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Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Transforming Revenue Cycle Management with AI: A Conversation with Dr. Bo Gu
00:11:16
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- [00:00]
A
This is Scott Becker with the Becker's Healthcare podcast. We are thrilled today to be joined by a brilliant physician leader and founder. We're joined today by Dr. Bo Gu. And Dr. Gu is going to talk to us about what he's doing, the company formed, what drove him to do this, some of the trends he's watching in healthcare where he's most focused, and some advice for other physician leaders. Bo, Dr. Gu, can you take a second to introduce yourself and tell us about the company you founded?
- [00:31]
B
Scott, thank you so much for having me here and really appreciate it. Like you said, I'm a physician and a former cardiothoracic surgeon and mercy physician. I led our ER department during the height of the pandemic and overseeing both clinical operations, making sure patients receive the care that they deserve, and financial operations, making sure physicians and providers are paid fairly for their work. And, you know, this journey of mine kind of led me to my current startup in revenue cycle management to really provide the service that physicians in the hospital deserve.
- [01:09]
A
So tell us about the name of the company and what the purpose of the company is. What is it that you folks do?
- [01:17]
B
Yeah, so Ulify is revenue cycle management billing service that's end to end and we augment it with AI agents and kind of diving a little bit deeper for my background. Like I said, having ran RCM for the hospital for my department, really understood the personal challenges of running the financial operations. It became really clear to me that a lot of legacy brand name RCM solutions that I had used as a director were very ineffective. There's just a lack of transparency, limited data to really drive my business decisions and just a lot of outsourced services that we were using to fill the gaps, like with denials were just very ineffective in delivering revenue and just weren't really designed with physicians in mind. So, you know, I built this company to really change that. And the disconnect between a lot of these older companies myself is, you know, as a physician, why not build something that fits physicians truly want, which is transparency and trust at the core. So although AI is the tool that's delivering the service, we do have a very strong overlay and supervision of human builders and coders to train our model to make sure that there's no hallucinations and to deliver the most effective and most important outcome, which is revenue for physicians. And tackle every denial that pops up.
- [02:44]
A
And who's the target user for your sort of end to end RCM solution? Who's the target user?
- [02:49]
B
Yeah, great question. So right now we're Kind of SMB and middle market. And so a lot of could be as small as a small physician group with just a few providers to, you know, as big as an independent physician association or a managed service organization with much larger groups. Our goal is to replace their antiquated kind of outdated billing service and really just revolutionize their financial operations and provide both the service as well as the AI platform that gives them the business insights, intelligence and replaces the practice management platform.
- [03:26]
A
Thank you. And what are some of the core trends that you're watching in healthcare right now and in billing right now? And how much is the movement towards AI and technology versus sort of what was a lot of outsourced human labor? What are you seeing in terms of that trends generally in rcm? And then what are you seeing in terms of this mix of AI versus people?
- [03:46]
B
Yeah, no Scott, great question. And you know, having done AI for quite a bit time and I think AI has evolved quite a bit and you know, obviously a lot of companies kind of stamp the AI behind the names or behind what they do, but really has evolved from, you know, very basic statistical modeling to robotic processing automation to really true generative AI. The trend is really truly very few companies can actually deliver gen of AI today with true multimodality. So I think the trend that I'm seeing is actually a lot of the feedback response from hospital executives and physician groups is that they're like well really what is AI? Is it just another rubber stamp on your name or are you able to show me the function? So I think delivering beyond just the demo and outcome is a big trend in terms of customer feedback. Obviously from a macroeconomic standpoint, obviously with the big beautiful bill that came out, there is a lot of concerns. I've heard a lot of feedback, especially from hospital leaders with Medicaid cuts of 930 million over 10 years and close to 12 million people will lose coverage. So what does that mean? We're going to be straining a very difficult and challenging environment for hospitals, especially the E.R. and once again E.R. is going to be the catch all. So a lot of contract management groups, physicians groups and hospitals will try to find ways to compensate for that sunk cost and Medicaid and lost revenue. So what does that really mean? Just the looking for trends where you're going to really deliver true efficiency, the utmost efficiency in billing operations. Are you going to tackle every single denial and you know, are specialists going to be trying to go more out of network? And most likely there'll probably be an emergence of more independent dispute resolution as a means for successful revenue outcome.
- [05:45]
A
Thank you. And let me ask you this question, Dr. Yu, do you ever miss practicing medicine or are you pretty much loving the business side, the founder side? Do you ever have days where you think, oh my goodness, this is challenging. And fighting with all these other vendors trying to communicate to physicians, to practice leaders, it would have been easier just to keep doing medicine. Do you ever, I mean, how often do those thoughts cross your head?
- [06:04]
B
Yeah. No. Excellent question. I think truly at heart, I would say I really love being around patients kind of dipping that impact. I think no matter what, deep down I always see myself as a physician and I think this is why I connect so well when I speak to a lot of physician owners. But business is such a challenging environment and I love challenges. And I think the biggest systemic impact really is to be at the heart and flow of financial transactions. And if we don't move the needle on reimbursement, I mean, we really won't be able to enjoy our bedside clinical obligations to patients. So it's always a double edged sword. But I do miss it. But I know I'm in a greater mission to really serve physicians. And I think that servitude is what makes me really satisfied and fulfilled to be in this greater goal of mine.
- [07:00]
A
Thank you. And take a moment. You're having this incredibly impactful and interesting career. What advice would you give to other emerging leaders or physician leaders? Any thoughts that you would give?
- [07:12]
B
Yeah, Scott, I think I've learned a lot from other leaders. But you know, this journey has really taught me about being a good listener, just having the patience, persistence and just resilience. I feel a lot of people feel selling and trying to deliver value is just talk, talk, talk about your product. I think if you really listen to the customers and physician leaders and hospital what's really bothering them and take that time to let them speak for the first 30 minutes of that conversation really helps you focus and hone in into what that value is. I think secondly, you know you're going to have a lot of people who will be distractors and demotivators to take you away from the goal of really serving your customers. And you need to have that utmost confidence in yourself and persistence to double down, triple down on your mission and not let people kind of sway you away from the right path.
- [08:16]
A
And Dr. Gu, finally, what are you most focused on and excited about this year? Like in founding a company, driving a company, what's the most important thing you have to do over the next six months?
- [08:25]
B
Yeah, really, really Excited in terms of how much progress our AI model has made, especially on the denial management side and the level automation and how much money we're really kind of delivering back to physician owners. And you know, there's one story where there's a group and in Georgia where they had so much trouble working with a legacy RCM company that costed them, you know, probably close to 2 million plus dollars in terms of revenue and enough where they're like, you know, I don't know if I can keep my doors open. What was really exciting to me and what I hope to continue to deliver in the next six to 18 months is the fact that they could tell me, you know what, when I switched over to you, I kept the doors open and I start seeing the cash flow come in and I can start paying my staff and actually still have some money in the reserve. So I feel comfortable for the next three to six months. When I hear comments and stories like that, it really is very motivational and that's a recurring theme that we've seen a lot of our customers and we hope to continue that level service. And we view AI as a tool to deliver that service and outcome for all our customers and partners.
- [09:36]
A
And one last question, Dr. Gu, the origin story of the name Ulfi, can you help us with that?
- [09:44]
B
Yeah, great question. And we get asked this a lot. You find me really is about your life. It's you and your life. And we understand that moral, ethical and financial obligation to take over your entire financial livelihood, which is your revenue cycle, management, operations. So when you trust us with all your money, we understand that this is your life. We understand that this is our obligation to deliver results and to take that seriously, to give you data, to give you transparency so that you can continue to deliver the best care to your patients. And we take that responsibility with the highest degree of obligation.
- [10:25]
A
Dr. Gu, what a pleasure to visit with you. Thank you for joining us today on the Becker's Healthcare podcast. Where can people learn more about Vogu, Dr. Gu? And about Ulify?
- [10:37]
B
Yeah, definitely. You can visit www.ulify.AI or ufi.com and also please feel free to add me on LinkedIn as well. You can also email salesulify.com we're always happy to provide value right away for all customers. Even if you don't end up working with us, we're always happy to kind of give you guidance and adv in this new reimbursement world.
- [11:02]
A
Dr. Goud, it's just a pleasure to visit with you. Thank you so much. For joining us today on the Becker's Healthcare podcast.
- [11:09]
B
Thank you, Scott, and it's an honor and pleasure to be on the podcast with you.