4:53
families from all 50 states and 77 countries
4:57
to create lifelong,
4:59
priceless family memories.
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And since 2015,
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the WCI has raised $1,200,000
5:07
for Give Kids The World Village with their
5:09
annual fundraising gala.
5:12
That's amazing to hear. You know, it's so
5:14
impressive to think about the impact,
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you know, that the organization has had and
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and really being able to,
5:20
touch the lives of children's charities as well.
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So important. So thank you very much, Tammy,
5:26
for going through all that with us. Now,
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you know, I'm wondering from your vantage point,
5:30
what are some of the opportunities and head
5:32
headwinds that you have your eye on right
5:33
now?
5:35
Sure. I joined Lakeside Neurologic
5:38
earlier this year in January of 2024.
5:42
We're basically a start up company and started
5:44
its post acute
5:46
care journey in 2020.
5:49
We collaborate with other providers as a cornerstone
5:52
of our foundation.
5:54
So we look at opportunities
5:56
as partnerships.
5:57
So those partnerships can be payers, providers, and
6:00
health care systems.
6:02
We're careful not to put all of our
6:03
eggs in one basket with only a single
6:05
revenue stream. So we've collaborated
6:08
with multiple resources which include commercial insurance, Medicaid
6:12
waivers, auto no fault, workers compensation carriers, managed
6:16
care networks,
6:18
state Medicare funding,
6:19
TPA, self insured providers, TRICARE, private pay and
6:23
other payer solutions.
6:25
So other opportunities
6:27
that also that I've I've identified is our
6:29
leadership team.
6:31
Lakeside Neurologic's executive ownership group has been very
6:35
methodical and focused on positioning strong leaders in
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all key departments.
6:40
So the past 2 years we've developed a
6:42
director of nursing
6:43
opportunity, director of IT, director of admissions,
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Risk Management,
6:48
Director of Programs, Chief Revenue Officer,
6:51
a school principal and many other disciplines
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and even have promoted from within the organization
6:58
to build our leadership.
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But some of the challenges,
7:03
that we're facing that that,
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many other organizations are facing as well,
7:08
especially in the healthcare
7:10
sector are
7:12
staffing.
7:13
So part of, with Lakeside Neurologic, we only
7:16
have one location in Florida.
7:18
We're in a rural community on a 1,000
7:21
acres of land. And since we have specialized
7:23
services, the challenge
7:25
is finding qualified employees provide care
7:28
and treatment for our unique patient population
7:31
that has very specific needs.
7:33
So at Lakeside Neurologic, we value our employees
7:36
and we recognize
7:37
them as our best asset.
7:40
A lot of them are direct care staff
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with challenging responsibilities
7:43
to make sure our residents are thriving, have
7:46
a sense of purpose, and treated with dignity
7:48
and respect.
7:50
So we've
7:51
overcome this challenge by providing a career pathway
7:54
and some of that some of so how
7:56
we've done that is we've provided tuition reimbursement.
8:00
Some of our employees have been with us
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for 20 years or more and so with
8:04
newer staff if they want to continue to
8:06
grow their careers in healthcare
8:07
and working with our specific patient population,
8:11
we provide tuition reimbursement as an incentive to
8:14
earn their licensing and nursing physical therapy, behavior
8:17
analysts,
8:18
counseling, and other specialty credentials.
8:22
We've also established an increased starting wage. So
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we know there's a shortage of qualified employees
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and we offer a very competitive compensation and
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benefits package.
8:34
Earlier this year, we established a starting wage
8:37
increase to attract and retain the most
8:40
and best employees possible.
8:42
And we've also created a positive
8:45
corporate culture.
8:47
The Lakeside has a very strong corporate culture.
8:49
We encourage a culture of respect, inclusiveness
8:53
and transparency.
8:55
We offer a work life balance with flexible
8:57
hours and promote teamwork in a collaborative
9:00
working environment.
9:02
So some of the other challenges
9:04
that face,
9:06
faces as a post acute provider are high
9:09
cost of care and limited reimbursement.
9:12
So with neuro rehabilitation
9:13
and neuro behavioral rehabilitation,
9:16
it's very staff intensive.
9:18
So the cost is intensive
9:20
for that kind of reimbursement.
9:22
There's reimbursement challenges with many insurance providers including
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Medicaid.
9:27
They offer very limited reimbursement for long term
9:30
re
9:31
rehabilitation.
9:32
And then there also comes into play with
9:35
denials and delays,
9:36
with claim processing for complex care cases.
9:41
We also see its challenges in our market
9:43
as patient volume and length of stay.
9:46
Most acute
9:48
rehabilitation
9:49
is a very niche market
9:51
and not all brain injury patients require long
9:53
term rehabilitation.
9:56
Additionally, we have strong competition here in Florida
10:00
with other healthcare and rehabilitation,
10:03
facilities
10:04
that can further limit the number,
10:07
of access for our patients.
10:09
And then also one of the other barriers
10:11
or challenges that we currently face is the
10:13
variable length of stay and that usually comes,
10:16
with some of our payers that that look
10:18
at, you know, progress
10:20
and rightfully so. But with brain brain injury,
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it's a it's not like an orthopedic
10:25
injury where you can predict
10:27
in 6 weeks that that patient is on
10:29
their road to recovery.
10:31
So like we say in,
10:33
brain injury rehabilitation,
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we've seen one brain injury, you've seen one
10:37
brain injury. So they always recovered very differently
10:40
from patient to patient.
10:42
So we also have,
10:43
some other challenges of regulatory
10:45
and compliance issues.
10:47
There's complex
10:48
regulations for post acute rehabilitation.
10:51
There's strict health care regulations including licensing,
10:55
accreditation,
10:56
and reporting standards.
10:58
I'm proud to say at Lakeside Neurologic we
11:00
have a 3 year accreditation
11:02
by the Joint Commission and the CARP accreditation.
11:05
Those are the top two gold standards,
11:08
in our industry.
11:10
We're also looking at other challenges as marketing
11:13
and brand differentiation.
11:14
So how do we, provide awareness about our
11:17
program? So we work with a lot of,
11:20
hospital systems
11:21
and other providers in our space,
11:24
about
11:25
educating
11:27
our our specialized market. So our solution is
11:30
providing CEUs and partnerships with other providers and
11:33
attending and exhibiting industry specific events
11:37
and challenging,
11:38
especially from the Chief Revenue Officer seat is
11:41
referral network development. So we're trying to build
11:44
up that robust pipeline of referral opportunities and
11:48
like I said earlier that Lakeside neurologic were
11:51
basically a startup company. So, there's been a
11:54
lot of our competitors who have been established
11:57
in this space for a long period of
11:58
time and and don't know about us. So,
12:01
I'm slowly but surely spreading the word about
12:03
what we do and the level of care
12:05
that we provide.
12:07
So one of the other challenges that we
12:09
face too are sometimes,
12:11
are the geographic limitation. So we're located in
12:14
areas with referrals,
12:16
fewer referral sources, which make it difficult to
12:19
achieve the necessary
12:20
patient volume to drive revenue.
12:24
Got it. I absolutely, you know, appreciate you
12:26
going through all of those items that you're
12:28
thinking about, and and I can imagine a
12:30
lot of our listeners can really relate to,
12:33
the things that you were talking about, whether
12:34
it's looking at staff and and building a
12:36
positive
12:37
corporate culture or or then trying to, you
12:40
know,
12:41
see where the referral sources are drying up
12:43
in some communities and other places too, just,
12:45
you know,
12:46
struggling to kind of,
12:48
make sure that ends meet in terms of,
12:51
you know,
12:52
providing access to care while also trying to,
12:55
you know, keep the work life balance great
12:57
for their teams and the clinicians and,
13:00
staff members as well. And so, you know,
13:01
I appreciate you talking through some of the
13:03
cool things that, you know, you're doing and
13:05
how you've been able to kinda navigate some
13:07
of these, challenging waters. So I appreciate that.
13:10
When you look ahead, how are you thinking
13:12
about growth and adding value to Lakeside Neurologic
13:15
overall?
13:16
Yeah. So we we have a multifaceted
13:19
approach building a strong foundation to our organization.
13:23
One of those comes from infrastructure.
13:26
Prior to it being Lakeside Neurologic, they, the
13:29
ownership group took over
13:32
a very similar organization.
13:34
And so,
13:36
the property itself, some of the buildings,
13:39
that we saw that
13:41
that to be a leader
13:43
in our industry and to be nationally known
13:45
and recognizes the quality
13:48
rehabilitation
13:49
program that that we had to look at
13:51
infrastructure.
13:52
So, the ownership group,
13:55
has a 2024
13:56
strategic growth plan,
13:58
included remodeling and refurbishment of many of our
14:02
physical properties on-site.
14:04
One of them that we we did refurbish
14:07
was the skilled nursing unit
14:09
and, we converted that into a Florida licensed
14:13
transitional living facility. It's a 14 bed oversized
14:17
suites to accommodate
14:19
the injured worker community
14:21
and with a rehabilitation
14:22
gym just adjacent to it. So the long
14:25
term goal is to be nationally recognized
14:27
post acute residential program that offers state of
14:30
the art technology
14:32
and therapy with medically proven evidence based approaches.
14:36
And then we've also made sure to diversify
14:38
our payer sources.
14:40
So we're partnering with many of the previously
14:43
mentioned with,
14:45
all the different providers. We work with state
14:47
agencies. We work with Medicaid providers,
14:50
even
14:51
believe it or not internationally we do work
14:53
with some payers that are international that are
14:56
that we are providing care and treatment for,
14:59
because those
15:00
countries are are quite small and don't have
15:02
the the resources necessary to provide care for
15:05
those those kinds of patients with neuro and
15:08
behavioral
15:09
challenges.
15:11
Got it. Wow. That's, you know, it seems
15:13
like it'd be a great resource and ability
15:16
to,
15:17
help some of those organizations continue to provide
15:19
access to care and really important care too
15:21
as you were mentioning,
15:23
for people who just really need, very specialized
15:26
services.
15:27
Now before I wrap up our conversation here,
15:29
I'm wondering, what do you think is one
15:31
risk or investment that's still worth making this
15:33
year? I know especially as resources are tight,
15:37
I I'd just be curious to know, you
15:38
know, what still makes sense, to make sure
15:41
you're putting yourself in a great position for
15:43
the future.
15:45
Sure.
15:46
So one of the investments
15:48
or risks that we made,
15:50
that was a big challenge. It took a
15:52
lot of insight
15:54
and thought, because
15:57
just for the skilled nursing unit that we
15:59
have
16:00
that we doubled down and,
16:03
we're like, look, we're gonna take this offline
16:05
and we're gonna turn it into a transitional
16:07
living facility.
16:09
And
16:10
that caught a lot of people in our
16:11
community,
16:12
you know, in the Florida community
16:14
a little by surprise,
16:16
but we really wanted to focus as a
16:18
transitional living facility that was intensive rehabilitation
16:22
to get that patient back to independent, back
16:25
to home, back to work. However, that, normalized
16:29
life looks like after a traumatic injury. And
16:32
we're also investing in our employees.
16:35
Again, like I said, with those wage increases
16:37
in tuition reimbursement
16:40
and then reopening
16:42
our pediatric and adolescent program. We had taken
16:45
that offline a couple of years ago, but
16:47
we identified a trend with severe behavioral issues
16:50
related to neurological
16:52
disorders.
16:53
So we made sure to have the right
16:54
foundational
16:55
pieces in place with leadership,
16:57
staffing, licensing
16:59
to make it sure it's a safe and
17:01
therapeutic environment.
17:03
And our pediatric program also has a Florida
17:06
certified school to provide educational basics.
17:09
So our resident pediatric program isn't falling behind
17:13
with their learning.
17:15
That's such a great idea.
17:17
Thank you so much, Tammy, for sharing that
17:19
with us,
17:20
and really, you know, a cool resource. Now
17:23
I'm wondering if you think ahead, what are
17:25
some of the best opportunities for additional growth
17:27
in the future?
17:29
Sure. What I'm identifying is what I'm seeing
17:32
as a trend,
17:33
especially here in Florida, and I'm sure it's
17:35
elsewhere.
17:36
I don't think we're
17:38
alone in what what I'm seeing as a
17:40
trend,
17:41
is
17:41
is,
17:42
it's an underserved population
17:45
with the neuro behavioral treatment. So here in
17:47
Florida,
17:48
a lot of times brain injury patients don't
17:50
have access to the right therapeutic treatment.
17:53
So I believe what is hopeful is that
17:55
the, Florida governor Ron DeSantis approved and signed,
18:00
a designated
18:01
behavioral health teaching hospitals to advance Florida's behavioral
18:05
health systems of care.
18:07
So this new legislation
18:08
appropriated
18:10
$330,000,000
18:11
to create 4 behavioral health teaching hospitals
18:15
in partnership with State University and Medicine
18:18
Systems,
18:19
to offer a curriculum for behavioral health education
18:22
programs.
18:24
So Tampa where I live,
18:27
is is one of the first in our
18:29
state to an in conjunction with the Tampa
18:31
General Hospital which is a trauma level one
18:35
hospital that has a strong affiliation with the
18:37
University of South Florida
18:39
will be the first to open in Q1
18:41
of 2025.
18:43
It'll be a 100 bed
18:45
hospital that will be accepting pediatrics all the
18:48
way through to adults and, we we're already
18:51
in discussions with hospital leadership as this becomes
18:55
operational.
18:57
That's amazing to hear. Tammy, thank you so
18:59
much for joining us on the podcast today.
19:01
This has just been a fascinating conversation, and
19:03
I look forward to connecting with you again
19:04
soon.
19:05
Well, I appreciate you having me. It's been
19:07
a pleasure. Thank you, Laura.