In this episode of Next-Gen Healthcare, Larry welcomes special guest Lyn Carter, Director of Strategic Partnerships at Tendo Corporation. They dive into the frequently asked questions about finding affordable healthcare options, including cash pay providers for doctor visits, imaging, and lab work. Lynn also explains the role of MDsave and how it simplifies the process for consumers seeking transparent pricing and bundled medical services.
In this episode of Next-Gen Healthcare, Larry welcomes special guest Lyn Carter, Director of Strategic Partnerships at Tendo Corporation. They dive into the frequently asked questions about finding affordable healthcare options, including cash pay providers for doctor visits, imaging, and lab work. Lynn also explains the role of MDsave and how it simplifies the process for consumers seeking transparent pricing and bundled medical services.
Chapters:
00:49 Introduction to Lyn Carter
01:41 Cash Pay Services
02:35 What is MDsave?
05:58 Price Transparency
08:14 Service Limits
12:04 Lyric Health’s Role
15:37 Transitioning to Cash Pay Model
17:18 Final Thoughts
Resources and links mentioned in this episode can be found here.
About Lyn:
Lyn Carter brings over 15 years of experience in population health management, contracting, process improvement, consulting, and new business development. She has worked with diverse stakeholders and partners to improve health outcomes and reduce healthcare costs for communities.
Passionate about applying a medical anthropology perspective to healthcare, Lyn believes in understanding the relationships between humans, their afflictions, healthcare teams, and societies. She holds a Master of Public Health (MPH) from Michigan State University, where she focused on healthcare administration and policy. She is particularly interested in systemic and interdependent healthcare issues, including payment reform, systems disruption, and preventive health.
Lyn's personal mantra is: Grit, Strategy, and Compassion—values she uses to drive meaningful change in healthcare.
00:00:49:01 - 00:01:08:18
Speaker 1
Hello, this is Larry Stout. And welcome to this episode of Next Generation Health Care. We've got a special guest today that's going to help answer some questions that our members frequently have about where to go when you, when you actually need to go see a doctor or, or get imaging work or lab work or something like that.
00:01:08:18 - 00:01:41:22
Speaker 1
Where do you go to find pay providers? You know, at a lower, lower rate. So, that that can be kind of confusing. So, we brought Lynn Carter with us, and Lynn is, Director of strategic partnerships at Tendo Corporation. Tendo owns a company called MD save, and our virtual primary care provider, Lyric Health, uses MD save to assist their members in finding these cash pay sources.
00:01:42:00 - 00:01:47:02
Speaker 1
So welcome to our podcast. Lynn. Really appreciate you taking the time to join us.
00:01:47:04 - 00:01:48:08
Speaker 2
Thanks for having me.
00:01:48:09 - 00:02:05:04
Speaker 1
I frequently describe MD save as a tool used to locate affordable medical service providers, much like, good, our tool used to locate affordable prescription drugs. Tell us what MD save is and what it's value is to consumers.
00:02:05:06 - 00:02:29:04
Speaker 2
Sure. And save is a two way marketplace that connects up those seeking to purchase care, being consumers with those who are trying to provide care, which would be providers health systems, ACS in. Truthfully, our intention is to create a direct contracting environment where everyone can get the best rates possible. Think of as kind of like an Amazon for health care.
00:02:29:06 - 00:02:54:18
Speaker 2
Instead of merchants, you have providers selling their procedures. Procedures would be like the goods that you buy, and then the purchasers are going to be the patients who need care. So we've been around for about 11 years. We've got a pretty strong platform currently process about 15,000 procedures per month, and we have about 300 different bundles and about 2000 different procedures available on the site.
00:02:54:20 - 00:02:57:03
Speaker 2
Wow. So nationwide.
00:02:57:05 - 00:03:10:22
Speaker 1
Impressive. Well, give us some idea of the scope of services. I know you can locate all types of medical specialists, but, give us some kind of insight into additional resources that that are available on your platform for sure.
00:03:10:22 - 00:03:32:12
Speaker 2
So first and foremost, we offer transparent pricing, like you mentioned. But we also comb, CMS data, commercial, insurance rates, all sorts of different forms of data to provide averages in your specific area. So even if we don't offer a procedure in an area, we do provide information to help you better shop for care as a reference point.
00:03:32:13 - 00:03:53:06
Speaker 2
You know, other things we do partner with care credit, which makes financing a little bit easier. If you're having a tough time paying for care. And really, our biggest value proposition for our scope of services is the ability to find what you need in your area and pick what you need, which is very difficult to do in health care.
00:03:53:06 - 00:03:54:19
Speaker 2
Sometimes.
00:03:54:21 - 00:04:28:20
Speaker 1
Great. I've, I've also read recently that, Tendo is has patented technology to enable users to schedule medical procedures that have been bundled. You mentioned bundled in your previous response. That have been bundled to include all the components necessary in a given procedure. This has always been a problem with traditional insurance because, and it's it's the main thing that causes people to be surprised, when they get the bill in their mailbox and find they've been charged for things they weren't aware of.
00:04:28:22 - 00:04:49:01
Speaker 1
In other words, patients know upfront the entire cost associated with the procedure because there's no separate bills or things like imaging and specialists that are not, include it, that, that have already been bundled in. So, am I describing this correctly and if so, please expand on how it works.
00:04:49:03 - 00:05:13:14
Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely. I think all of us have gone to the EHR or, you know, had a procedure done and you got your facility bill, you got professional bill, you got your specialist bills, you got three bills for one whole episode. And that can be very confusing and it can be offering. So one of the unique value propositions that we offer is that we uniquely contract with each one of the members of that piece of care.
00:05:13:20 - 00:05:39:07
Speaker 2
So I'm going to use a let's use a colonoscopy as an example. Right. We go in contract with the professionals so that the provider that's providing that service with the pathology department, with the anesthesia department, and with facility, we contract all of those entities separately, and then we bundle all of their prices together so that when the member goes and purchases that colonoscopy, they're getting the whole price.
00:05:39:07 - 00:05:58:03
Speaker 2
All in. Now, more importantly, from the provider side, we are very provider friendly because when we do that, we also pay each of those members individually for what's been rendered, which takes a lot of the administrative burden off of health systems, which is why we've been able to get such a strong network over the years.
00:05:58:05 - 00:06:27:23
Speaker 1
That's that's fantastic. And this is a big step forward as far as price transparency. The government is doing a lot right now around price price transparency in the medical industry. And I know, our viewers are going to see more and more about that in the press as time goes on. Yeah. If, good hour only displays information about, you know, harvest using a good or excellent example, but they only display information about what's available out there about pricing that's available.
00:06:27:23 - 00:06:38:15
Speaker 1
But as you just mentioned, you actually people are using good hour actually schedule their appointments and their services right through your platform. Is that correct?
00:06:38:17 - 00:07:11:17
Speaker 2
Yes. So I should say that I'll go through the process. Not unlike Amazon. You're looking for a specific procedure, say an MRI, right. You find one in your area that you like. You like the provider that it's at. Perhaps a location is good for you. You click purchase. So you're paying for that MRI right up front. The second that you click purchase, you are sent an email with the front office staff information for who to call on schedule that way, but also that front office staff is receiving an email saying Larry Stout purchased an MRI.
00:07:11:19 - 00:07:30:03
Speaker 2
This is what he is looking for. Please reach out to Larry Stout and here's his contact information. So it's a two way street. Now, that said, some of our flagship partners that we've been with for a long time that were strongest with and actually embedded us within their EMR so that you can schedule directly onto their platform as well from MD save.
00:07:30:05 - 00:07:38:21
Speaker 1
Oh that's great. Yeah. That's yeah, that's that's a super solution. Are there any limitations to the types of services available?
00:07:38:23 - 00:07:58:18
Speaker 2
Yes, yes. So we don't do drugs. No drugs, no pharmacy, we don't do dental. And we don't do DME. Now we have some preferred partners that will redirect you to that. We can say, hey, we've worked with these guys. We like the work that we that they do. We can, you know, we've vetted them, but we don't list any of those procedures on our site.
00:07:58:19 - 00:08:05:06
Speaker 1
Okay. I mean, do you, for instance, something like maternity services, do you have that type of thing?
00:08:05:08 - 00:08:29:02
Speaker 2
We do, we have maternity. We have a lot of preventive health. I'll say the strongest use that we have would be orthopedics. We're extremely strong in gastroenterology imaging lab. Trying to think of the other most common procedures. We see a lot of general surgery. But yes, we are across the board. There are very few things we don't do.
00:08:29:04 - 00:08:48:04
Speaker 1
Is information provided on the platform that helps the patient select a provider. I'm sure in any given area when, when patients go, members go out there to to make their choices. There's, there's going to be multiple providers in the same area. So is there do you provide any information to assist their selection process?
00:08:48:06 - 00:09:14:05
Speaker 2
Sure, sure. So as someone's browsing for something, they will find a provider profile on that profile. It'll have all of the demographic information, including if they have a specialty in one side versus another. And contact information, that sort of stuff. However, we are also rolling out, the Tendo Care Connect quality scores, which is a proprietary quality score that takes in a lot of factors that your typical U.S news does not.
00:09:14:05 - 00:09:35:08
Speaker 2
So for example, we take into account the frequency in which they complete the procedure, the frequency in which the facility they work at completes the procedure. There are outcomes from those procedures, all of those things. And I understand that's being rolled out in the next few months to be displayed right alongside our pricing and the listing of our providers.
00:09:35:08 - 00:09:48:11
Speaker 2
Now, that said, that will be displayed in our Tendo Care Connect portal, which is to support the self-funded ecosystem. He is not going to be on our traditional and save website for a little while longer, but it's coming.
00:09:48:12 - 00:10:15:15
Speaker 1
Okay, well, that actually gets into my next question. When a member when a lyric member calls their care team at lyric to schedule this type of health care, kind of clarify for me, how does how does that health team, utilize the product to support their member as opposed to the, the consumer going directly to the MDS safe website?
00:10:15:15 - 00:10:35:21
Speaker 1
And just so our listeners know, M.D save is available to anybody. You can go out to the website and just like you could get our X, I continue to use that as an example. But it is it for you. Just go out there and sign up for it and you've got access to it. So, when, when our, when the members call lyric, what does that process look like?
00:10:35:21 - 00:10:37:07
Speaker 1
Are you familiar with it?
00:10:37:09 - 00:10:57:10
Speaker 2
Absolutely. So we've got two different verticals here. We've got our members. We've dot com vertical that's been around for 11 years. And that vertical is publicly displayed prices across the board. And that's kind of where we started. And anyone can use that at any time. Our second vertical we call Tender Care Connect. And that's only been around for a few years.
00:10:57:12 - 00:11:29:15
Speaker 2
Nintendo Care Connect is intended to support clinical folks, so that would be like your virtual care providers, your navigators, the self-funded employer ecosystems. So, you know, brokers, anybody who's purchasing care. But from the self-funded employer world, we're at access is our ten new care Connect platform, which is a little bit different. But that said, the reason why you would want to go specifically through lyric is because first, you've got a provider that is shopping your care for you and is sharing a cart to you.
00:11:29:17 - 00:11:50:23
Speaker 2
They have log in access everything that we have on the Care Connect portal, which is quite a bit bigger, and they are able to curate a cart for you that they think is the most clinically appropriate. Second, they're able to order those procedures, as you know, MRI's and a lot of, you know, a lot of labs, those sorts of things must have a physician order in order to get this completed.
00:11:51:01 - 00:12:04:00
Speaker 2
So by working with lyric, you've got a provider that's jumping in, managing your care and ordering the exact care that you need, and then they share the cart with you, for you to complete that purchase.
00:12:04:02 - 00:12:32:03
Speaker 1
Okay. Well, let's enlightening. Yeah. It's helpful to know how that works. That's that that's really a pretty seamless process. Let's say let's say one of the, a lyric member, pardon me, the lyric member, schedules with him does schedule services through to save. And they go to the procedure, they go see the specialist, whatever it is, of course, they find or stand correctly.
00:12:32:03 - 00:12:39:06
Speaker 1
They pay for it up front when they when they, when they schedule the services. Is that correct?
00:12:39:08 - 00:12:44:09
Speaker 2
Yes. They pay for it upfront. And I know we're going with this. What happens when things don't go perfectly.
00:12:44:11 - 00:12:48:06
Speaker 1
Yeah. What happens when the doctor says you need something else.
00:12:48:07 - 00:13:03:09
Speaker 2
Absolutely. And that is a question that we get all the time. Anytime you do a proactive bundle. In other words, you bundle a bunch of procedures together in advance. You always leave a little bit of room for what could happen if things don't go according to plan. So there's a couple of different ways that we do it.
00:13:03:11 - 00:13:27:00
Speaker 2
Number one is we are going to cancel one purchase and make a new purchase. So we're swapping one procedure for another and that can be done instantaneously. So the provider lets us know, hey, this member actually needed this instead. A great example could be going back to that colonoscopy if we find polyps as well. And so we can refund one and we purchased another.
00:13:27:02 - 00:13:46:09
Speaker 2
The second option would be we can add additional components to the current bundle. So again continuing to get those savings if that provider can complete the procedure that still needs to be done. That's perhaps changed from someone's, you know under the knife or something. Right. Let's just add it on. So think like adding on to your cart.
00:13:46:11 - 00:13:47:01
Speaker 1
Right.
00:13:47:03 - 00:14:06:15
Speaker 2
And then in the third case the provider cannot complete what needs to be done. There's no opportunity for us to do anything different. What we would do is anything that's beyond that bundle, we can either bump into someone's insurance if they have insurance, or they can do cash pay with that provider directly. That doesn't happen very often, in fact.
00:14:06:19 - 00:14:23:14
Speaker 2
Yeah, canceling a bundle and purchasing a new one doesn't happen that often. We have really strong relationships with our providers. And oftentimes either through us or through the provider. A lot of those differences are reconciled, without needing to make a change.
00:14:23:16 - 00:14:43:22
Speaker 1
Lynn, you you've answered a ton of questions for my, my members today, and I'm sure our viewers too, when it comes to, this whole process of converting to cash pay medicine, you've plugged a lot of gaps, let's put it that way. Is there anything else you can think of that might help our our listeners or viewers?
00:14:44:00 - 00:14:48:12
Speaker 1
In that area, in your area of expertise?
00:14:48:14 - 00:15:10:23
Speaker 2
I'm very passionate about cash pay medicine, and whether that's through alternative insurance or whether that's through direct cash pay. I think that there's a lot of opportunities for patients to take better care of their finances in their health through cash pay. And so it's it's scary for a lot of folks, for a lot of employers to step away from the traditional health model.
00:15:11:00 - 00:15:49:03
Speaker 2
But I encourage everyone to take to take a stab at it through organizations like ours or others that are similar to us. There's a lot of opportunity for you to find the exact procedure you need with a fantastic doctor for a fraction of the cost, and I'm sure Larry, in several other podcasts that you guys have had, you've gone through the cost differential of if I get this MRI done via cash, or if I get this MRI done via my contracted rate with Blue Shield, what the differences are, it's important that employers and the members of our community feel comfortable to at least try something different, because you can always jump back on
00:15:49:03 - 00:16:07:14
Speaker 2
a plan if it doesn't go well. But I don't see many people jumping back on to a traditional health plan after they start trying cash. Okay, so that's my shout out. Now we do also have I'd like to speak to you tender care connect a little bit. Tender care connect is new in the last three years where we work with direct to employer models.
00:16:07:14 - 00:16:35:13
Speaker 2
So we are partnering up community hospitals and community health systems with the large self-funded employers in the area and the navigators are in the area. So we're creating an opportunity for health systems and employers to talk directly, instead of through the mouths of a carrier. And that's something that's very new. It's very exciting. That's kind of what I was brought on to talk a little bit more about when I was hired about seven, eight months ago.
00:16:35:15 - 00:16:44:19
Speaker 2
That I anticipate a beautiful fusion of consumer models with self-funded employer models all along this direct contracting continuum.
00:16:44:21 - 00:17:18:21
Speaker 1
This has been very helpful information. Lynn. We had, I think you're you're helping us create the picture we wanted to create for our viewers. So what we want our our viewers to know, our followers to know is that there's hand-holding throughout this whole conversion to cash pay medicine companies like AMD save. Obviously, the major providers like Larry Considera, who we represent, and other companies like Take Command, you are going to have more support and guidance than you can imagine.
00:17:18:21 - 00:17:41:10
Speaker 1
There's, you won't have any voids where you think, what do I do next? Because, because all of these providers that we work with are used to helping, their new members go through this process. And, of course, once you've been through it, it's a piece of cake. It's it's like, it's it's not more difficult than insurance.
00:17:41:10 - 00:17:55:22
Speaker 1
It's just different. It's like switching from iPhone to Android. It's just a different process. But it's actually very simple once you've experienced it and there's plenty of help along the way. So Lynn, thank you so much for joining us today.
00:17:56:00 - 00:18:27:11
Speaker 3
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00:18:27:13 - 00:18:40:23
Speaker 3
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