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Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Scaling Mental Health with Outcomes, Workforce Strategy, and AI with Kellan Tittle
00:10:27
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- [00:00]
A
This is Andrew Kass with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. I'm thrilled to be joined today by Kellen Tittle, CFO at People Incorporated. Kellen, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast.
- [00:09]
B
Yeah, no thanks, Andrew. I'm excited to be here.
- [00:12]
A
Before we begin, can you tell us a little bit about your background and your organization?
- [00:18]
B
Absolutely. So, yeah, like Andrew mentioned, I'm Kellen Tittle. I'm the Chief Financial Officer at People Incorporated. I've been here almost 13 years in a variety of roles in cross functional roles as well. Currently I'm in charge of all of revenue cycle, accounting, data, enterprise, new ventures, strategy, and also I also get an operational canvas, long term residential that I'm in charge of as well. I've seen revenue grow from $35 million to currently almost $75 million. So we've been a growing agency ever since I got here and we're very excited about the future.
- [00:58]
A
Yeah, speaking of the future, I guess the present. What are three of the top trends you're following in healthcare today?
- [01:06]
B
Yeah, no, from a mental health standpoint, the top three that our agency and myself are very, very focused on are really shifting from access to outcomes. One thing that we look for at People Incorporated is a really integrated model. Care coordination is always top of mind for our agency. We know that of our 13,000 individual unique clients that the more we're able to talk to them, the more we're able to connect with them, the more we're able to follow up and making sure not only are they aware of our services, but they're attending them and we're getting follow up, the better off that not only their outcomes are, but the better off it is for the general community and schools as a whole. So we know that working with our payers, working with our funders, that not only is access important, but also reaching for those outcomes is just as important and critical as well. Our second thing that I'm looking for from a trend standpoint is workforce. I mean, when you look at our web pages of opening positions, at any given time we have 75 to 85 open positions. Burnout is a thing. Turnover is consistent. Right now we have a lot of documentation to make sure that we're hitting not only from a billable standpoint, but from a client care standpoint in our system. I mean, we're only going to be able to do this as a whole and continue to grow in our communities by having the right people in the right places. But we know that we're not going to be able to hire our way out of storage, we really have to redesign that care. And People Incorporated was one of the seven demo CCBHCs, which is certified community Behavioral health clinics. And what they've done in the state of Minnesota is really focusing on that integrative care. They want to know, what can you do from an integrated care model? And you tell us how much it's going to cost you and we'll work to give you that reimbursement rate. Now, it's not perfect, but at the same time as we're trying to redesign that care model and try to make sure how do we do more for the client with less staff because they're just not available, we're really working towards an integrated model to make sure that our workforce not only can sustain itself, but also grow at a consistent model as well. And for our third one that I'm really, really curious about, and I'm sure it's on every agency's mind is AI. I mean, it's the buzzword right now. It's going around all over the place. We're really focused on the one most recent that we're rolling out is our client documentation. How can we make sure that our clinic documentation on our clients is not only robust and accurate, but also make sure that we're using AI to kind of filter things through? Because our payers right now have their AI models and they're denying claims if they deny claims, versus because our documentation wasn't correct in their eyes. We got to make sure that our AI tools can match up to their AI tools and get our claims processed in not only a quick way, but also an efficient way to make sure we're getting reimbursement quickly.
- [04:08]
A
And now since you brought up both workforce and AI, do you see AI as a tool that can help augment the workforce? As you know, there are some challenges filling roles.
- [04:18]
B
Absolutely. I mean, not only from our applicant tracking system, which we're using AI to kind of filter through resumes, but also on the back end. Yes. Through client documentation, working through our electronical medical record, really trying to figure out how do we become more efficient, but also make sure that our clinicians, if they're able to cut down 10, 20% from a documentation time, that means they're able to spend that much more time directly impacting our clients and impacting our communities. So, yeah, AI is a big thing for not only our agency, but I'm sure the rest of mental health and physical health in our spaces.
- [04:56]
A
And so how do you feel your AI journey is going so far.
- [04:59]
B
Overall, I would say we're pretty, we're still in our infancy. We haven't historically been an early adapter. I would say we want, there's so many regulations, there's so many rules in healthcare that we want to make sure that we're partnering with our electronic medical record that not only they're making sure their systems are working very well, but for our staff that we're rolling it out on a distinct manner so we know like we can get the buy in from the staff, but also making sure that we're not overwhelming our staff without clear documented policies and procedures and making sure that our training is not only succinct but also able to get everyone on board at the same time. So right now we're kind of working on those policies and procedures, we're working on those training plans and really trying to roll out that AI for the clinical documentation over the next three to four months and hopefully if all goes well by the end of this year, we'll see some really significant gains from our clinical documentation, reducing that time so they can spend time with our clients.
- [06:01]
A
On shifting gears a bit, what are you most excited about right now in healthcare?
- [06:06]
B
I mean right now, me personally and People Incorporated is really that integration for the whole person. I mean care coordination has been around for a long time and we're still working on how do we continue to build the right skill sets and build the right team of clinicians to make sure our clients are getting all their needs. Method. So we work in schools, we're working in our communities, we're working in clinics, we're out wherever our clients are to meet them where they are. And having that care coordination, having that care team really focused on meeting our clients needs is so critical. That integration piece is what's going to make our outcomes even more strong as we continue to grow our ccbhc as we can continue to grow our impact and in our communities. But yeah, integration is so critical. We used to historically there'd be silos like you have your residential, you have your clinics. Now everything is integrated in our systems that hey, if somebody's being discharged from one of our residential claims, we know we have a clinic worker waiting for them to discharge so they can get them into our other services. We want them to be able to access our services as quickly and as integrated as possible because we know if they discharge for one of our programs and we may not see them again. So we have to have that soft handoff between all of our programs to make sure our clients are consistently being seen to help them.
- [07:32]
A
And how are you thinking about growth over the next 12 to 24 months?
- [07:36]
B
Oh, growth. I mean, in a perfect world, like it's one of those weird businesses, mental health, our phones ring all the time. On any given day, we're getting three to 500 calls. So from a business standpoint, we have almost unlimited demand. But from a growth standpoint, even if we do everything right, Andrew, we're lucky to get a 2% margin. So in order for us to grow sustainably and also fiscally responsibly, we need to be very, very sure that what we're doing is not only going to be full, but also reimbursed in the future. I don't know if you've seen, but Minnesota recently, there's been a lot of fraud allegations. I mean, Minnesota has been in the news for a lot of different reasons. Frankly, People Incorporated, we have nothing to worry about. We run a very, very high integrity agency. But being a nonprofit in Minnesota, sometimes you get roped into those conversations. For us to continue to grow, we need to have ourselves in the right places, in the right areas. I would say between the metropolitan areas, they're a little bit saturated. I think our growth and our sustainable growth is going to be in the first or second ring suburbs of the Minneapolis St. Paul areas and really continuing to grow our mission, which is the safety net, and align that growth with sustainability. So we need to make sure that our staffing models make sense. We need to make sure that our supervisory, from a standpoint of can we have staff to supervise are there as well. We know we're not graduating enough licensed professionals in the state of Minnesota. There's been a worker shortage for as long as I've been in this business. So in order for us to grow, not only do we need to make sure it's fiscally responsible and sustainable from a client, but also we need to make sure we can staff it appropriately. So for People Incorporated, we're always looking to grow, but we know that in order to grow, we need to take on some debt, but also make sure that our staffing is aligning with our sustainable growth.
- [09:38]
A
Those are all the questions I had for you today. Kellen, thank you so much for joining us. It's been a pleasure speaking with you, and I hope we can talk again soon.
- [09:45]
B
Yeah, Andrew. No, I appreciate it. I just want to leave maybe one lasting impression. It's just we know that the future of nonprofit mental health care isn't just about kind of expanding access. It's really about looking at those outcomes, supporting our clinicians and the rest of our staff, and making sure that our systems in place can really, actually sustain both of those models, and not only physically, but also, from a standpoint, clinically as well. So, yeah, we have. We're very excited for what we've done. We're going to continue to grow here at People Incorporated. And, yeah, I appreciate you letting me talk about not only our agency, but also what we're trying to do with mental health in Minnesota.
- [10:23]
A
Of course. Always a pleasure.