Why We Made Practiceland (and PatientFi) Just For You

Todd Watts (00:00):
A lot of the attention in the industry is around the physician. We want to make sure that we're giving just as much attention and putting the energy into the staff because that's really the heartbeat of the practice and nobody understands what it's like to be a patient coordinator or run at practice unless you've done it

Andrea (00:18):
Well, hi there. I am Andrea Watkins. And if you're listening to this while juggling three patient calls, checking in a couple patients, taking a payment, selling skincare and trying to catch your doctor in between procedures, you might be working in an aesthetic practice.

Blake (00:32):
And I'm Blake Lucas and this is Practiceland. This is not your doctor's podcast.

Andrea (00:39):
We're here today with Todd Watts, he's CEO and co-founder of PatientFi. So why don't we just start out, Todd, tell us just a little bit about yourself as CEO and co-founder of PatientFi.

Todd Watts (00:50):
Sure. So I started PatientFi in 2017. My background before this was in financial services and also would spend a lot of time in the aesthetic space before starting the company. So we brought, as well as the original team to start the company, people that kind of understood the practice and had been in the space from a healthcare perspective, but also knew how to build a differentiated in a product that could actually help the practices be able to see more approvals and be able to grow their practice in a way that was really attractive. We're now in thousands of practices across the country and primarily focused on aesthetics.

Andrea (01:26):
So there's a lot of other options in the aesthetic space. There's a handful of contenders as far as financing options that are available. What led you to want to build another one?

Todd Watts (01:36):
I'd spent some time working with other patient financing companies before starting PatientFi. The one thing I noticed, particularly with those that have been around a long time, there was a lot of technology and work tools to be able to bring the modernization in the rest of our life and the digital technologies to be able to create a process that was way simpler for practice staff. I think a lot of your listeners are practice staff members and there's constantly these pain points between, geez, using this technology or something else and the rest of my life is so easy I come into the office and candidly it's sometimes it feels like you're in front of someone at an airport terminal and they're like, what are they doing back there? And so there was a clear opportunity for, look, let's create the ease and convenience that we're used to in the rest of our lives and being able to, it's not just a credit card that I come in with, it's really a fully digital easy product to use using all the latest technologies and then be able to make it just as easy as possible for the staff.

(02:34):
And then with that, we set ourselves up in a way where we could deliver a really attractive offering to patients. We called the business friendly way to pay for a reason and we've always made sure that we provide a transparent product in combination with how the business is built. We've spent a lot of time, money training, putting together the best support staff and customer practice success team and it's really easy to use, but if you need some help, you're always going to get a live person right away and we're going to do what it takes to enable you to make it easier to do your job.

Andrea (03:05):
What then led you to think, oh podcast, let's do a podcast.

Todd Watts (03:09):
People come and go in this industry, and I've been in aesthetics for a while now. There's so much attention on the physician and if you ask a lot of our customer service people and our salespeople have you said, Hey, give me the person you talk to the most of the practice, most often than not it's the coordinator, it's the practice administrator. A lot of the attention in the industry is around the physician. We want to make sure that we're giving just as much attention and putting the energy into the staff because that's really the heartbeat of the practice and nobody understands what it's like to be a patient coordinator or run it practice unless you've done it. And particularly in aesthetics, it creates an opportunity for us to, hey, look, how can we create something where the staff can not only leverage the best practices of each other and also we can be a resource to help them? And it's why we have an ad board of practice staff. We always ask that question is like, is this going to make the lives easier? Is it going to help the practice staff them and the patients? That's the most important constituents.

Andrea (04:02):
So what are you guys doing at PatientFi to differentiate yourself in the support and education that you're providing the staff?

Todd Watts (04:08):
So I think a big part of it is making sure, and that's through constant training, even from the day someone starts at PatientFi, no matter what level they are is it's critical that the employees actually understand and if they need to go to a practice and hang out down the street, you're going to go do that so you understand what they're really dealing with. A big difference, and you mentioned it is most of the practices that you PatientFi, they're using PatientFi, if not exclusively, but they're using it a lot. And those are the most successful practices and why is that versus just, Hey, there's another lender? And I think if you asked anybody who's a really productive partner and customer of ours is we're going to go in and not just say, Hey, here's another financing option, put a brochure on, like if you're going to do that, we're not doing anything special, not as a partners or anything. If we want to do something that's really different, it's okay here we have this really unique tool that it's great, it can compete with the biggest banks in the world and it's a great product for your patients. All of that said and done, if we can't help work together to be able to introduce patient financing and payment plans in a way that is easy, but also I tell people if you walk into a PatientFi practice, usually before the patient even gets to the consultation room, they've probably already been told about PatientFi. Maybe the reason they're in the practice is because our practice staff, our customer support team and sales team worked with the staff to develop custom ads that whether it's set aesthetic treatment for $99 a month. Hey guys, take this, put it out on your social media, put it in the display in your office.

(05:38):
The reason for that and the why behind it is not, Hey, look, let's get as much PatientFi business as we can. It's more importantly and where you create the win-win is there's so many people that think they can't afford aesthetic surgery or even if it's surgery, non-invasive procedure that if staffs can take in that sales cycle, if you will, from hey, there's a patient somewhere out there, let's call it a lead in between when that patient is a lead all the way to when they're in the consultation room and that's where we come into, let's take the conversation around cost and make sure that everybody who's in the chair, that's not another big decision they need to make. Now your conversion rate will change, doctor will love you or whoever the injector, whoever it is you're working with is going to love you, cuz he is going to say, my gosh, my conversion rates are going way up.

(06:27):
Well, a big reason for that is if the cost was an issue and they're approved for 15,000, 20, whatever the number is in financing in a digital wallet with Patient Fi, you're making these big life-changing clinical decisions. Take off the table something, I don't want to call it a distraction, the financial decisions are really important. We don't want to put that on the staff and the doctor let PatientFi kind of come in and solve that. People pay over time for products right now that are $50, $75, a hundred dollars hundred 50, and these aren't people that can't afford a hundred dollars or $150. It's the convenience of, Hey, look, I can just add this to my digital wallet and pay over time. The world's changing in many ways. It doesn't mean you can go and we don't like, Hey, we're going to offer this high interest product and has to be a friendly, fair offering and payment plan to the patients, but people are getting used to the world's changing in the other parts of their life.

(07:17):
They want to use and pay for things over time. We have clinics that do millions of dollars a year and their average ticket is a couple hundred dollars and it's for non-invasive treatments. It could be something as simple as HydraFacial and patient goes, Hey, look, I'm going to do three HydraFacials a year and each time I come in I want to add it to my digital wallet and pay over time. If you have a thousand patients now getting four HydraFacials or more injectables and being able to actually have a compliant program for whatever their facial regime is, the practice wins, they're able to upsell. And then as I mentioned, the patient is going to probably get a better result as well as far as being able to afford the full facial regime that the clinician's recommending. There's more people coming into an anesthetics than ever.

(07:58):
Our payment plans are exclusive to the practice. If I have a patient comes in and they have a $15,000 digital wallet with PatientFi and they can only come to your practice, being able to have them come back in and pay on a monthly payment, it's a membership. And again, it's super simple and that's something that we're seeing more of our practices use PatientFi, use our membership component as well to be able to help with that retention. Because everybody, there's a little bit of angst in the industry right now because there's a med spa popping up on every corner and it's like, gosh, I'm going to come in, give this patient this amazing treatment regime and then they're going to be driving down the street and see Botox for X dollars a unit, take that treatment regime and go down there. You want them to create that loop of them coming back.

Andrea (08:42):
Loyalty as well. Yeah. I'm really impressed by the spectrum of the patient's needs that you're able to serve with a product. Your product is actually really helping them to increase the conversions more so than these other products that they're available, but they're not actually going to do what we need them to do, which is overcome the objection of price.

Todd Watts (09:03):
We can really work with you and your team to change how the conversation that you have with patients so that you can stay current if you're running the practice and your coordinators will love you if you give them something that is going to help them close more business. It's just everybody's happier. For the staff, my hope is is that all of you, all of them, it is very much kind of the engine that makes it all work. I hope that through the other guests you have and also even the advice that you give, it can not only remind and appreciate the staff for everything they've done, but also unfortunately you guys don't get to talk to each other enough. It's like one of the silliest things is everybody's on these little islands and everyone's in a running anesthetic practice is really hard. Doctors get to come together three times a year and Hey, what are you doing and what are you doing and what are you doing? You guys don't really have that outlet and share best practices and hopefully is kind of a step to be able to get you all to be able to work together cuz then everyone's lives gets a lot easier.

Andrea (10:04):
Knowledge is power.

Todd Watts (10:05):
That's right.

Andrea (10:05):
All information is good information and I still learn because I've coached practices across the nation now and I love being able to learn something from one practice that maybe I was not even aware of and take it to another practice and say, Hey, guess what we're doing down the road, across the nation, and really help people and make that connection so that folks in the administrative and sales roles feel supported. And for me it's empowering people with the knowledge that we have

Todd Watts (10:34):
Big time.

Andrea (10:34):
to be able to provide a community where we can share and help support each other. Because to your point, to lots of people we've talked to today, running an aesthetics practice is not for faint of heart.

Todd Watts (10:45):
It's not easy.

Andrea (10:46):
There's so many things going on.

Todd Watts (10:48):
It really isn't. If you look at any other lending company out there in general, it's like, oh, we're

Andrea (10:53):
Medical and veterinarian and whatever. Yeah. What do you love about aesthetics? As a co-founder, you must have, that's by design.

Todd Watts (11:00):
I mean, I was from the industry, believe it or not, medical aesthetics is a attractive, fast growing segment and it was very underserved in this category. So I knew the industry really well and I was looking around the industry in aesthetics and it's like the main markets for some of the big lenders out there is actually dental, veterinary. Nobody really had said, Hey, we can really, the aesthetic market is the practice staff, everybody's underserved with an attention from a customer service and support and sales support, and we built the whole thing tailored to aesthetics. If I would've been just some person who works for name the company Visa and I was like, oh, I'm going to go into medical aesthetics. That's the part that people don't understand is being able to make a product that actually fits into the workflows of the practice. And that's where some of the other lenders, if you're going to be everywhere, you can't solve everybody's problems, right? But if you can really constantly evolve and get better and better at serving a specific customer, the aesthetic practice staff, you can start to get really good at it.

Blake (12:02):
Got a wild customer service story or a sticky patient situation? Send us a message or voicemail. If your tale makes it into our "She did what?" segment, we'll send a thank you gift you'll actually love. Promise no cheap swag here

Andrea (12:14):
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