← Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
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- [00:02]
A
This is where healthcare leadership comes together. Becker's 16th annual meeting brings more than 3,500 hospital and health system executives and nearly 800 speakers to Chicago, April 13th through the 16th. This year's event includes keynote conversations with Dallas Cowboys legend Troy Aikman and former President George W. Bush. For the agenda and event details, visit Beckershospitalreview.com and click on the events tab in the upper right. We're looking forward to hosting you in Chicago.
- [00:32]
B
This is Scott Becker with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by a brilliant marketer, a brilliant thinker. We're joined today by Seth Turnoff. And Seth's going to talk to say about what trends he's watching, what's working, what's not working in marketing, and a lot more. Seth, we're so thrilled to have you on today.
- [00:51]
C
Yes, Scott, thank you so much. Longtime listener, first time guest, big day for me.
- [00:57]
B
Well, we're thrilled to have you on talk about your career and really what you do currently.
- [01:04]
C
Sure, sure. I got started in healthcare in the wonderful, exciting and dynamic sexy world of medical billing. Yeah, it's not sexy, it's not dynamic, it's miserable. But I learned really quickly the game that goes on. And while I was doing that job, I was on hold a lot. See, I was on a denials management team, so it was my job to, to fight with the processors slash payers trying to get claims paid and corrected for our clients. And so I did a lot of daydreaming at this job and I tried to figure out a way to move the revenue needle for our physician, our mso, our private practice clients that didn't have anything to do with billing. And so I, I ended up doing a real deep dive into marketing and what was available at the retail level in, in healthcare, you know, for private practices. And I saw a huge gap in the market in that, you know, you have an industry that is highly regulated and marketing was never really part of the healthcare delivery system. Right. It just, if you were a clinician, you know, if you were a physician, a specialist, you, you would go to school and you would get your credentials once you finished and then you would practice your craft and practice medicine. And marketing really never played a role in that until, you know, the last 10, 15 years, everything started to change. And now you take the most highly regulated industry possibly in the world next to finance, and you try to bolt on these marketing components to it in a compliant way. And so I saw the need that practices had in awareness in increasing volume. And it's really difficult to do this. You know, marketing works very well. That's why companies, it's a billion, multi billion dollar industry. But in healthcare it's sort of a different animal and it takes someone who understands the healthcare ecosystem to be able to do it effectively. Effectively. So what we did is my partner and I, we, we, we leverage consumer data to identify most qualified and most highly likely consumers for specific services or procedures. And due to our data, our compliant consumer data, we're able to put ads directly in front of a very specific audience at scale and on repeat which has proven incredibly valuable for, for our private pract.
- [03:52]
B
Thank you so much. Take a second Seth, on this. You mentioned you started your career. I'm going to ask you two follow up questions to what you said. You, you mentioned you, you started your career in denials management. That's going to be one question. How that has not changed over the last 20, 30 years. Maybe it's going more electronic, more AI driven, but it still is the battle of all battles between payers and providers. And second, are there specific areas, specific specialties, specific types of patients or procedures that you are most focused on and work with people the most on? So those two questions, sure. Whether it's really been changes to dials management or that's still the same fight, it's amazing that we're still Talking about it 20 years later, whatever amount of time later. And second, what specialties and areas Seth, do you guys do a lot of work in?
- [04:34]
C
Sure. Great. Follow ups. So denials management, it's, it, it is not surprising that it hasn't changed. They're not payers, we call them payers but this is not really the case. They're processors and it's kind of in their business model to not pay. So the fact that you know, and now when you have, you know, so many physicians working for payers, the, it feels like the, the snowball has grown to a size that it's, it's unruly now and uncontrollable. So you know, I'm not here to just point or identify problems in the industry. You know, we can't solve them all but it's really hard to exist and not recognize the fact that you have a system has taken providers and the term itself, provider, it's an insurance based term. These are physicians, these are doctors and we're making them administrators. When an administrative burden, an insurance protocol takes up 70, 80% of a clinician's day, it's a little bit out of Formula. And that's just my opinion. Right. I'm a clinical tourist. I sit better in the, in the business office than I do in, in, in a clinic. But these, these issues that exist are really hard to ignore. And you know, ask anybody and you know yourself, they are, they're quite prevalent and I don't know that they're going to go away anytime soon. You know, you mentioned AI in denials management. Sure, we have tools now that, that make it a little more streamlined, but it's not changing the process. It's not changing the fact that, you know, little things will cause a delay in physician reimbursement. And you know, it might be a couple bucks here, maybe 100 bucks there, a couple cents over there, but it definitely adds up. So in terms of specialty focus for our program, and our program works great where you have higher reimbursement procedures that do have, that carry patient or consumer choice. You know, when you're talking about marketing and spending money to acquire patients or create visibility and awareness, you probably want to spend that money where it's most valuably able to return to you. Right? So orthopedics has been great for us. That's where we started. And we are heavily leveraged into orthopedics, all subspecialties as well as cardiac care and vascular. We, the program does work very well with dermatology, both clinical and aesthetic, as well as plastic surgery as well and you know, gastro and a lot of other big specialties ent where patient choice is at play now for a lot of these specialties. You know, you talk to any, talk to any ENT in a major market and they're like, I don't need more patients. Right. They have a backlog. So certainly volume is, is critical for certain groups, but they have to have the bandwidth to, to accept it.
- [07:55]
B
But your point is so well taken. It's bigger groups with bigger procedures that, that, that every procedure is worth a decent amount of money so that they really want to have it. Right.
- [08:04]
C
I mean, of, of course, but when you layer in operational efficiencies that they're able to look just volume on the front end is only going to get you halfway there. If, if it's not appropriately tackled, it's going to create more operational failures and things will break internally, especially when it's, you know, patient facing on the, the admin side or even, you know, an access issue where, you know, cases need to be rescheduled because of, you know, just bandwidth issues. So certainly it's a balancing act and it's hard to have one without the other. You don't create access without the volume, and you don't want to create volume without access. So it's definitely. There's some nuance there.
- [08:50]
B
No, and you're, you're really right on because there's this old adage, you never want to get your sales and marketing too far ahead of your delivery because then you don't deliver well, and that's no good either. So you, they, they really have to be in sync, don't they?
- [09:01]
C
100%.
- [09:03]
B
So take a second on this year, 2026. What are you most focused on and excited about?
- [09:10]
C
Yeah, I love this question. So the past eight to 12 months, we've been seeing a pattern that groups are jumping right into an investment, jumping right into new service lines, jumping right into a new location with limited to no intelligence, meaning limited data that validates and backs up and creates a roadmap for this investment. So, you know, we've had groups that come to us and think they want, you know, patient acquisition, think they want, you know, more volume for a specific service line. And when we do our due diligence, it turns out that, look, if you're making this investment, I hear what you're saying, but in order to handle this, you need to fix this first. So we've seen groups kind of move forward in this. You know, they want this thing or they think this is the move without the data to back it up. So what we've done is we created a program called the Practice Market Fit. And you know, any startup will not spend a dollar until they establish product market fit, making sure that the dollars are being spent in the right way. This is the same thing, but for, for medical practices. And it's, it's, it's a, a cross section of their market and geographic analysis. They're a competitive assessment, including like their top competitors and where they could win against them. A digital visibility scoring, patient access analysis, meaning like their digital front door. How are there friction points for patients being able to, to gain access to you, your AI, search readiness, how you are positioned to show up where most many consumers are having conversations digitally now, as well as highlighting strategic opportunities based on all of this data. Right. Prioritized, actionable growth opportunities that are tailored to a practice's unique position. So moving more from just a delivery mechanism for our program to more of a diagnostic analysis and business intelligence position at a, a tremendously accessible price. I was, I was actually called stupid the other day when someone heard that we've priced this report at $497 for, for the initial report. And it's, you know, 15 to 20 pages depending on the practice in the market. And they, they playfully called me dumb that, that I should, that this was priced too low. But that's the point. Private practices need an edge. They need something so that they can stand on their two feet and compete against these larger systems, these giant, you know, corporate behemoths that have really big marketing budgets. And it's getting harder and harder for the, for the smaller groups to actually compete with that. So this was in response to that. This was, this is a mechanism that's accessible, that can help them make better decisions. Because the last thing we need are small healthcare organizations making very expensive mistakes.
- [12:19]
B
100%. Let me ask you one final question, Seth. Take a moment on what advice do you give to emerging leaders or people trying to be great? On the marketing side, what advice do you give people?
- [12:31]
C
I would, I would focus on the fact that there is no hack. There is no silver bullet. There is no quick fix. It's just a combination of good, thoughtful work and empathy. When you're dealing with consumer audiences and a patient base, you have to see it through their lens and you have to deliver what they're looking for. Yes, there's compliance, yes, there's operational pitfalls and, and, and clinical nuances, but it comes down to what the patient and consumer is looking for. What I would say is stay focused on your goals. Don't get distracted by noise or flashy things. Yep. I know everybody's heard of AI. We might all be sick of hearing about it, but we need to get used to it because it's here. And you know, it's going to evolve deeper and more impactful than, than we had thought. But it's not a distraction. I think it's more like a get on the bus. So my best advice is to stay focused, stay grounded, and always consider what the patient truly wants.
- [13:39]
B
But Seth, I love what you just said because at the end of the day, people are looking for a magic bullet. In my experience, there's almost never is one. There might be levers that you could pull, but almost always those levers and whatever you're doing have to be worked correctly, thoughtfully and intelligently and with, with, with, with rigor to make them make a difference. And then you got to be able to deliver the services. You just can't turn on the marketing spigot without being able to deliver great services. Because you need both great commercialization and great services. Right.
- [14:07]
C
Well, the best marketing can only occur in if the experience delivers on what the marketing promises.
- [14:16]
B
Could not agree with that more. Seth, let's wrap up. Tell me where people could find you and learn more about what Seth Turn off does and your and your team does.
- [14:23]
C
Yeah, sure. You can go to practicemarketfit.com I hang out on LinkedIn. My name is Seth Turn Off. It's true, that is my real last name. Can tell more about that later. And I post regularly. Please engage with the content. And yeah, if you wanted to text me, it's 850-bug Seth.
- [14:44]
B
Love that. Love that 850-bug Seth. Seth, thank you so much for joining us today on the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. What a pleasure to visit with you. Thank you very much.
- [14:52]
C
Thank you, Scott. Always a pleasure.