060 - SPECIAL EDITION - Mark Redlus and Tridiuum

Leaders are people who see what needs doing and they do it. And Mark Redlis and his team at Tridium are excellent examples of this type of leader. And this is the type of leadership we need today.

People who inspire, empower, and guide us to our very best. Leaders who are walking the walk. Your host, leadership activist, author, and founder of the Sensei Leader Movement, Jim Bouchard.

Welcome to this very special edition of Walking the Walk. We're with Mark Redlis of Tridium. He's got an amazing announcement to share with us. Mark, I'm just going to shut up. You go for it.

Yeah, thanks, thanks, Jim, and thank you for having us on, especially this timely— obviously this release and our announcement at Tridium went out this morning. Thank you. This morning, Tridium, which as we discussed on our last podcast with you not that far long ago, but it's a digital behavioral health platform. We support more than 6,000 providers on a daily basis and close to 11,000 Patients, you need patients every day. We announced this morning that in response to the COVID-19 pandemic that a version of that product that works with health systems and other enterprise plans will now be made available with enrollment starting today through July 31st to individual providers who need to work with their patients remotely. It'll be made available to them for free. Up through and including July 31st. So no subscriptions.

I can't tell you how impressed I was when I read that announcement. I mean, you know, our economy is grinding to a halt. You know, the business that I'm in, the event business and workshop business is completely obliterated at this point. And you know, there's pressure on people, right? We've gotta meet obligations, we've all got bills to pay. And for you to step up like this and offer this free of charge because, and I have a sister in, behavioral health too. And it's interesting because, right, she said that. I mean, she's feeling the pinch. People are not able to pay their fees to her and she's providing services for free. You're stepping up and providing these services for free. I mean, that is an amazing thing. We were talking before the show, right? A lot of people are waiting around to see what the government is gonna do. Well, there's a lot we can do and you're doing it.

Yeah, no, thank you. We felt like this was the right thing for us to do. As you know, we're a digital, you know, software product company. We don't provide necessarily clinical services, we power clinical services. And this is something that when you're a company like us that has scale, we can leverage that scale and that technological know-how and help power, you know, thousands if not tens of thousands of providers interacting on the platform. And yes, is there a cost to us? For sure. But we get incredible leverage from what we're doing in this particular case.

And I understand that, but you know what, you— and I appreciate your humility, you're downplaying that, but you've got bills to pay. To pay too, and— For sure. And I hope that other companies, and a lot of them are, that's the cool thing. We've been sharing some amazing stories of organizations stepping up. You know, it's funny because sometimes, especially when I'm doing executive retreats, I'll walk in the room or executive workshop and I'll say, "Where are all these evil business people that we keep reading about?" Because I'm in a room full of great people, and you're one of them. I mean, this is terrific.

Thank you. What's really wonderful are the folks actually delivering the care and the services, and we'll be talking to many of them today and tomorrow and the rest of the week, our folks at Tridium as we enroll providers. And what we're trying to get the word out is— and there's going to be a fairly active social media campaign starting today in conjunction with this release on obviously LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, you know, and all the social medias to share it. And we're encouraging patients and people that currently are engaged in therapy and are having a hard time connecting with their therapist because their therapist either doesn't or doesn't know or have very many options, that we in fact will encourage them to share the post to their providers, as we're obviously sharing to providers directly too, to say, you guys can enroll for free and we can start having these conversations. Let's do that.

Let's do that because I know, you know, people are so busy, you know, these days that are staying in this, you know, active, especially therapists and whatnot. Let's tell them how to get in touch with you right now and then we can get back to some of the other, the other reasons that this is such a powerful move. But tell them how to get in touch with you.

Yeah, so the best way right now, because it's, it's right front and center on our website, is to go to tridium.com. As soon as you go to the site, there's a pop-up that says COVID-19 response with the messaging around enrolling in the program or finding out more about this program. All you have to do is click that, goes to a form, and it'll connect you with one of our customer success team members, and they'll be back to you shortly to either talk to you on the phone or or email with you, depending on your preference. And we'll typically activate a provider within 24 hours of their enrollment. So—

Oh, good, good.

And then they'll be up and running. So yeah, that's it.

That was another question I had for you. So cool. And we'll make sure that we post all those links for folks too. 'Cause we do a lot of work in the healthcare space. So hopefully people will, you know, respond to this. I think it's a tremendous offer. Ironically, just before we came on today, I was watching a video from NBC News and they were talking about the problems of people that have different behavioral issues that they're dealing with connecting and that it was one of those things I guess we really didn't anticipate because that is more a face-to-face relationship. So this adaptation to this type of environment has to happen quickly and it's interesting. So what's the best way for people to smooth that transition? I mean, if you're, 'cause I think we talked before, I'm a face-to-face guy, that's why Not doing workshops and conferences is killing me. I'm a hugs and handshakes guy. I mean, it's nice that we have this technology, but it's different, isn't it?

Yeah, no, there's a bunch of steps, obviously, once you get on the platform that, just from a set of deliberate practices that we'll be working with providers on at a group level via the web. So we'll be doing live webinars throughout the— starting at the end of this week and into next, probably every day, multiple times a day, as well as recordings on just kind of getting on the platform, platform, but also how do you use the platform with your patients? One of the questions I think you asked at the top was, how am I going to get paid for this stuff? Patients and providers now being jammed together through tele, where they've never done this before and it's always been face-to-face, there was a way to bill for that, submit your claim to that health plan and get reimbursed for it. It's important to realize that you need a system of some sort to actually log and provide auditing for what you in fact did.

Oh, right, right, right.

And so one of the big powerful things of our system, both immediately as well as once video gets activated in a couple weeks, is we're logging from, you know, starting tomorrow, you'll get your sessions logged by attaching a basic assessment. Assessment on that patient's behavioral health, ranging from depression and anxiety to PTSD and any kind of risky drinking or other type of, you know, combined type comorbidities or issues that that patient's presenting. All of that gets logged in the system in a HIPAA-compliant way for you as a provider, and you'll be able to actually get a report on that to submit for your claims as the dust settles on this to those health plans. So it's really important to note that without a system like this, it's just going to be very difficult to construct together notes on that you did this. And this is a great auditable, loggable way to do that. So we're going to help walk providers through that again in mass, one-on-one, probably a lot of things on how to use the system to, to in fact make sure that that is taken care of.

But welcome, welcome to the, to the webinar world, right? The other thing, the other thing that was so impressive the first time we talked, and I want to make sure we hit this before we sign off, is that, you know, there's a constant struggle with this type of technology, this type of communication, as to whether it's going to distance us or whether it's going to bring us closer. And especially when we're talking about something like this, or, you know, in our world, it's behavioral assessments, you know, related to leadership qualities and whatnot. And, you know, I've always found that, you know, assessments, information the type of things that people can utilize your platform for, right? It really does bring the patient and the provider closer, doesn't it? Because you're digging in and it's a very— I don't want to steal their term, but it seems to me a very agile way to process that information and get the provider a little closer, get them a little deeper into the patient's heart and mind before they're actually going to work, huh?

Yeah, that's right, Jim. I think when you talk about front-ending your virtual appointment with a patient and having, you know, just a really good set of data points, vital signs, if you will, around their behavioral health. You know, if you're a medical doctor or a nurse practitioner in a primary care setting, you're doing vital, you know, basic vitals: height, weight, blood pressure, and a host of other things. In behavioral health, you know, up until recently, they haven't had that type of set of measurements going into an appointment to kind of guide how they interact with those patients. That, that's part— not only does that help obviously get that provider reimbursed later, but it, but it actually informs the provider-patient interaction and makes it much more intimate right out of the gate so they can be productive during their appointment, right? So, yeah, so that's, that's the power of kind of what Tridium One does. And that's what we hope to help bring to so many folks over the next couple of months who are dealing with a very, you know, challenging environment, to say the least.

Mark, I gotta tell you, you know, you and your team, like I said, you're exactly the type of leader that we like to support around here. For your whole team, you are sensei leaders. This is— I'm just honored that you shared this news with us, and I hope we can get it out, and I hope people will will take full advantage of this. And like I said, I can't hit this hard enough. At the time when the economy has, you know, absolutely just hit a full stop, for you to reach out and offer this, you know, free of charge for that long a period, that's just amazing. Thank you so much for doing this.

Well, thanks, Jim, and thanks for having me on, and really appreciate the time this morning and look to follow up for any other opportunities and things that come forward. We'll keep you guys posted on how this all progresses. Of course.

Let's tell people one more time how to get in touch. This is Mark Redlis and Tridium. Go ahead.

Yeah, you can enroll right now on Tridium ONE by going to tridium.com and clicking the COVID response button that appears on the main page. So if you're a provider and you need help in providing tele-BH support to your provider-patient interactions, please join us and connect. It'll be free. Through July 31st.

Thank you so much, Mark.

Thanks, Jim.

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