On this episode of The Modern Practice Podcast, host Gary Tiratsuyan is joined by Rectangle Health’s Senior Director of Enterprise Solutions, James Swan, to discuss a buzzword in healthcare, “Single Sign-On.”
James and Gary go into detail about what Single Sign-On is, and why healthcare practices and organizations across the country are seeking a software solution that can perform most, if not all of the day-to-day tasks as it relates to the business side of care.
James talks about the inefficiencies and cost associated with layering technologies and how providers and larger healthcare organizations can achieve more with less, and reduce costs utilizing a single sign-on software like Practice Management Bridge®.
If you missed James Swan’s first episode on “Increasing Cash Flow,” tune in >>
Have questions? Connect with and message James on LinkedIn >>
Learn more about Rectangle Health’s robust and powerful software solution, Practice Management Bridge >>
Transcript
Gary Tiratsuyan 00:21
Welcome back to the Modern Practice Podcast, everyone. Before we get into today’s episode, I want to take a moment and thank you all—our listeners for all the support and feedback you’ve given. The show launched less than a year ago, and the growth has been incredible. And as always, if you like what you’re hearing, leave us a review on Spotify. And if you’d like us to cover a specific topic in healthcare, leave a comment or message us. We appreciate all the support and love you’ve shown. Alright, without further ado, I’m really excited to have this guest back on the show. He is James Swan, senior director of enterprise solutions at Rectangle Health. James, welcome back. Thanks for taking the time.
James Swan 01:04
Yeah, I always appreciate the platform, Gary. Very excited for today’s discussion.
Gary Tiratsuyan 01:08
Pleasure’s all mine. Before we dive in, are there any trade shows or events coming up? Where are you headed?
James Swan 01:13
Yeah, there are always a few trade shows. But the few things kind of on the short radar… we’ve got Dykema in Denver, in July, and then we’ve got a couple other shows. We’ve got the DentalForum in September. We’ve got the DSO Technology Summit in September. And then ending off the year, at least in the short term on my calendar right now, I think we’ve got the DSO Leadership Summit in Austin as well. So, a couple really exciting shows coming up here in the next few months.
What is Single Sign-On in Healthcare?
Gary Tiratsuyan 01:41
Awesome. What I’ll do is I’ll go ahead and drop a link to those events for our listeners to get more details. And, by the way, if you haven’t connected with James on LinkedIn, I strongly recommend you do; he is a wealth of knowledge.
All right, let’s dive in. James, the last time we spoke, you mentioned something that really intrigued me single sign-on, it’s a buzzword in healthcare, it’s a buzzword in many industries. What is it? Why are we hearing so much about it at this point in time?
James Swan 02:14
Yeah, and single sign-on has been something that’s been building steam and starting to really pick up the idea of what it is and how it’s beneficial. And the idea of single sign-on is that we’re able to do more with less; being able to allow somebody at one location to sign on to one technology and then allow them to interact and go through their day to day activities, without needing to log into disparate platforms and multiple different setups. And the idea of single sign on, what it does is it just creates efficiencies for those end users, such that they’re not having to bounce between platforms and having to remember different usernames, passwords, all those uniquenesses of disparate technology. So single sign-on’s sole purpose and sole goal is to minimize friction for that end user to maximize efficiency and output.
Gary Tiratsuyan 03:08
So, for practices and organizations that haven’t moved to a single solution—I think you’ve touched on this—but are they layering software over software, going old school and doing it all manually? I’d imagine that’s just not cost-effective and makes it harder on staff. There are learning curves and transition times as they onboard new staff.
James Swan 03:31
Yeah, in this idea of single sign-on and consolidation, I suppose, can be kind of looked at almost interchangeably. And this idea of multiple technologies and layering is one that in the last, we’ll call it three years, there’s been just this booming growth. A lot of organizations have found themselves layering these technologies just because they were in this growth mode and this idea that they wanted to grow so fast that it wasn’t necessarily important to remove old technology. And what that is now showing as kind of organizations are starting to look under the hood and start to really focus in on how do we sharpen for that next stage of growth, what they’re doing is they’re looking at technologies that can do more.
And we think about a solution like Rectangle Health and the idea of single sign-on. The goal really is, where can we provide a efficiencies across your varying PM systems if you’ve got multiple or even just your single PM system to be able to improve efficiencies, drive those additional outputs, provide benefit to your end users, but also provide benefits to your patients? So, to answer the question, I think that there had been a lot of layering technologies. but right now we’re in this phase of the growth in which organizations are looking to really tighten their tech stacks to be able to go into that next phase of growth going forward.
The Demand for Single Sign-On
Gary Tiratsuyan 04:54
You speak to the practices in organizations every day, and I think you’ve already mentioned that as well. How often are you hearing, ‘We need a single consolidated solution?’ Is it at that point? They’ve got so many things going on in the day-to-day managing these practices, so maybe not in the not in the words, ‘We need a single consolidated solution,’ but how often are you hearing demand for one sign-on, one consolidated platform?
James Swan 05:31
Yeah, it’s huge right now. And really, implementation fatigue is a phrase that I’ve heard quite a bit. Rewind about a year ago, or six months ago, it was a few other terms. But this implementation fatigue—there’s more technology that’s able to enhance and drive those efficiencies than ever before. But right now, if we’re layering on different technologies, what that’s doing is really coming at the expense of the staff, and potentially coming at the expense of bringing in or having these new features and functions
When we’re able to look at a singular tech stack that offers single sign-on, what we can do is go at that at a unique pace, because we can open everything up through that single sign-on experience and then slowly roll features and functions out that are critical to the everyday business of an organization without needing to kind of absolutely bombard them on day one. So, the idea of single sign-on really does impact those end-users. And that implementation fatigue component, because it’s already an interface in a view that they’re used to, it’s just potentially providing additional automation or efficiencies to impact their daily lives.
Gary Tiratsuyan 06:46
And what parts of that day-to-day are they most looking to improve?
James Swan 06:51
Yeah, I think it’s the idea that we’re trying to improve how we communicate with our patients. And in doing so, we’re finding that by communicating via text and automating some of those other outreaches to patients, we’re reducing the workload and the requirements of those staff members at the front desk. And what that’s allowing for is no longer are our end-users or our staff members buried into their computers; they’re able to look at these patients and have that genuine dialogue to improve the patient experience. Because we’re leveraging technology in the background through single sign-on platforms to drive efficiencies, while allowing our employees to manage those day-to-day encounters, improving patient experience, improving the way patients can communicate with our practices, but also leveraging technology to do it. That is impactful across the gamut.
Results of Implementation
Gary Tiratsuyan 07:45
So, let’s paint a picture here if we could. And if we could do that, for both a single practice or a multilocation organization—what does the day-to-day look like, post consolidated solution implementation, once they’ve brought it all in, under one umbrella?
James Swan 08:03
Yeah, when we think of looking at a single location, the most important thing is, there’s more technology in the space than maybe ever before. And what we can do is, to your point, layer these technologies in to create a near perfect experience. But what we find is, day one looks very different than day 90 or day 160 or 180, or whatever we want to say. And there is some fatigue in those systems and platforms that get used seemingly on a daily or weekly basis. And when we have seven different platforms and seven different experiences, our staff members are in many cases going to leverage the things that are easiest.
When we think about taking that thing to the next step and go into a multilocation organization, when we don’t have the view potentially of everyday experiences and the workflows of every day, that potentially even becomes more of a disparate technology stack. And we may have the best of every single platform. But if every organization is not leveraging it the same way, we’re really not going to be able to see the true benefits of those things.
When we think about a single sign-on tech stack platform like Rectangle Health and our Practice Management Bridge platform, the goal is really threefold. We want to improve the patient experience through optionality. We want to give automation to the end-users, which is going to streamline and enhance their daily output. And then on the back end, we want to give consolidation, scale and the ability to grow faster than ever. And if we can achieve those three buckets from a single sign-on tech stack, we’re going to have a lot of really, really happy partners, because we’re able to impact all three phases of what additional technologies should be leveraging or should be impacting for these multilocation organizations.
Gary Tiratsuyan 09:47
So, you’ve sold me on the benefits of single sign-on. What’s the icing on the cake, as far as functionality or capabilities within the software that a practice or an organism vision may not think about, but they kind of have these a-ha or wow moments when you share them share those with them.
James Swan 10:07
Yeah, not only is the functionality going to be like for like, potentially when you’re layering on these best-in-class solutions, but if we’re able to do it in a single sign-on tech stack, we’re able to bring economies of scale into the equation. And why that’s important is, when we look at, again, layering technologies, it quickly becomes very expensive. And in doing a single sign-on platform—which encompasses all of these different best-in-breed platforms and best-in-breed options for our patients, best-in-breed automation for our end-users, and best-in-breed consolidation and scale for our organization—if we can do that all through one platform, creating those economies of scale, all we’re going to do is improve our bottom line, increase EBITA, and ultimately have a better working experience for everybody across the way.
So, the icing on the cake, the a-ha or the wow moment is that one organization can achieve and accomplish all these different features and functions that a lot of our partners are looking at through five, six, potentially seven vendors to achieve all the things. , the a-ha is really this idea that one single platform can achieve all of their different goals, demands and hopeful outputs for the technologies that we’re talking about today.
Gary Tiratsuyan 11:25
Really amazing. And I think when you still have staffing shortages and high employee turnover rate, that learning curve shrinks. It’s easier to train, it’s less costly to train. More efficiency is produced in ways that are not often thought about. So, really amazing stuff there.
And before we wrap up, I wanted to ask as I did last time you were on the show, since it’s been a while, you obviously have a passion for helping practices in organizations treat more patients. I see it in your other interviews, webinars and trade shows; it’s really visible. What are you most excited about? Or what do you think, as far as technology goes in the business of healthcare, is going to be or currently is the game changer for increasing revenue, helping a practice organization really thrive and grow financially, and most importantly, treat more patients?
James Swan 12:23
Yeah, it’s a couple of things. I think that the most exciting thing going forward is really as more organizations adopt these technologies, all that’s going to happen is they’re going to continue to create these efficiencies internally. And the training and creating those super-users for their own organizations is simply going to explode around, ‘How do we organically improve the bottom line through improving our financial collections options, improving the ability to treat more patients through some of those automated experiences and technologies that we can bring to the table?’ And it’s just going to provide a better experience from start to finish for everybody involved. But it’s really just this idea that one singular technology can be specifically curated for each and every location, even within a single organization. Because we all know every practice, even within a single organization, they all might run slightly different. So, we’re not trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. We specifically curate an experience for each and every organization, and that will inevitably improve exactly like what you’re referencing—thriving of those organizations through financial growth, but impacting and positively impacting more patients on a daily basis.
Gary Tiratsuyan 13:40
Interesting and exciting stuff. James, can our listeners contact you directly to get more information?
James Swan 13:46
Absolutely. Like you said at the beginning of the show, message me directly via LinkedIn, or contact me directly via my email at jswan@rectanglehealth.com. I always appreciate, connecting, engaging, networking… whatever anybody would like to do more than happy to accommodate and look forward to the opportunity.
Gary Tiratsuyan 14:09
Awesome. Again, I’ll have that link to James’ profile in the episode description below. And I highly encourage you all to check out his first episode on the Modern Practice Podcast if you missed it. That episode is loaded with great insights and information. I’ll have a link to that episode in the description as well. James, thank you again for coming back to the show and chatting with me today.
James Swan 14:31
Always a pleasure to do it. Hope we get an opportunity in the future to take on the next iteration. Thanks, Gary.
Gary Tiratsuyan 14:37
My pleasure. And we absolutely will. One final note for everyone again, if you enjoyed this episode, if you liked what you’re hearing, leave us a review on Spotify and let us know what you’d like to hear discussed on the next episode. Thanks again for tuning in. ‘Til next time, everybody.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
