In this episode of Health Biz Talk, host Tony Trenkle interviews Laura Gorry, Senior Vice President of Customer Success at Overjet, an AI-driven dental technology company. Previously, she held senior leadership roles at HealthEdge, BenefitFocus, IBM, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, bringing extensive experience in payer operations, healthcare IT, and policy. Laura shares insights into the evolving role of AI in dental care, the challenges of medical-dental integration, and the future of automation and standardization in the healthcare industry.
Transcript Of the Podcast
00:00:00 Tony
Welcome to Health Biz Talk, the industry’s leading podcast that brings you today’s top innovators and leading voices in healthcare technology, business and policy. And here is your host, Tony Trenkle, former CMS CIO and health IT industry leader. Hi, Laura, it’s good to see you. I want to introduce everybody to Laura Gorry. Laura is the senior Vice President of Customer success at Overjet for both the dental practice and insurance products, where she leverages her extensive background as a payer executive and a healthcare IT vendor to bridge the technological and operational gaps between dental providers and insurers through innovative AI solutions. And yes, Laura gave me that long sentence, but I managed to read it without taking a breath.
00:00:49 Laura
Yeah, good job
00:00:51 Tony
Previously, Laura held senior leadership roles at Health Edge Benefit, Focus IBM and Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina. So welcome, Laura. Thank you for coming on the show.
00:01:03 Laura
Thank you for having me. Tony. Good to see you again.
00:01:06 Tony
Good to see you again. So I wanted to start off with a little bit more background question, Laura. So how did you get to where you are today? Just a little bit more new background or what actually piqued your interest in getting into healthcare in the first place? And then how is your career kind of evolved as you’ve gone along these extensive years that you’ve been in the industry? Seasoned executive years.
00:01:33 Laura
That’s, that’s, that’s very kind of you, Tony. I appreciate the word. So as you think about, as I think about my career, which started at Blue Cross in North Carolina, you know, it, it was not what I expect. You know, you, you take that crooked path. And I, I thought very early on in my childhood I was, I was going to be in, always going to be in the, the industry, but I thought I was going to be a psychiatrist or a psychologist. Actually started grad school, taking classes and realized very quickly that wasn’t the path I wanted to be on. So a former college suite mate called. Me up one day and said, hey.
00:02:17 Laura
There’S this great opportunity. And 28 years later, I, you know, made a career out of, out of working for, for a payer. I would say that I have done everything an insurance company, health insurance company that didn’t require an MD or a cpa. That’s the easiest way to characterize my career. But every couple years I lifted my head up and was able to move, you know, up around, across the organization. So fantastic opportunity to really learn about the industry from not only the payer perspective, but also other stakeholders as well, which we’ll talk about in a little Bit I left Blue Cross because I got a call one day from IBM and I you know, my first response was are you sure you have the right person? Because you know I, you know I was in operations, I was in sales and marketing and product development and, and compliance and, and all those areas but never, never in it. And the gentleman who became my boss that you know, also know well too Tony, he said to me that hey, we got plenty of technology people running around this building.
00:03:33 Laura
What we need are people who understand the business of healthcare.
00:03:36 Tony
Right.
00:03:36 Laura
And so you know I, I spent a few years at IBM leading the, the payer teams in healthcare and life sciences. We were selling hardware, software and services to many of the large payers, Blues nationals and health systems as well too. That’s where you and I, our paths, our paths. Wonderful experience. And you know from there I just got, I, I was, I was, got attracted to startup life. So you know overJet’s my third startup. I, I first started in admin Benefit Focus where actually I was the, the client first, the second client of that company helping to build that company and, and then made my way back as an employee. So spent a few years there and then on to Health Edge.
00:04:32 Laura
For those that don’t know, Health Edge is a claims administrative platform, kind of cutting edge technology for that as well as care management and some other wraparound services as well. And then found my way to Overjet and you know both Health Edge and Overjet Series B that quickly went to C and so you know, I don’t think I’ll ever go back to a big company anymore. I mean there’s something to be said for startups after you work for large organizations which I love and you know, attribute a lot of my success to but you get to do a lot of things that either you didn’t get to do in your career or you get to do again. And you know I like the fast pace and the entrepreneurial mindset and, and you know, with every company I’ve worked for but just very mission driven organizations as well.
00:05:28 Tony
Well, you actually answered part of what I was going to ask you the next question which really was, you know, going from a large payer to a large IT firm and then moving into more like you said, smaller either startups are certainly much smaller in scale than either Blue Cross or IBM but it sounds like you pretty much answered my question. You like the entrepreneurial aspects, you like the ability to do different types of jobs as opposed to being more into one type of area as you are, as you end up Being in a larger firm. Is that, is that fair to say?
00:06:08 Laura
That it’s fair to say. It’s like, you know, you know, I. I self diagnose myself as an, I have adult ADD and I, you know, or else a very, a continued thirst for, for knowledge and growth. And you know, I love to tackle problems from different perspectives and I think the only way you do that is by, you know, walking in the shoes of those perspectives. So I’ve made a career of being able to do that.
00:06:33 Tony
So you moved around to different organizations besides size. They’ve been, they’re, they’re different in ways. Whereas Blue Cross had, certainly had different types of challenges and customers and needs. And IBM, of course as a large vendor, serviced a lot of the Blue Cross companies. But it was from a different perspective. You were looking at it and then moving to the smaller firms, they each have their own different type of customer base and different type of mission. So how would you kind of compare and contrast not from a size perspective but just from a kind of a. What type of positions you held and what type of missions they had?
00:07:18 Laura
Yeah, I think with each of these roles throughout my career it provides it, like I said, it helped me provide a, gave me a perspective on all the unique challenges within healthcare. When I think about my number of roles at Blue Cross as a payer executive, you know, obviously you get very deep into risk management. You get very deep into network optimization and the importance of high performing networks and the cost of care and then know, obviously in operations, you know, you learn that the guts of a insurance company or even like I say, the, the health of a insurance company manifests itself in claims because everything that’s going on in the front end and everything goes on the back end falls right within the claims administration.
So, I did three tours of operations there. But I’d also say too, you know, I spent a number of years in sales and marketing, product development and account management. I think, you know, from there, you know, it, it was the unique perspective about experience because I was able not only to live within my member experience, not only within the four walls of my organization about how we delivered value to, to groups and members, but it was also I got to go outside of that working with employer groups.
How they really felt and experience navigating the healthcare landscape, you know, affordability, you know, I saw that every day in ways and so that really helped drive the mindset of, you know, how do we really become, you know, more efficient so we can drive down the cost of care or at least Provide, you know, the right care at the right time. And then as I navigated to the IT side of the world, what was exciting for me, kind of taking that affordability problem and you know, creating more efficiency, it it became around, you know, enabling these organizations, these insurance companies and health systems to be more efficient, either, you know, addressing, you know, operational deficiencies through technology or you know, improving their infrastructure that oftentimes had had, you know, gone past, left something to base into life.
00:09:41 Tony
Right, Its life cycle was. Yeah, towards the end of life.
00:09:47 Laura
Exactly. We saw a number, we saw a number of those, you know, and was. Also, you know, the agents, you know, a lot of point solutions as well too. And the, and the, and the hope and the benefit that that provided, but also the added complexity when you’re, when you’re, you’re plugging in these new point solutions to a very archaic oftentimes infrastructure. And so, you know, it was, it’s like, how do you balance all that and how do you create a case for change? How do you create the change management on the other side once the technology is live, that really sustains the value of the products and services that you’ve provided to your clients. And then now moving over into the dental space now an AI, it’s really about kind of the cutting edge technology now. It’s kind of what next?
00:10:40 Tony
Or the drilling edge of technology.
00:10:43 Laura
Yeah, the drilling edge of technology. You know, I had worked, you know, with payers, payers and providers before. So again, it’s great to get back and working with both sides of the, of the, of the healthcare problem and the healthcare challenges and you know, being able to transform healthcare through the promise of emerging technologies. And you know, again, that’s about driving efficiency, improving workflows and really, you know, being able to, you know, to get more data insights where we haven’t been able to do that before before.
So again, I kind of, you know, kind of wrap this one up. It’s just like I’ve kind of followed, kind of follow the evolution of what’s going on in, on in the industry. So, you know, it’s been pretty exciting to watch and be a part of.
00:11:25 Tony
The whole dental area has always been kind of interesting to me. We, we delved into it somewhat. I was at cms, in fact, they even hired a chief dental officer a few years ago. But it was always kind of a separate world from the world of the healthcare plans and the providers. It was just kind of a separate space. Standardization, automation policies. I mean all of them seem to be not as integrated as maybe they could have been. Because as we know, dental health is a key part of your overall health as well.
00:12:07 Tony
And having it separate in some cases, not covered in a lot of cases creates some issues. Why do you think the. I know some of us, obviously there’s probably some politics or whatever, but why do you think the dental area has developed kind of separately from a lot of the rest of the healthcare space?
00:12:28 Laura
Yeah, that’s a great question. And it’s, it is really extraordinary how dental has been compartmentalized.
00:12:35 Tony
Right.
00:12:35 Laura
From the rest of the body. And you know, as I, as I. Think about this is, this is Laura’s opinion. It’s, you know, first you think about, you know, kind of the history of it. You know, the education system is very different. The, the paths are very different. You know, the, the, the, the associate as, you know, both or both medical side and dental side created their own organizations.
00:12:58 Tony
Right.
00:12:59 Laura
You know, it kind of, it kind. Of diverged there as well too. But I also think a couple of things, you know, it’s like, you know, we’ve normalized not including dental for the. Most part as part of your medical insurance policy. I mean, how absurd would it be for insurance companies say we’re going to cover everything but your right foot.
00:13:23 Tony
Right.
00:13:23 Laura
That’s really what we’re saying. You know, we’re covering everything except, except your mouth. And we’ve normalized that.
00:13:31 Tony
They don’t cover eye care sometimes too. So I guess vision somewhat falls into that as well.
00:13:37 Laura
Yeah, that, that is true. Yeah. Except for when it, you know, when there’s, there’s actual diagnosis. Yeah. Versus outside of routine. But you know, the mouth, like the eyes, they’re not isolated from the rest of the body.
00:13:48 Tony
Right.
00:13:49 Laura
You know, and it’s becoming that there’s a whole lot more research on, you know, how the oral care can really detect things much sooner like diabetes, like, you know, musculoskeletal, you know, osteoarthritis. All of those things, you know, manifest themselves in the, in the mouth. And I, at the end of the day, we as a society and we as an industry have not prioritized preventative as a dental, you know, dental preventative as a high value service.
You know, how we don’t go to the dentist’s office and you know, have our, you know, blood pressure taken that, you know, but gosh, what if we did, what if it was, you know, if, you know, because dental was treated more like preventative, you know, and partnering with, you know, the, on the medical side to do more things like that, you know, we could start to switch the pendulum there in terms of the value that that dental has provided.
But yeah, it’s been, you know, we’ve created this artificial division and you know, I’m excited to see as I, as I spend more time in dental that, you know, there is moment momentum around medical, dental integration and things like that, you know, But I, I also would say too that I’ve learned more in these past two and a half years about dental that I never knew I didn’t know about dental. You know, it’s, you know, it, it, it is. You know, I built dental products, I sold dental products and I paid paid dental claims when I worked, worked at a payer. But I never, you know, I never knew how antiquated a lot of the systems and automation and processes were.
00:15:26 Laura
I, I took for granted that a lot of the things that were coming, coming to market and required on the medical side, you know, dental was, was a fast follow and that just for a lot, not in every case, but a lot of cases hasn’t, hasn’t been true. So I’ve learned a lot and there’s a lot of opportunity in dental not only catch up but, you know, you know, to actually be transformed and transform, be a big part of the transformation of healthcare.
00:15:55 Tony
Yeah, it sounds like you’ve been really able to sink your teeth into it, if you pardon the pun. But anyhow. Yeah, right then. So what do you think’s holding it back now though? Because obviously there’s a lot of tradition and culture and dental practices haven’t consolidated, at least from what I’ve seen to the extent that the health care provider, other healthcare providers have. So it’s, it seems like it’s in some ways it’s gotten even more siloed than it was 20 years ago even.
00:16:30 Laura
Yeah, yeah, in some case. So there is some momentum for consolidation. Not everywhere. And you know, it’s. A lot of that is happening. I don’t recall the actual percentage of DSOs in comparison to the, to the individual practices, but certainly that there is momentum there. You know, I think the other thing too, Tony, that’s interesting is when you, when you think about when innovation or changes happened on the medical side, a. Lot of what drove it was regulation.
00:17:03 Tony
Right, right, right.
00:17:05 Laura
And yeah, and so, you know, on. The dental, not that you want regulation. To always, you know, be the catalyst for it, but I think that is a big piece of, of what has happened and the divergent there because there has not been quite the regulation around, you know, how member Data is transferred, you know, how networks are managed.
All those things just don’t, just aren’t as prevalent and top of mind in the dental industry and they’re top of mind now, but they haven’t been over the years. So, you know, it’s going to take a lot of momentum from all the different stakeholders to really kind of move it forward. And what a unique opportunity. Dental is also much simpler than medical.
00:17:50 Tony
Yeah, absolutely.
00:17:51 Laura
Yeah. You know, so that’s it. That what is what makes it a great, you know, way to, I wouldn’t say test but to, you know, explore and to really put in, you know. Some things that medical actually medical could, could adopt over time but, but you know, use dental as the, as the test bed to make meaningful change that the oil industry could benefit.
00:18:18 Tony
Yeah. I don’t know what the percentage of coverage is for insurance in the dental industry. I’m sure it’s much lower than healthcare in general particularly. I know obviously with seniors, dental is not part of traditional Medicare and it’s not part of a lot of Medicare Advantage plans as well. So I’m sure with the seniors it’s probably lower. But even the population as a whole, I’m, I don’t know what the coverage is from employer standpoint, but I’m sure it’s not as high as just regular.
00:18:48 Laura
No, it’s not. You know, you think about 90, about 97 on average, 97% of you know, an employer group’s budget for healthcare expenses is going to go to the clinical side. Right. So it’s whatever’s left over for your dental, your vision and your other ancillary products. You know, on the senior side, dental and vision and some other. That, that’s very important.
00:19:13 Tony
Right, Absolutely.
00:19:14 Laura
So they are willing to buy up, you know, so, you know, we do, we do see that, that there as well too. And you know, I’m hopeful for the day where, you know, the medical dental integration where dental is part of, you know, essential benefits and, and again, going back, you know, that we really value what preventative dental care can do to over.
00:19:35 Tony
Exactly. Yeah. I think kind of switching a little bit the level of automation and standardization. You and I talked about this a few months ago and you said that there was some work undergoing, going using the FIRE standards and there’s some implementation guides that are being developed in the dental area now. Have they gone to completely electronic records similar to what the rest of industry is? Are they behind or where is it, where do they stand with that?
00:20:08 Laura
Yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s behind as well too, yeah, it’s, it definitely is behind. So again, it’s an, it’s an opportunity. I mean, even, you know, getting, you know, eligibility and benefits, you know, that’s been solved for quite a, quite a long time. Medical side is still not there, quite there yet on dental.
00:20:29 Tony
And how do they handle people with more than one insurance plan? Does that generally with dental, do people have multiple dental plans that you have to do coverage decisions?
00:20:41 Laura
We do, yeah. So there’s coordination of benefits still usually deal with the same players on the medical side that, you know, you know, do that, do that for the insurance companies and, or the employer groups.
00:20:54 Tony
Yeah, but you said your company is working in AI, so how does that go over in the dental community? What are they beginning to use AI for?
00:21:08 Laura
Yeah, so I’ll talk about it in two aspects. One from insurance company aspect and then one from the, the provider side, the dental clinicians on the, and I’ll start there. So on the clinical side, imagine being able to leverage technology that allows you, even before your patients come into the office, your office manager and team, all the files are aggregated, all the treatment plans, all the X rays, the historical X rays, notes, and all that are aggregated into a single workflow, single view, single page.
And it tells both the hygienist and the dentist exactly what the patient is there for, what’s been treatment planned and what’s not been treatment planned. And then, and then as they get into the operatory and the actual visit, taking the X rays to be able to annotate, measure, you know, exactly what’s going on, be able to show the patient while they’re in the chair, hey, you’ve got some decay here. Hey, there’s bone loss. And hey, this bone loss is, you know, you know, X millimeters and you know, be able to quantify and show them exactly what’s going on in their mouth. That actually helps to create a lot of trust.
00:22:26 Laura
So on the clinical side, AI, the AI companies who work with dental offices, they’re able to do a number of things. It’s not only on the clinical side with the X rays, but it’s also creating some very, very much needed efficiency in the front and back offices of a dentist’s office. Now moving over to the insurance companies, they can take those same X rays and you know that, you know, not once, once the X rays leave the dental office, they go to a clearinghouse, right? Clearinghouse makes its way over to the insurance company, where, where. So now the, the, the quality of those X rays have deteriorated because it’s gone through two different hands.
00:23:15 Tony
Right.
00:23:15 Laura
What I can do is actually improve, bring back or improve the quality, do the same kind of measurements, just think about on both sides, both the clinical side and the insurance side and then apply those same consistent quantitative measurements to, and then apply the clinical guidelines and then make the determination of yes, this should be paid all day long or no, AI never, never denies a claim.
What it does is it sends it to a recommended review by a human. So you know, and again on this, on the insurance side, it improves the efficiency with workflow. It allows clinicians, I like to say, allows the clinical team to work at the top of their game. They’re not like pulling files from files system that’s right there and allows them. To make a much more accurate and. Much faster determination than they’ve ever. Been able to do before.
00:24:19 Laura
You know, the important thing with AI is the whole, is what I call AI for good. And you know, AI governance is in its early stages, but there’s been a lot of good guidelines and policies that have come out both at, both at the federal and state level and association level. And there’s also a lot of, you know, self mandating and that’s really nice to see because AI can be an extremely powerful tool when it’s used for good and can really take away a lot of the administrative burden, a lot of the provider and member friction as. Well as, you know, enhance all the clinical aspects and the promise that it has there for the future.
00:25:05 Tony
So in the healthcare space outside of dental, obviously there’s a lot of issues around fraud and waste and abuse and I don’t know what the percentage of fraud committed in the dental space is, but it would seem to me that one of the uses of AI would be to help with some of that as well.
00:25:28 Laura
Would it would a couple things and it depends on the line of business. The reason I say that. So you know, back to what we were talking about that preventative and dental care hasn’t been prioritized. A lot of the dental benefits have also not changed much much in the past 20, 30 years either. And there’s that maximum, usually 1500, a thousand to 2000. Right. So that maximum in a lot of ways in my mind has prevented a lot of fraud. On the commercial side, you know, there is, you know, duplicate detect, you know, AI can, can, can detect duplicate images or images that have been manipulated, you know, by a human.
00:26:15 Laura
So it can do that. It can also detect, build but never treated. So for example, if 1x ray on the first data Service came in for carries and insurance company paid it. A second one came in and that same X ray and there was no filling or no crown that was ever done. AI can detect that. Now you get over to the Medicaid side, it’s a whole different ballgame because dental on the Medicaid side is, is much more richer plans and you waste and abuse on the Medicaid side. Unfortunately, typically, you know, just like medical says few bad actors, you know, but again there’s a lot, there’s a lot of technology that, that continues to be enhanced to, to catch those bad actors. But you know, 90, 98% of the providers out there are, you know, doing the best they can.
00:27:13 Laura
And yeah, it’s, it’s just those, it’s just those few that, that, that create the, the challenges there and the leakage in terms of medical expense.
00:27:25 Tony
So how far has it gotten, AI gotten in the, in the dental industry? Is it just kind of fledgling right now or their actual uses that are popping up around the industry or is there like some core uses that have actually taken, you know, a foothold at this point or is it still considered like a pioneer type of thing? Is it behind the healthcare industry as a whole?
00:27:52 Laura
No, I would say, you know, in. Terms of AI that you know, we’re a lot of parity, I would think, you know, AI is being used to, you know, there’s a number of, of AI companies focused on dental and there’s some that are focused on medical and dental as I described before, around, you know, looking at the X rays and detecting anomalies, detecting bone loss, those type of things. Number of companies out there do that. You know, a number of AI companies are streamlining the, the end to end workflow as well too. Building automation and getting rid of some of those low hanging fruit things that, you know, humans no longer need to do. So that focus on more high valued work that’s, that’s pretty prevalent in the industry right now. And you’re seeing a lot of that also happening on the medical side as well.
00:28:47 Tony
So putting on your larger hat outside of the dental field, where do you think that the biggest movements in AI are going to be in the next few years? Of course you and I saw Watson at IBM, which was kind of the early part of AI and we’ve gone through a lot of generations in the last five years and now we’re moving into, you know, generative AI and some of the larger scale uses of it. It seems to be much more interactive and much more advanced than what we saw Seven or seven years ago. But what do you see over the next few years? Where do you see it really taking hold in the larger space?
00:29:31 Laura
Yeah. And the macro level, you know, I. I see even more friction in the industry.
00:29:37 Tony
Right.
00:29:38 Laura
We do it right now. I will say it’s going to take, it’s going to take a lot of inertia to make that, that happen. Somebody told me the other day that an airplane typically uses its most fuel when it’s taking off.
00:29:52 Tony
Right.
00:29:52 Laura
You know, to, you know, to combat the inertia as well as gravity. I think it’s kind of the, you know, it’s analogy I like to use for, I mean, we have to, to push it forward to, you know, improve, you know, the. Because there’s vast amounts of data now that we’ve never even had, you know, before, even more data. And we had, you know, and Tony, you know, we struggled with What did we do with all this data? You know, even pre AI, you know, now it’s even more data.
So, you know, being able to, you know, mentor and you know, provide things like oral health scores to clinicians and you know, who, you know, who are, who are working at the top of their game and, you know, improving outcomes, I think that’s a real opportunity creating standardization in the industry. Wow.
00:30:37 Laura
Wouldn’t that be novel? You know, patients have to have to navigate and then if you, to me, you know, even going even more macro. As you and I were, you know, around a lot of cutting edge technology at IBM, I think about the combination of things, of AI and things like quantum computing that, you know, will accelerate, you know, a lot of, you know, you know, drug and genomic work that, you know, typically takes years. The other thing I would say too, I would, I could see a massive push into more personalized healthcare, which I think is sorely needed. Improving diagnostic accuracy. You know, I know you’ve had guests on here talking about interoperability.
00:31:31 Tony
Yeah. Oh yeah, play.
00:31:32 Laura
You know, it’s, it, it, it’s all uniquely tied, tied together. And so, you know, I think, you know, and, and the, you know, the real nirvana to me is like finding, you know, patterns that have never been discovered before to, you know, make meaningful progress, more meaningful progress on, you know, things like cancer, some of those diseases that were really on the cusp. I think we’re almost there with some of this technology that is emerging and really proving its value. I don’t know. I would also pose the question back to you. What do you think at the macro level we’ll see in these next few years with this emerging technology, I think.
00:32:18 Tony
It’S going to be in different areas. I think we’ve seen years ago with the clinical area is where a lot of it started initially looking at new ways to do detection of cancer at an early stage or being used as a support for the clinical staff. I think as it’s, it’s, it’s moved along and gotten more sophisticated, I think there’s obviously a lot more that can be done.
On the administrative side, I think I mentioned fraud and waste and abuse, but risk management and areas around that, I think there’s obviously going to be, as you say, as you, you get more into quantum computing and, and other types of more advanced technologies, it gives us an opportunity to move more into personalized medicine. But the challenge with that, as you know, being in from the payer side of the house is, is how do you develop a way to provide that type of personalized medicine with all these capabilities, but at the same time spread the risk across in a way that doesn’t bankrupt either an individual or a large commercial or government payer. That’s where I see some of the challenges that come in once we get a better handle on some of these capabilities.
00:33:50 Laura
Agree. Yeah, that’s exactly right. Yeah, it’s, you know, but, you know, I hope that, you know, when I hang up my shoes one day that, you know, that we’ll see some of this, that we’ve, you know, that we’ve, you know, been, been hoping for. It used to be technology wasn’t there. Right now technology is no longer the excuse. Now again, is that inertia? And it’s, it’s, it’s the industry willing to move forward and, and make it some meaningful change.
00:34:18 Tony
Yeah, it’s that intersection between business policy and technology that we’ve talked about for many years. And as you advance the technology, how do you make sure that the policies and the, and the business practices and workflows take advantage of it? At the same time, the technology has to be done in a way that it leverages it in such a way that it doesn’t create disincentives as opposed to incentives for advancements and stuff.
00:34:49 Laura
That’s right. And you know, that reminds me of, you know, when you were, you and I were working together, we used to travel the country talking about the claimless future.
00:34:55 Tony
Right, exactly.
00:34:57 Laura
Was the future. And now that future is here. That is, you know, we can do that today, you know.
00:35:02 Tony
Right, right.
00:35:04 Laura
Yeah.
00:35:05 Tony
So that kind of leads into our final part of the show and I’m going to hit you with a couple quick questions and then we’ll, we’ll close off with a couple just personal and other things. So from your perspective, what has been the biggest change in healthcare over the last five to 10 years that you’ve seen? So we’re in 2025, so let’s say go back to about 2015 to 2020 and here we are in 2025. So if you were talking to your 2015 self, what would you say had been the biggest changes in the last 10 years.
00:35:45 Laura
Then? The biggest change, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s the automation I think we’ve seen, we’ve seen that. I would, I was, I would, I would hope. I wanted to say value based care.
00:36:00 Tony
Well that was what we were talking about 10 years ago.
00:36:02 Laura
That’s what we were talking about. I don’t think we’re right there yet. So you know, I, I think all the things that technology has been able to do in terms of the art of the possible and being able to enrich our data and really know more about the individual and when they’re accessing healthcare and when they’re accessible, not we’re still miles away of what it could be but definitely seen advancements in the past 10 years of I think just.
00:36:33 Tony
An amount of data that we’ve had and been able to use and that’s partly due to the automation has just been incredible because I remember when we first started, you know, meaningful use and ehrs and things and we talked about the amount of data we were going to have in a few years and of course we blew past that and here we are still generating more and more data from a variety of sources. So if we look 10 years ahead from now to 2035, what do you see? Do you see AI just something that we don’t really talk about because it’s so integrated into the normal flow or what do you think?
00:37:15 Laura
I do, I do, I think it just, I think it becomes part of who, I mean it’s part of how we not even outside of health care. Right. You know how many. I mean you don’t even have to write an email anymore, you know, you don’t have to. There’s so many things you don’t have to do. You know, I think we’ll, we’ll get our arms around that. I think that my hope is that medical den, dental integration will be real. I believe that oral care is the front of the bus to, to that.
00:37:50 Laura
You know, and that whole health and. It really becomes the Standard of care and then all the things we talked. About earlier, that with technology and you know, we’ll, you know, we’ll be able to make significant advancements in a much shorter period of time. You know, with AI in combination with, you know, other other very powerful tools. And you know, we, we really start, you know, driving some significant change in health outcomes for all.
00:38:23 Tony
Yeah, I think you’re, I think you’re right. I mean we’ve seen the, the automation use of AI, you know, RPA, we’ve seen obviously cloud computing, we’ve seen the use of APIs. All these tools have really begun to change and of course the, the increased amount of data have really begun to change how we’ve, we’re doing the business. We’re still not where we could be. As you mentioned, we were not at value based payments to the extent we were looking at it 10 years ago, but we have made progress and a lot of times progress is iterative rather than, you know, it starts slow, it picks up space and then it becomes an accelerator as time goes on.
00:39:11 Laura
Right, that’s right.
00:39:13 Tony
So the last two questions, Laura, one is, so when you’re not focused on dental and health care, what do you enjoy doing?
00:39:24 Laura
I live on the water now. Back now. So I grew up on the water and now I’m back on the water. So I’m learning how to, how to be the captain of my boat. So.
00:39:34 Tony
Okay, that’s good, that’s one.
00:39:36 Laura
And then second is gardening. You know, it’s warm here. 10 months, about 10 months of the year at least. And so I’m, I’ve got a few acres and I’m, you know, learning how to create these, these little gardens and keeping them alive. And I find that to be very, very therapeutic.
00:39:56 Tony
Yes, it is. Yeah.
00:39:57 Laura
Gardening is so many ways. Yeah, yeah, so many ways. And being outdoors and other than the snakes in the, it’s, it’s pretty enjoyable. So.
00:40:06 Tony
Great, great. And so we, we hit on a lot of different topics today. What are, do you have some other sources? Are there like go to places for information that, besides this podcast? Of course, but I mean other sources of information that you go to, to get the information you’re, you’re looking for to keep up with the trends in the business and in the industry?
00:40:28 Laura
Yeah, you know, I, you know, I. Use too like it was all about, you know, the industry publications. But in the last couple of years I’ve been trying a new tactic which is I go in and find like who’s doing the work and who are Some of the thought leaders actually doing the job and, and kind of like, you know, how, you know, we started this conversation. My career has kind of been able to see many facets of the healthcare industry. I kind of like to look at and what I read.
I want to hear various and different opinions about it and the opinions coming from the people that are actually doing the work because I find it very fascinating, very different and oftentimes very unique perspectives as well too. So I’ll go to thought leaders, like senior leaders of some major healthcare systems of some IT as well too, and obviously follow you and others and you really get a unique perspective that way. And, and you know, so I, I, I, I, I do all those things.
00:41:33 Laura
I, you know, read MIT technology. There’s a lot of customer success things that I do because I think at the end of the day, if we don’t drive value, technology is, you know, you know, it’s only as good as the value that we drive long term, which, you know, is why I do what I do. So a lot of unique and different ways that very smart people are coming up with, with how to drive more value in the industry, leveraging technology or a lot of podcasts and, and things, those quick snippets, you know, that you can do on your walks and things I find extremely valuable and kind of help shape what I hope is a. Well, a more round, well rounded opinion about.
00:42:16 Tony
Yeah, there’s no shortage of information out there. One of the things that I’ve done more lately is, is ask one of these, these AI, like co pilot, I, I just type something in and they’ll give you some different sources and you can kind of, it’s, it’s, it’s kind of a way to kind of explore things further through that and it is, which is kind of cool. I mean it’s obviously it’s not the, the be all and end all, but it’s just another, like you said, there’s a lot of tools. You can get snippets and you can apply them in a lot of different venues while you’re walking or doing something else. You can listen, you can watch, you can read or whatever.
00:42:57 Laura
Exactly.
