Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to Align for Impact. I'm your host, Matthew Naylor. I started this podcast because healthcare and leadership both come down to the same thing. Alignment. When people, purpose and performance connect, real impact happens.
On this show, we'll talk with entrepreneurs, brokers, and change makers who are challenging what is broken in healthcare and in business and find new ways to make a difference for companies, communities, and the people they serve.
Amber, welcome to my show. I'm Matt Naylor. I'm the host of Alignment and Impact.
Today's gonna be an awesome conversation.
You're with Hickmans and Knox.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: Hickman and Knox, Yes. That's our firm.
[00:00:51] Speaker A: Yeah. And, Amber, where are you located?
[00:00:53] Speaker B: I'm in Statesboro, Georgia, which is about 45 minutes outside of Savannah, but we also have an office in Thompson, which is outside of Aug, and then we have some remote folks in the Atlanta area.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: Sound like. Sounds like two nice places.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: Born and raised there.
[00:01:11] Speaker B: Born in Jacksonville, Florida. Originally spent a lot of time in Colorado. My dad was military, so we were out there for a good chunk of my life. So I have kind of a lack of accent. I'm told you guys probably pick up on a Southern accent. You have a little accent as Southerners. I don't have an accent.
[00:01:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:31] Speaker B: So.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I've got a Philadelphia accent, so my waters and hoagies sound a certain way, you know, so.
Born and raised in really, Colorado. Tell me. Tell me a little bit about that.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: It's beautiful place to live.
Weather's great. People are nice.
[00:01:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: It's very expensive, though.
So we. We hightailed it back to. To Florida when I was 16, and then.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: Finished out high school and college in Florida.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: Where'd you go to college?
[00:02:01] Speaker B: University of North Florida.
[00:02:02] Speaker A: University of North. Okay. How'd you get into the insurance business?
[00:02:08] Speaker B: I actually initially went to school to be a dental hygienist.
[00:02:11] Speaker A: Really?
[00:02:12] Speaker B: And then realized during the clinicals that I did not enjoy scraping teeth and, like, physically putting my hands on people.
So I knew I wanted to stay in the healthcare space, so that kind of navigated me towards the administrative side.
So I changed my major to healthcare administration.
I assumed I would go work in hospital. My goal was to work at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, but I had a.
One of the classes was consumer issues in healthcare, which was all about insurance. And this was at, like, the peak of Obamacare, you know, 2011.
So it was very.
[00:02:51] Speaker A: You don't look that old.
[00:02:52] Speaker B: Controversial at the time. And I tend to gravitate towards things that are controversial. I don't know Why?
I like a good dialogue.
[00:03:04] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:03:04] Speaker B: So people had very strong opinions in that class and I just found it very interesting.
So I interned at a brokerage in Jacksonville called Hardin and Associates, which is now Gallagher.
Worked there in the small group side my last year of school and then was hired on once I graduated.
Did that for a couple of years and absolutely hated small group.
Obviously small business makes up a ton of our economy, but it's heavy, heavy, heavy touch. You know, lot of day to day interaction. You are their whole world.
And that just didn't do anything for my mind as far as stimulating it.
So I ended up moving over to Aon and worked there on their private equity team, which was huge stimulation.
Very, very fast paced, ton of movement.
That was a great experience just working for that company, working in that sector of business and got to travel all over the country and meet all kinds of people.
And then in 2019, we moved to Georgia and I started working for a independent firm up there. My husband had some connections, he's from there originally, so that was a good landing spot for us.
But yeah, I worked for an independent brokerage up there. They had a lot of small, not small, self funded hospital clients and so really got my feet wet. You know, I thought I knew everything coming from aon. I had this, this very impressive resume. And then when I got there, I realized I didn't know anything because I had teams that did everything for me.
So I really had to get my hands dirty and learn, you know, contracting and PBMs, and I had never done that before. And that really got me excited.
[00:05:09] Speaker A: What year was this?
[00:05:11] Speaker B: This was 2019. 2019. 2020.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:05:15] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:05:17] Speaker A: To a lot of large health health systems.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: Self funded, self funded, you know, designing narrow networks, trying to do steerage with counties and cities, trying to steer them to these rural hospitals that were in danger of their doors closing.
[00:05:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:35] Speaker B: So trying to kind of help everybody in the process, but do some plan design changes where we could steer people there and it would help everybody.
So I love that. I love creative, unique things that nobody else is doing.
[00:05:49] Speaker A: So high value, low cost, best outcomes.
[00:05:52] Speaker B: You know, basically anything that they can do, you should be having done there.
[00:05:56] Speaker A: Yeah. How did the health systems and hospitals and how did they respond and react to that?
[00:06:04] Speaker B: They loved it.
[00:06:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:05] Speaker B: You know, that, that somebody cared to try to help drive business there. And you know, from a, from a local standpoint, it's like to bring new business into, you know, these, these small towns, like you need a viable hospital.
So they were totally on board. But getting to that model and making that, making that feasible. You have to be on a level funded chassis to be able to do that. Right. We can't, we can't steer within a BUCA fully insured plan design. It just doesn't work.
So that was kind of step one is like getting them to the right mechanism to where we can even make that happen.
But long story short, I thought I would retire with that firm.
The guys that hired me there, they were older gentlemen and they poured into me. They were wonderful. But they ended up selling to some guys, financial advisor type guys out of Atlanta. They didn't have a lot of really any benefits background.
And it was, we'll call it creative differences.
But I was kindly asked to leave.
So that was my path to.
I need to do something on my own and find the right people to do it with.
[00:07:25] Speaker A: And how big is the company today?
[00:07:29] Speaker B: Our company, we have about 35 clients.
So we've, you know, we're, we're following.
Have you heard of eos? The operating system?
[00:07:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I love it.
[00:07:39] Speaker B: So we follow Eos. Okay, so we've got our one year.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: Why don't we tell the audience what EOS is?
[00:07:47] Speaker B: So EOS is a operating system for growing and scaling a business.
And I always tell people, you know, when you get in a room and you have a really great conversation and you have all these ideas and everyone leaves excited and. And then nothing happens.
That's what EOS helps, right? We meet. We meet weekly, we meet quarterly.
We set goals, we hold people accountable. We have to check in every week. Hey, you had a to do from last week. Did you do it?
So it's really just trying to get us there and get us there in the right manner and making sure that we maintain the integrity of the company and our clients and that doesn't get sacrificed for growth.
[00:08:31] Speaker A: How's it been being an entrepreneur? Like, being.
[00:08:34] Speaker B: It's hard. Yeah, it is hard.
I underestimated that.
But I can't. I couldn't go back. You know, there's days where I'm like, I should have just stayed at Aon and could be making so much money right now and probably have a lot less stress.
Autonomy is very important to me, and I don't always make the right decision. But not knowing that I have the ability to investigate anything I want to that might be the right fit for my client, which I didn't feel like I could do before.
[00:09:09] Speaker A: I love interacting with entrepreneurs.
It's a special person to be an entrepreneur. To put all your blue chips in and have a lot of sleepless nights. There's a lot of things that happen in the shadows with entrepreneurs that people don't say.
[00:09:26] Speaker B: Right.
[00:09:26] Speaker A: You know, if you fail, they see that. If you succeed, they think it may be really easy and you got lucky. They don't see all the stuff that actually, really, really happens. How's it. How's this process been for you? Like, how's it been transformational?
[00:09:41] Speaker B: Just, it's important to me, being in a smaller town, having some ownership and something like that means something. It's. Yes, I like nice things. I want to make a good living.
But having something that I built and that I can be proud of and my kids can be proud of, and maybe they want to work there someday and not have to go to Atlanta to get a good job.
So that's important to me.
But it's been a wild ride, for sure.
[00:10:13] Speaker A: And remind me again, when did it start?
[00:10:16] Speaker B: August of 2023.
[00:10:19] Speaker A: What was that conversation like when you went home and you said to your husband, you know, I'm going to leave this company because we are agreeing to disagree, and I'm not going back to work for Aon. I'm going to start my own company. What was that like?
[00:10:37] Speaker B: I won't repeat what he said, but he was very supportive.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:10:43] Speaker B: And he continues to be supportive. And you're going to have hard days. You're going to have tough renewals that you have to navigate. And when you're smaller and you're starting out, you know, you.
One client means a lot.
[00:10:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:57] Speaker B: So you have those days. But he's always like, you gotta stay the course. This was always the plan, and this is where you need to be.
[00:11:04] Speaker A: And how much has.
You know, it's really. As an entrepreneur, it's really easy when things are going well and it's fun. You know, when you're recruiting great people and you're winning a new business and everyone's happy, it's all good.
[00:11:23] Speaker B: Right.
[00:11:24] Speaker A: It's interesting to me when I interview entrepreneurs and difficult things happen that you don't expect, and you have to be resilient, and you have to be resourceful, and you have to have grit. And there's a lot of. There are a lot of low moments.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:11:42] Speaker A: How do you. How have you handled that? How has that impacted you in your life?
[00:11:50] Speaker B: I'm definitely one that can get in my feelings. I don't know if that's.
You know, I'm obviously a female, so I think there's some aspect of that. Men have feelings, too, but My business partner Andy, who's the Knox in Hickman and Knox, he's a PNC guy by trade.
[00:12:07] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:12:07] Speaker B: But his family has had their agency since 1902, so he's fifth generation to own that. He's grown up in it, but he really helps to kind of bring me back down.
He knows I can be very hard on myself.
And he actually has me reading this book, the Gap and the Gain, and he's like, you're getting stuck in the gaps, and you're focusing on what didn't go right, what you didn't achieve, but you don't even give yourself credit for all the things that you have done.
So just trying to remind myself to focus on that. And there's gonna be hard days, and it's not gonna be easy. If it was easy, everybody would do this. And just having the right people around you and the right partners makes all the difference.
[00:12:53] Speaker A: How did you.
How did you meet Grumdale Specialty?
[00:12:57] Speaker B: Honestly, it was my account. One of my account managers, Teresa, who I love dearly, and she worked with me at the prior agency.
So when I left there, she was like, can I come?
I was like, well, we gotta wait this out for a little bit.
You know, tensions are high. But she did end up coming over, and she first told me, you know, we've been talking to Crumdale. Have you talked to Crumbdale? And I said, no, I haven't talked to Crumbdale yet. She said, well, let me set up a introduction between you and Mike Zinchuk, who's my rep out of Georgia.
And Teresa knows Teresa gets really excited about every new vendor, new carrier, new solution. She thinks it's the greatest thing ever.
And so she'll always say, I gotta bring you in to, like, poke holes in it.
So she brought me in with Mike, and I had a lot of business with Benicon and had for years.
We had a very successful run.
And, you know, it's been a rough couple of years here recently.
[00:14:00] Speaker A: Rate increases, MLR issues. Yeah.
[00:14:03] Speaker B: Um, so I'm very weary of, like, doing that model again, because hindsight's 20 20. Looking back, I can see where things, you know, the best decisions weren't made.
[00:14:16] Speaker A: Cost containment matters.
[00:14:17] Speaker B: Yes, it does. Um, but, yeah, she introduced me to Mike, and Mike went through the. You know, who is Crumbdale? And here's what we're doing. And I was like, I can get on board with this because we're actually making some, you know, putting some tools in place that are. That are impactful, you know, not. Not the fluffy feel good things, those are important too. And I guess play, play a role. But I'm such a numbers person that I'm like, you have to show me how this is going to.
[00:14:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:44] Speaker B: Where's drive costs down?
[00:14:45] Speaker A: Where's the roi?
[00:14:46] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:14:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
And it sounds like in. Based on what you described earlier, with your health, healthcare and hospital background, plan design, like, have high value, low cost, great outcomes.
Like, having a collaborative relationship with Grumdale really means a lot to you. Can you.
What. What has that been like for you?
[00:15:10] Speaker B: Having the right partner that I want to make sure I say this, like, appropriately, but having a partner that is in this with me, trying to. Sometimes I felt like they were. I was fighting against them and I
[00:15:25] Speaker A: was supposed to be on my side. A vendor versus a partner, Right? Yeah.
[00:15:29] Speaker B: Um, but being able to do some of these cost containment measures was not even an option. It would say, oh, well, you know, the PBM contract won't allow for us to carve that out. You can't do steerage inside of the Aetna contract. So there was all these, like, roadblocks when I'm like, I'm just trying to help with the cost. Like, aren't you in this with me? Um, so finding, you know, the right players and the right setup that would allow us to do those things, because I started to just kind of see things for what it was, and it felt like I was fighting this battle alone.
But, yeah, Crumbdale's been great with putting the right tools in place, and they have had a big return.
I told, you know, the class yesterday that, you know, pharmacy's down 33% over same timeframe last year.
And, you know, big part of that is the paps.
Um, but, you know, previous contracts would not even allow us to, you know, it would be like, oh, a compliance issue or illegal says no. And, you know, opinions are. Everybody has a different opinion.
[00:16:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:39] Speaker B: On what you can do and can't do.
[00:16:42] Speaker A: Well, people don't really, truly care about alignment and impact.
[00:16:44] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:16:45] Speaker A: You know, and when you start with alignment and impact and you have a great plan document.
[00:16:49] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:16:50] Speaker A: You have great point solutions. You have great people process and systems, and then great partnerships. You can produce really great outcomes. How have we helped you either grow your business or retain customers?
[00:17:07] Speaker B: As far as growing the business, I wish I could write more business with you guys. You don't like everything I throw at you.
[00:17:14] Speaker A: Well, that's.
[00:17:15] Speaker B: But I hear I have pretty good. Two out of ten is pretty good.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: That's good.
[00:17:19] Speaker B: So I've Got two on the books with you guys right now.
Hopefully a third here soon.
But not everybody is talking about things like we are, especially in our market.
You know, Georgia is a unique animal in itself.
It's like stepping back in time.
A lot of the brokers are just doing what they've always done.
They're selling blues and they're not stepping outside of the box at all, which I get it. It's hard to.
It's disruptive to do what we do and it's harder to do what we do.
So I always say, like the brokers that aren't doing it, they're either just uneducated, you know, uncomfortable with the subject matter, or they're lazy. They're just taking the easy way out.
So it's a differentiator for us to talk about Crumbdale and bring Crumbdale to the table, because nobody's doing it in my area.
[00:18:14] Speaker A: How's our team helping you grow your business? How are we helping you offload, you know, work burden that you have as a broker? You know, because you're, you're constantly, as a broker, consultant and agent, you're constantly asked to do more, you know, by your clients, you know, and one of the things that I have tried to help build here with my team at Crumbdale and our value proposition is not just be a great partner when you create great solutions and products and services, but a really great partner that helps alleviate work burden.
[00:18:50] Speaker B: Right?
[00:18:50] Speaker A: How's that helped?
[00:18:52] Speaker B: Hey, you guys have taken a ton off my plate. I was telling somebody yesterday, I said I walked away from a job offer I don't know, 12 years ago because they told me I would have to take employee phone calls. And I was just absolutely did not want to do that. And here I am 12 years later and I talk to employees all day long.
But for my groups that have Crumbdale, it's amazing to say, have you spoken to the advocates? Do the advocates know about this? So whether it comes directly to me by way of the employee or by way of hr, I go directly to the advocates and try to steer them and say, you know, hey, this is your person. They're going to help you all the way through this process. And they're, they're just so wonderful with the follow ups. And hey, this ticket's complete. This person's good to go. Like, I always know the outcome. I always feel like I'm in the loop enough, but not to where I'm bogged down with all the details.
So they have been wonderful. So advocate Team is great.
Account management team is great.
Teresa Grattan and Grace are my people and they're just phenomenal.
My sales rep, Mike Zinchuk, he goes above and beyond.
We have had a little bit of a bumpy year with ID cards and eligibility and that's not unique to Crumbdale. That's just the TPA model. Right. A lot of providers are struggling with how to process claims and where to submit them. But I mean, Mike has been at the sheriff's department with me at 9am explaining to a room full of employees, you know, here's what to do when that happens.
So I definitely feel supported from that angle as well.
[00:20:32] Speaker A: So I spent the last 30 years being an entrepreneur and being married to my elementary school sweetheart and I have five incredible kids.
And so I've spent 30 years working and raising my family.
It sounds like family first is a near and dear thing with you and your family. Tell, tell us a little bit about your family and where you live and a little bit about that.
[00:21:02] Speaker B: So my husband, part of what, what took us to Georgia was just when I married into that family, you know, my, my parents are divorced. I have a small.
[00:21:11] Speaker A: I love the first, I love the first comment. When I married into that family.
[00:21:15] Speaker B: Yes. I knew what I was getting.
[00:21:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:18] Speaker B: And I, I say that in, in the best way to where it made me want to move up there because I didn't grow up with that and I wanted my kids to have, be surrounded by family and have that tight knit unit, the small town, you know, just being able to roam wherever. My kids are like dirty all the time and they're outside and it's just a completely different world than what I grew up with and what, you know, all my friends back in Florida have.
But yeah, we, we live on basically a compound outside of Statesboro.
My family's husband, we're the fifth generation to, to raise our kids out there.
[00:21:57] Speaker A: That is so cool. Big farm.
[00:21:58] Speaker B: Yes. Yep. So they grow timber and cotton. We don't farm it, we lease it out.
[00:22:03] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: But yeah, it's, it's a different way of life, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
[00:22:09] Speaker A: Cool way to raise a, raise a family.
[00:22:11] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:22:12] Speaker A: I love it, you know, because this day and age everybody's, you know, connected 247 versus being outside.
[00:22:18] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, we're fighting very hard. I have a 12 year old daughter and she does not have a cell phone.
[00:22:22] Speaker A: No.
[00:22:23] Speaker B: She's probably one of six in her grade that doesn't have one. I have to hear about it. All the time.
We're holding strong.
[00:22:29] Speaker A: Keep up the good fight. Yeah, keep up the good fight. It's interesting when you raise children that way because you'll, you know, I appreciate it. It's just my experience. My, my children are much older now. I have a 33 year old son, 26 year old daughter, 24 year old daughter, a 19 year old and an 18 year old. And they, they sit around the kitchen table with me now and we have conversations that are so unique, you know, because of how they were raised and the way they were raised and where they were raised and the intent being intentional, you know, with, with your family.
You can see it when I interact with other young adults, you know, when they were raised in a, in an environment, in a community that didn't facilitate the same type of opportunity or outcome. So it's cool.
[00:23:17] Speaker B: I was talking to my, the driver that drove me from the airport, Uber driver, and he's from Jamaica. And, you know, we had a 45 minute conversation and we were just talking about our kids and where we grew up. And he said, you know, the south sounds a lot like Jamaica. And he said, it's very like family oriented and manners and respect. And I said, yeah, we're trying very hard to make sure our kids, you know, know how to have a conversation with people, know how to look at people.
It's just, it's wild today to see these kids that, you know, that's not important.
[00:23:55] Speaker A: No. And the little things matter in life.
[00:23:56] Speaker B: It does.
[00:23:57] Speaker A: You know, the little things matter. It does so well, I've enjoyed the conversation.
[00:24:01] Speaker B: Me too.
[00:24:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:02] Speaker B: Thanks for having me.
[00:24:04] Speaker A: This is Matthew Naylor. You've been listening to Aligned for Impact.
[00:24:08] Speaker B: It.
