Risk & Resolve
The Risk & Resolve Podcast is your go-to resource for insightful conversations at the intersection of leadership, business ownership, and the insurance industry. Hosted by Ben Conner and Todd Hufford, this podcast dives deep into the challenges and opportunities that leaders face in an ever-changing world.
Each episode features candid discussions with business owners, industry experts, and thought leaders, exploring topics like innovation, risk management, and the strategies that drive success. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, executive, or insurance professional, you’ll gain actionable insights and inspiration to navigate today’s complex business landscape.
Tune in to Risk & Resolve—where leadership meets resilience.
Risk & Resolve
WellBridge Surgical’s Transparent, Free-Market Model with Dr. Eric Inman & Jeff Williams - How Two Friends Are Disrupting Surgery Costs
In this Risk & Resolve episode, we sit down with lifelong friends and WellBridge Surgical co-founders Dr. Eric Inman and Jeff Williams to unpack how they’re flipping the traditional healthcare script—paying surgeons more while cutting total surgery costs 45–60%. We get the backstory from fourth-grade friendship to opening day, the pushback from big systems, and the exact pricing mechanics that make bundled, transparent surgery work for self-funded employers and families.
Main talking points:
• From fourth-grade friends to co-founders: why they took the leap
• What anesthesiology reveals about surgeon quality and building a winning team
• The “Field of Dreams” first year: 1 case a week to 150+ a month
• How bundled pricing pays surgeons more while saving employers 45–60%
• Implants, vendors, and why hospitals prefer higher sticker prices
• The barriers: TPAs, contracts, and system incentives “by design”
• Real numbers: first-day savings and million-dollar+ annual impact for clients
• Culture wars: the personal and professional cost of disrupting a bloated system
• What’s next: WellBridge Health—infusion, Rx, data, and additional locations
• Practical takeaway for CEOs/CFOs: make members care, design the win-win-win
You're listening to Risk and Resolve. And now for your hosts, ben Conner and Todd Hufford.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to another episode of Risk and Resolve. I'm your co-host, ben Conner, along with Todd Hufford. Our special guests yes, that's plural Today are Jeff Williams and Dr Eric Inman, who are co-founders of Wellbridge Surgical Gentlemen, glad to have you today.
Speaker 3:And thanks for having us. Yeah, thanks for having us Ben and Todd.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and just a fun fact as we have this conversation, since I think it's probably appropriate context. I've known you guys now for almost 30 years. Wow, maybe over 30 years.
Speaker 4:Did you do the math or not? Yeah, I did.
Speaker 2:And I think you guys deserve credit or at least your group of friends deserve credit for taking me to my first Dave Matthews Band concert, which I've now been to like 50 of them. So look what you guys unlocked.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I haven't been to one in a while. Yeah, I remember going back back in the day when you could uh, deer creek didn't really have the security that it did did.
Speaker 2:Now you kind of just kind of walk on in just breeze in and breeze out ticket, ticket or not, right, just kind of do your thing.
Speaker 2:But yeah, gentlemen, thanks for joining us today, really excited to uh talk about just you guys and your story as friends and getting into a ambulatory surgical business that is different than the status quo. So, if you guys wouldn't mind, uh and I don't know who wants to take the mantle on this but uh give us kind of the background on like you guys and your friendship and how we'll start there and then we'll get into like the professional setting.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So Jeff and I have been really best friends since we met in fourth grade. I don't remember meeting you before then, jeff, but I think in fourth grade Mrs Hoffman's class was the first time I remember hanging out with you and, as most fourth graders do, we came up with stupid jokes, laughed at dumb things, played dumb pranks and really ever since then have kind of had a group of friends that you know kind of. You win some, you lose some along the way. But Jeff and I have kind of stuck together.
Speaker 4:I went to elementary school, middle school, high school, even one semester of college together and then kind of started out in our respective fields career-wise and joined right back up about five years ago or so, at least professionally. We've been friends the whole way but we're able to actually kind of you know we're running a business together, which is really cool. I know Jeff has had. He'll tell you the story of how he's a serial entrepreneur. This is my first stab at entrepreneurship, but I'm glad that I have an experienced, very good friend to do this with me. I can't imagine what Jeff has gone through doing it by himself for so long to do this with me.
Speaker 2:I can't imagine what Jeff has gone through doing it by himself for so long. We'll stay with you, Eric, just to talk about, obviously, your career path. Probably seems like more of a methodical approach of going to med school and then tell us a little bit about you know, your focus in medicine and kind of your experience as you get into the medical field, about maybe what it became and what you thought it was going to become and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4:So I went to Purdue and, ben, as you know, I was there with with Jenny, your sister, we'll go have like Thursday night survivor parties. We'd go go watch survivor back then. And so it was kind of torn what to what to in. I majored in biology for a little while. Then I realized, hey, I don't want to do biology, I don't really even like it that much. So if I don't go to med school, I definitely don't want to be a teacher. I wouldn't be terrible at that. I don't have the patience for that, unfortunately for any possible students I'd ever have.
Speaker 4:But I thought business was interesting, liked numbers, liked accounting. So I was an accounting major in college but ended up didn't ever do that. I just went straight to medical school, kind of opposite of what I'm doing now, which is risky entrepreneurship. Back then my thought was, hey, this is like you said, ben, it's pretty, just kind of a methodical. It was just kind of calculated. Hey, you know, if you get into medical school you're going to have a job and you graduate You're going to have a job as a physician and it's going to be pretty stable. And so I kind of chose the stable, safe route back then Went to IU Med School anesthesia residency and was just doing anesthesia for about 12 years or so. But Jeff's heard this story too many. I've heard this story myself tell this story too many times, but I feel like it's like the methodical approach Four years of high school, four years of college, four years of medical school, four years of residency.
Speaker 4:After about four years of practicing anesthesia, I was kind of ready for a new challenge. I kind of get bored if I'm not being challenged and we didn't start Wellbridge after four years of my practice but you know, kind of building up the courage and the idea behind it, ended up in 2019 thinking that they don't teach you in medical school about the payment process, about how that affects people's financial health you know, not only their physical health, but financial health is a big thing Didn't really learn anything about that. So when I realized that I'm kind of complicit in a system that is really backwards and not at all like you would think things should work as far as the payment process and how things go in that sense, heard about the Surgery Center of Oklahoma and what they were doing there with, you know, totally changing around how people pay for surgery and how they can bundle everything together and it costs less. It's not part of a hospital system. Jeff and I found out about that in 2019. And I guess it was 2017 back then and said, hey, I really think we can do this. We can really make a difference. So for me, you know, I feel like, yes, physicians do you know really any physician that they're going to make a difference, as long as you're doing the right thing.
Speaker 4:There are some that, I suppose, do the wrong thing but make it a difference in people's lives, health wise. But I was really, like I said, honestly, kind of bored with that and wanting to take it one step further and really kind of create a new way that patients could get to the OR and as far as how patients find their way to the OR, I had a lot of Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas dinners and that sort of thing. I have family and friends that asked me suggestions on who to work with or who to go to as far as a surgeon is for any kind of surgery, and you know that was just something that I kind of do for family and friends to be able to extend that to try to get a group of surgeons together we really want to make a difference, who really do better than average job and can control the price and the whole payment model. Like that it's just. It's just awesome to be able to do that, and to do it with your best friend is is even better. You're doing great, eric, but, jeff, has it been an hour?
Speaker 4:Has it been an hour?
Speaker 3:yeah, we're there. I'm just here because of the mustache.
Speaker 2:And the buffalo in the background. I guess it'd be a bison maybe. But anyway, jeff, you could share with us a little bit about your journey professionally, or really just getting into college and professionally and what did that look like? What was your journey up into that moment in 2017 where you guys professionally started having conversations?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know. Going back to Eric talking about fourth grade, you know I don't. I don't think a lot's changed with he and I since since fourth grade. Really, you know, just gotten older and slightly more mature, but still the same old easygoing guys and like to joke around. So it's kind of fun in a professional setting to be able to keep it light with your business partner, and some people are thrown off by that until they know we've been best friends since fourth grade. So I went to college. I was really focused on sports, as you know, and I remember you were a baller Ben, you really were sports, as you know, and I remember you were a baller ben, you really were the summer camp, like you and and neff, and there's a handful full of you guys, uh, little ballers.
Speaker 3:So I, you know, I was very focused on sports. So I went to all of it nazarene university and played, played some basketball there, or at least viewed the games from the bench, um, so I didn't see the court a whole lot, but it was a great view from there front row. I didn't really know. I spent the summers playing basketball too. Between college I was a business major, which made sense for me. But my last year of college number one I didn't really love my basketball coach and I didn't really love him telling me what to do all the time See, see that. And I didn't really love him telling me what to do all the time See, see that. And I've got the special computer. So I realized I didn't really like him telling me what to do. I like to use my natural instincts on the court versus running a set offense.
Speaker 3:And then, senior year of business school, we did a business plan and you had to start a business and I thought, hey, this is pretty cool, I like this. And I got to start figuring out what I'm actually going to do with my life and so I started thinking through it and so I came out of school wanting to own my own business and make my own way and make my own decisions, and so that's really my path into entrepreneurship. So I've had a business for 23 years in the printing industry and my journey kind of starts with Wellbridge obviously the same time as Eric at his pool in 2017, when my insurance had gone up a lot and I just started with the only person that I knew, my best friend, eric, and it was all his fault that my rates were going up because of he's a doctor, right? You know, I didn't know, I had no idea, and I don't think most business owners do know where all the money is going. And you know, we have a better idea now, but yeah, that was the start of Wellbridge for me.
Speaker 3:Eric was wanting to get into business and I said, well, we should do something in medicine and figure out how to help the system, you know, be less bloated and try to lower costs. And he said yes. I said yes, and and that's where the the Wellbridge piece started. So it was really from my other company and the health insurance was going up, so our deductibles were going up and I didn't really feel like we were getting anything better medical care wise. And so, in business as an entrepreneur, it makes no sense to me. If I'm paying more, I should have a better experience, and I'm not. Actually, I thought it was getting worse for my employees, and so that's what entrepreneurs do, right, you see a hole in the system and you fill that hole. So that's kind of the quick version of my side of it.
Speaker 2:So, jeff, something that just came to my mind as you were talking, with what you're doing with Wellbridge versus the industry that you really like, so to your entrepreneurial roots, you are in an industry in printing that is being disrupted, right, and you are launching into an industry as the disruptor. What were lessons learned as you kind of look at both of those scenarios of, like you know, kind of being on both sides of the coin?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think they're, you know, being disrupted in different ways. But so to really kind of see the path of, you know, the printing industry that's been around forever, right, think about Heidelberg presses and whatnot and what's happening there, you know, definitely has helped me to understand where medical which I don't think is really personally in my opinion, hasn't really has just started to be disrupted. It kind of helps to have a little bit of experience and vision, you know, into where things are heading and what landmines you're going to probably have to step on, and that not everybody you know hard lesson not everybody is going to be your friend when you're disrupting a bloated system that has a lot of dollars attached to it, right. So if you're upsetting their apple cart with where their money stream's coming from and that money but that money stream needs to be disrupted for the everyday American, you know you might have some people that stop talking to you for sure. So that's, that's been kind of interesting. But yeah, I think one has helped prepare me for the other for sure.
Speaker 2:So what did that look like? What was the official opening day? If you will, opening not like baseball, I guess surgery would be a little different. But what was like? The grand opening? What date was that for Wellbridge?
Speaker 4:It was one of those days, and then I knew what it was, until Jeff kept saying the wrong date on the specific exact date, and now it's gotten to the point where I can't remember which one is which, but I thought it was December 2nd 2021, but it was either the second or the fourth.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we'll go with the second for Eric's purposes here there we go.
Speaker 3:The day before, our gal at the front desk decided to quit after one day. So you know, you got to do what you got to do. You got to run the front desk. So I was running the front desk day one for a couple weeks until I could find a replacement. I remember the day before Eric, and this is one of my proudest moments. I remember the day before Eric and this is one of my proudest moments was out in the parking lot with his leaf blower blowing off the sidewalk in the parking lot so it would look good. You know, day one, that was awesome. I was like now that's a real entrepreneur right there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hey, don't get second chance at a first impression, you know.
Speaker 3:Right, exactly, you know.
Speaker 4:He didn't like those books in college, I got to do the. You know, didn't like those books in college, I got to do the, uh, you know. So we did one case the first week and then we did two cases the second week and then we, you know, go on to uh, you know, I think we did a 150 cases, so one of the previous, you know, a couple months so, but I remember that first case. I, you know, and I had done this for a while. I've been doing it for maybe what? 14 years at this point.
Speaker 4:So I've done over 10,000 anesthetics and I don't remember being more nervous for an anesthetic than the first one we did here. And it's no different. It's doing the same thing, same people around that I worked with before. And I think back of that now because now it's just like normal here. There'd be surgeries all the time here. But you know, it was pretty cool that first day just realizing, hey, like we saved this person probably $6,000 on their arm surgery. But you know, which is really cool. But you know, we did it all ourselves, we put all this together and we actually delivered great care to a patient at a reasonable rate. And that was just the start of things to come. That was a really cool. I'll never forget that. That first day, that first case While it's just like all the other ones that I ever did it was pretty cool to be able to say, hey, we, we did this, I did the anesthetic. Jeff was at the front desk. I think we had four employees maybe at that point.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was pretty cool, I had to go back. It's the only time I've ever been in the OR. I had to go back, bring something back there or something I can't remember what, and that's the first and last time I've ever been to the OR.
Speaker 4:And that first patient has had two family members come back. Eric, do you think?
Speaker 1:you could have been in this position had you not picked the anesthesiologist specialty no no.
Speaker 4:I do not. I think there's a couple of reasons. One is maybe not the best reason, but we really did model ourselves after the surgery center of Oklahoma. We don't do everything the same. There are a few differences. But I don't know that we would have thought of this if we hadn't heard about what Dr Keith Smith was doing in Oklahoma and met with him, talked with him and have him be really a helpful kind of guiding person to help us out with this.
Speaker 4:He's an anesthesiologist and I'm an anesthesiologist, so I think it's not just because he is an anesthesiologist. I think the reason he was able to do it is because he knew a lot of surgeons as an anesthesiologist. Like Jeff said, he had a front row seat to watching the Olivet basketball games. I had a front row seat to seeing basically all the surgeries on downtown and on the north side of Indianapolis for 12 years. Like I really knew pretty much all of us, all the surgeons that worked with all of them. Nowadays you know the ones I don't know, they're kind of usually ones that have come out in the last several years or a few years that I've not worked with before. But to be able to do that and see all those folks like you kind of hey, this is a, we got a team here, we can put this team together and create a winning winning culture and a winning winning team.
Speaker 1:How did that work? So did you come on full-time? And then how do you attract or how did you at the beginning, and how has it changed attracting these surgeons who are did they have to be independent, or, some of them, employed by hospitals? How did you get the free agents and what does that look like for them?
Speaker 4:It would be crazy if we had not had these conversations before we started. We are a little crazy, but not that crazy. So when we're thinking about this, we're like, hey, you know, let's poke holes in this thing, like why would this not work? It makes so much sense and that's what when we tell going to put it up the other one, well, you know, when this one's busting out which hopefully will be soon but it makes so much sense, but we were poking holes in it and so so I'm going over to it, going around to all okay, well, who can we talk to with ENT, who can talk to with all the different specialties that we wanted to cover, to really have a good offering to an employer or anybody needing surgery? And so I don't know, I don't really know probably no. 200 different surgeons that I've worked with, like on a at least you know, somewhat, you know non-irregular basis, and had conversations with maybe 20 of them, just to see, hey, what if? What if we had a surgery center that we would give you the patients? So we would give you patients that we get, and the patients are coming to us for reasons of quality and price and you know we want you here because of your quality. What if we were to pay you more to do a surgery here than, say, anthem or UnitedHealthcare or whatever payer, certainly Medicare, medicaid would pay you, cade. What would pay you? Because if we're controlling the bundle as far as well, we're just controlling the bundle we can really control the pieces of that pie and reconcile what in Indiana is a problem the surgeons getting you know bottom 10 of reimbursement in the country and the facilities getting the top 10, usually top five and enough.
Speaker 4:You know people like Jeff was in 2017, kind of cynical to the physicians in healthcare. Some of them are. You know people like Jeff was in 2017, kind of cynical to the physicians in health care. Some of them are, you know all about the money and are jaded by the system, but still a lot really really do want to do the right thing, really want to help people and are passionate about doing something like this.
Speaker 4:And so, for a couple of reasons obviously, if we were going to say, hey, we're going to give you patients, that's gaining market share and we're going to pay you more, that's more revenue. And also then you add in that most people that want to go, they go into medicine. They do want to help people. I can't say there are no jerks, because we all know that there are, but you're kind of playing at that part of them that was always probably there when they wanted to go to medical school. So those three things together I guess made sense for them and thank goodness you know when we actually did it and they came through and actually did come in and work with us, participate with us.
Speaker 1:How many different physicians will perform at least one surgery at Wellbridge this year and dive into that idea that you know, in my mind I feel like so many of these docs have been bought by hospitals. They're W-2 employees of these hospitals. Are you having to find surgeons that are truly independent, or have you found and discovered a way to employ these folks? Do their contracts allow them to perform some percentage of their surgeries in a facility like Wellbridge?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So to answer the first question, I'm not sure I don't know the exact answer, but probably I would guess 50 different surgeons would be my guess. And the second question yeah, almost all of them that there are, I'd say 90, 95% of them are independent surgeons, meaning, like you said, todd, that they're, that they're not owned by the hospital system. The hospital systems have still, I think, as it is now, they still have they can enforce the non competes. I think that was on the table. I think it got thrown off like the 11th hour. But there are a couple that have in their contract that they're allowed to do something in their off time, their days off of working at that hospital system.
Speaker 1:Have you had a story yet, anecdotally, where there's a surgeon who maybe was being squeezed out of the marketplace and the sheer presence of the model and the facility of Wellbridge has given them access to clients, better income and allowed them to now practice medicine the way they want, outside of a hospital system?
Speaker 4:I think probably the answer is yes. They haven't come and told me that, but there are a couple that it's been significant for them, I bet. But they have not said, hey, you're saving grace or anything like that. I wouldn't necessarily say that we are, but I think to some extent.
Speaker 2:Yes, I guess the answer would be looking at that period from, like the 2017, the idea to you know, the grand opening jeff welcoming everyone into wellbridge from the front desk. What were some like mile markers that stood out to you around important things that happened in that period and or things that were wildly surprising, that you were like, whoa, didn't expect this. What were some of those things?
Speaker 3:I think I just watched Field of Dreams for the first time in like 15 years recently, and I told Eric I was like when's the last time you saw that man? You got to watch it because that was us, you know. Sure, we had, you know, case here, case there in the beginning, but it was like, hey, we built it. And it was like, hey, did somebody just say they needed a surgery? Did I hear something? You know like, where's everybody at? You know, and 2022 was rough, to say the least.
Speaker 3:So, as the sales, you know business side of the Wellbridge venture, you know all has to do with the pipeline. And so we're looking at the referrals that come in each week and really even before that it started just like landing one. Because we're calling on self-funded plans right, and I know you guys know that, but maybe maybe those listening don't understand that. Because we're calling on self-funded plans right, and I know you guys know that, but maybe those listening don't understand that that they're at risk for their health plan, right? So business peers like myself, and so, with that you have to get lives and that's in the door as a business in order to for one of those lives to actually need surgery, and so first of all we just had to land somebody. City of Zionsville was our first, and then we had to start having people call us.
Speaker 4:Who did the cold call to get that one? Do you remember?
Speaker 3:You're breaking up. I can't hear you.
Speaker 4:Let me just go with my story please.
Speaker 3:I set up a script. I'll give Eric credit here. I gave him a script and a list of United healthcare folks and he started dialing and he was the only one that had success that day. So now I'll give you. I'll give you credit there, buddy.
Speaker 4:My only success story, but it was that first day.
Speaker 3:Step of the ball in motion.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So those referrals each week is really what. You know what. I remember where we used to be. If we got like five referrals in a week, I'm like here we go, we're on to something here, right, and over the 4th of July we had 47 referrals in a week and a half. I mean that just. I mean that's just crazy right to think about. So that would be one of mine. The other piece, you know, for me understanding as a business owner, where is the dysfunction? The TPAs. Some TPAs have been a real surprise to me. On that. They're actually part of the dysfunction.
Speaker 3:I don't need to go into it all today, but I had a TPA at my other, my printing company, of which I've now fired that wasn't paying Wellbridge and they didn't know I was on both sides of the coin and so I just let this whole thing play out for six months.
Speaker 3:I went ahead and wrote a check from the printing company to Wellbridge because we needed the cash. I said, eric, when we get paid, though, I deem that back, you know, and to see that whole thing play out over six months, it was very interesting to me. I think I might have actually called one of you to ask you like, why would a TPA not be paying this bill? And so called around kind of. And then I got tired of them not paying the bill and I had my attorney send the letter that hey, the contract says you need to pay in like 45 days or whatever it was. And boom, all of a sudden Wellbridge got paid. That was pretty shock. That was a big shocker to me that even the TPAs can not all of them obviously, but can be part of the problem.
Speaker 2:What were some of those other challenges that might have surprised you guys?
Speaker 3:Eric, I'll throw it over to you as a new entrepreneur. I'm sure you've got a handful.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, I guess overall, like everybody's heard, we really don't want to reinvent the wheel, right, jeff being like the salesperson for Welbridge Surgical, and he literally had to reinvent the wheel Because you know, jeff's talking like about how you have to get these lives, this is how you get them, this is what you go from there. Well, we didn't know any of that. Like literally, we were open, we had the ORs ready and we didn't know any of that, and so we really did have to reinvent the wheel and Dr Keith didn't know that either, right?
Speaker 3:So when we called Dr Keith up, he's like we get our referrals from the TPAs and we're like, okay, I really think day one was in the kitchen at my house when I made the first, dialed, the first phone call, which was Beck Seed, because I had a contact there through a peer group that I was in charge of, you know. And also my first launch, talking about Wellbridge, was with Utah. I don't know if you remember that Thai restaurant we went to. I remember it, yeah, and so you know that's really day one for me, not December 2nd or 4th or whatever day that was, that we are continuing to probably argue about, eric and I for the rest of time, but was really that first sales call I thought you were crazy then, and I pretty much think you're crazy still.
Speaker 3:It's the truth, there's no doubt about it, anybody. You all three know me, and there's the crazy parts of me for sure.
Speaker 4:I'm trying to think of the big surprise. I don't think on the medical side there's really much of a surprise at all. I think that if anything, it was good surprises with at least one one thing. One of the things we were worried about to build out our prices so. So the way I built out the prices were was okay, we know how much we're going to pay the anesthesiologist, we know how much we're going to sugar that they had a surgeon Pathology. We luckily overhead we were not covering all of our overhead at first but luckily now we are what we were worried about was like implants, like so all these the hospital systems have really good must have you know so much volume, they must have great pricing with all the vendors and the implant folks and we were warned about that. Hey, you guys are gonna have some problems with this.
Speaker 4:It makes sense, right, like a smaller, because the independent practitioners say you're a solo practice, you do not get reimbursed as a physician nearly as well as a big practice or even a private equity owned group gets even more usually, I believe. But we did not find that to be the case. We found that not only were the physicians interested in helping us out like the vendors worked with us too, and probably not because out of the goodness of their heart. It's probably because the hospitals don't care. Hospitals are happy to have a $10,000 implant versus a $5,000 implant because they do a cost plus anyway, and so they're going to charge more. They can charge more and make more. We're not built around that model. We are built around we want to create the best value for our clients and built around that model we are built around, we want to create the best value for our clients and luckily.
Speaker 2:I mean, it was a good, good surprise. Yeah, so we were part of a documentary project that was released a little over a year ago called it's Not Personal, it's Just Healthcare, and one of, like, the main things we talk about in that is we all think that the healthcare system is broken, but the more and more you dig, the more and more you realize that it may be broken, but it's actually built like this by design and you know everyone in the supply chain is doing really well with the system the way it is. Is that something that you guys tended to bump into time and time again? Or, as you guys were, trying to break out of that system or what?
Speaker 2:what are your thoughts to that?
Speaker 4:Yeah, my thought is that that's a hundred percent correct. I mean, if nobody wants the system to change, they've got the lobby, they've got the money behind it, they've got the lobbyists behind them, and so ain't nothing. I mean, people are going to complain all the time, but the people who are really making money off it are probably pulling most of the strings, and so I don't think it's really going to change terribly much until I mean, you have to like I think it starts with employers. I really, really, really do. I think it starts with employers. I really, really, really do, because when we opened, people were like, oh, this is great for the self-pay people, the cash pay people, because they don't have insurance, which is the magical giving tree, right? No, they don't have insurance and so they actually care what things cost. And I'm like, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 4:But what we did know before we started about self-funded employers, that's just an aggregate of self-payers. They actually care. So it's not just our cash payers that we make sense to, it's anybody who cares about how much it costs. Unfortunately, tons of people don't care about how much it costs and they just love to complain. They don't want to do anything about it, mostly probably because they don't understand it. I hear that all the time. But self-funded employers, which are you know what? 70% of people who have insurance through their employer are self-funded, something like that. You guys would know better than me.
Speaker 2:State of Indiana. That's right In Indiana, yeah.
Speaker 4:That's a ton of people and they're in the same boat. They care about how much it costs, they being the employer, right, the CEOs, cfos, and if you can create a mechanism to make the member care, which they should and have a win-win-win, that's what we've done. But all along the way, people putting barriers up for that, which is what I think what you're talking about for sure, along with some brokers that are not named Connor Insurance broker advisors that are disincentivized to talk to their client about a Wellbridge Surgical zero-tier model. So the TPAs, like Jeff said, the hospital systems, like I believe, can't stand us. I mean, they tried to get me fired. Ascension did when we were starting this. They didn't even employ me, but with my anesthesia group, they were pressuring my anesthesia group to fire me. So and they still are hostile towards us.
Speaker 4:Even the, even some of the surgeons who own and some of the other, the surgery centers who don't. Even their model is not at all like this, but they're benefiting off, like you said, ben, they're benefiting off of the way things are, they're happy with it. They're getting fat and they don't want to. They don't want things to change. Hop X surgeons, that that you would think you know, or just just want the best, best that you would think. You know. We just want the best for patients. They do not. They want the best for their pocketbooks. Everybody is complicit in it.
Speaker 2:We touched on it briefly but like the pricing model and more or less how that compares to what like an everyday American or Hoosier would pay at a different facility, what value they get at Wellbridge.
Speaker 4:Actually, I first start off with the surgeon's amount which we pay them. Like I said, it's a formula we use but we pay them generally almost all the time, you know, significantly more than a commercial payer would pay the surgeon. As far as a professional fee goes Anesthesia, we pay a decent amount for that. Add those two together because those are known quantities per CPD code, and then any pathology. If that's in there, that's not usually too expensive. Add those together, then the supplies, implants. Add those.
Speaker 4:So those are actual numbers that we can put together and say, hey, we have a number. And then how long does that procedure take? We know what our overhead is and what we want to have as a small margin per hour and we just kind of plug that into there and in the end, well, it's gotten more sophisticated. At first it was not that sophisticated, but in the end the price that we have and we come up with. We've had independent TPAs, we've had UnitedHealthcare, looked at a lot of different things, different folks have looked at it and it's anywhere from like 45 to 60 percent, depending where you are in Indiana, 45 to 60 percent less than the average cost. And this is cost, not billed amounts. It would be a way higher discount off the billed amount. But as far as what say UnitedHealthcare Anthem, just average commercial reimbursement is going to be about double of what the cost is at Walgreens.
Speaker 2:Well, just to wrap that up, I mean you talked about physicians are actually getting paid better, which to highlight that Indiana's in the bottom 10% of physician comp across the country. So our physicians are getting paid better, the ones who are actually delivering care. You know the anesthesiologists that are. You know they're putting you to sleep, but what they really get paid for is waking you up, and so those folks are still getting paid. You're covering supplies. So, ultimately, the things that I'm hearing, that are the variables that are making up, depending on which way you look at it. Either doubling the cost or cutting it in half is wrapped up in facility margin and insurance profit.
Speaker 4:And maybe administrative inefficiencies. I would say too yeah.
Speaker 2:That goes back to insurance profit, I guess, more or less, maybe the insurance and facility combined, right, right, yeah, because most hospitals are employing, like you know, 200 people just to doink around with the insurance companies, which that's just total madness, but anyway. So you guys are delivering that kind of value just by getting rid of the things that people hate anyway, which is, you know, a really high charge for rent and for the facility and an insurance company just creating margin for adding really no value outside of a, you know, the financial credit card of a health insurance plan.
Speaker 1:Eric, did you guys ever calculate on an annual basis the aggregate that you estimate you've saved your patients? Because I would think that would be the number that the hospitals would put a target on your back when you talk about trying to get doxed, if you will, from your old anesthesiology group and then the follow-up question is you kind of mentioned trying to get removed from there what is the worst you guys have been treated? What are some situations that have happened where you're like wait a minute, am I getting targeted here? And we have not done it in aggregate?
Speaker 4:We haven't done it. Yeah, yeah, certain folks, like you know, some of the bigger clients that we have and or anybody who wants to know we do either quarterly or yearly analyses and say, well, this is what you spend at Wellbridge and you have to kind of hypothesize of where, if you would have gone somewhere else, this is how much it would have cost. You can always tell them how much they would have saved if we see what they actually spent somewhere else. But if they come here you have to hypothesize, hey, where would you go? But if you say it's 40 to 60, say 50% more, yeah, we have done that for different companies, I'd say for sure, last year it was over a million dollars, but I just don't know, because I know it was like, yeah, it had to be way over that, just because I guess what I looked at.
Speaker 3:We did 5.3 million last year, Right. So for 50% less you can kind of start doing some basic math. That saves roughly 5 mil, right?
Speaker 4:Right, but I would go with the second part of that. The moment that I'll always remember is I was helping coach my daughter in soccer at Grand Park and I had a couple of missed calls from the managing member of my anesthesia group. I was on the board as well and called him afterwards and said hey, the president of the hospital wants you fired. And so that was, and I think that was like it was less than a week after we put our website up.
Speaker 2:Literally.
Speaker 4:It's just ridiculous, it's terrible, it's offensive to say that you and see, it's just ridiculous, it's terrible, it's offensive to say that you know we're trying to do something that's good and they are clearly not having it and that's you know. Whether that was one person, whether that was the whole administration, I'm not sure, but that was my moment. If you're asking for a moment, todd, that was my moment. Like, oh my gosh, like people hate this and this is like we're only doing a good thing and they are not having it. Um, that was long after that. Definitely eye-opening and scary to me. Really. How long after that did you leave the practice? I lasted another seven months. Yeah, I mean the. The idea was always to. I mean we didn't necessarily want to leave the practice, we just wanted to kind of do this as well, but just untenable.
Speaker 1:I love when those stories get exposed because it just shows how dirty and nasty people could be.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Sure, I was by the fire with the attorneys that night, sitting by the fire at my house on the phone with the attorney until about 1030, trying to figure out, like, as a marketer, it's great when your website gets noticed in four days, but not in this way, obviously. Yeah.
Speaker 4:And I'd have surgeons stop me and talk to me, people who were basically like, were very super friendly and collegial before and really just seemed like I had done something very personal to them. And it was just, you know, creating this free market surgery center idea. We hadn't even opened it yet. Free market surgery center idea. We hadn't even opened it yet. There was a couple physicians lounge at 86th street and one of the surgery centers that were just awkward conversations. It's like, hey, I'm just doing this because I think it's a good idea, I think it'll help people and, yeah, they were very confrontational and really bumps about it.
Speaker 2:Just so, encouraged by you guys, keep just continuing and forward and going through the fire just to do the right thing. So congrats to you guys on that. What's on your roadmap of what's next?
Speaker 3:I think the vision is Wellbridge Health being able to continue to help in other areas outside of you know outpatient surgery, so infusions is on there, rx would be on there. Anything that the self-funded plan doesn't have visibility into would like to have one company to go to to handle it. I think we'll be becoming as trusted advisors in the market, and my experience outside of Wellbridge has shown that when you do the right thing and you become a trusted advisor, that your clients take care of you right. And so, yeah, overall, I think Wellbridge Health is something that we're looking at right now and expanding into other areas of the spend. We think we're about 20% of the spend.
Speaker 3:On average, outpatient surgery is kind of what we see. I don't know if you guys would agree with that, but so what are those other areas that we can affect? So, and then other locations as well, for on the surgical side. But even recently, as we had a board meeting and even you know Wellbridge data, we think that we've got pretty good data collected and we think that we understand it well, so we're looking into that piece of it too. So I don't know if that helps answer your question, but any way that we can be of help is what we're looking for.
Speaker 2:Sounds like your brand is not only around the idea of value but around the idea of transparency. So if you look at the things that are unclear or, you know, seem to be, the most egregious misaligned incentive is your opportunity to go in, add value and bring transparency to the situation 100.
Speaker 4:My hope is that hopefully we won't be the only ones in the market. You know the only free market surgery center that had that post their prices. Like people just don't even know. You can go into a room of employers and they don't even know what a gallbladder should cost, what a colonoscopy should cost. They just have no idea and they're paying for it and it's such a high line item on their expense and their expenses for the year. We only become more valuable when people actually know and they can look and look and see what they're spending on.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so look and see what they're spending on, absolutely so. We usually close our episode with asking our guests two questions, so I'm gonna ask the first one to each of you guys. Jeff, we'll start with you what's a risk that you have taken that has changed your life?
Speaker 3:I think it goes back to the beginning of my story, coming out of college becoming an entrepreneur. I've been a full commissions guy for 23 years. It's a pretty big risk but hard work, you know, pays off and so you know I wouldn't change anything and obviously love the freedom of it as well. That was a big risk, you know, could have gone the other way, easily gone the other way over different phases of the last 23 years.
Speaker 4:Eric, what about you? I would say it's the same as Jeff's, Mine is just you know however, many years later, I was in a very good situation with the group that I was with before and I thought there was something else. I thought I was meant to do something else and kind of stepping off from a very comfortable situation. It's one thing if you hey, you got like no choice, you're in a corner and you got to do something. It's different when like hey, this is, this is good, Things are going great, but I, I mean so it takes a lot to be able to say, hey, I really think I need to make this, make this jump, that's great.
Speaker 1:We've got a second question, but before we get to it, I want to personally thank you from myself and also from the two plus million people in Indianapolis has been mentioned earlier. Your guys' risk is a benefit and a treasure to everybody in this city because they get quality service at a lower price. And you just mentioned it, eric. You said, hey, you know, it looks bright for me today, but I had to take a hit. Not only that, you had to take a relational hit and you had to be threatened.
Speaker 1:And what I've found in life is that whenever you step out, you challenge what people are saying, when you know they're lying, when you know they're stealing, when you know they're cheating, is that there's always a cost, and you guys have had to suffer that cost, and I hate that for you guys, but I love it for the outcome. I love it from where it's going. So, with that in mind, since you guys are now professionals in the areas of taking risk and turning over tables, if you will, eric, I'll start with you so we can finish with Jeff what is yet unfinished, that you have the resolve to complete, dr Eric Inman.
Speaker 4:Well, first of all, I really appreciate that, Todd. It really means a lot. Honestly, I'd say that what we've made it, we've kind of turned the corner business-wise. One thing that Jeff and I don't have to worry about is not having the resolve. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:Jeff, what's left yet unfinished, that you, my friend, have the resolve to complete.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just want to say too, thank you for real, todd, for you saying that I think you understand on some level what we've been through and to just be able to do something good for the community, you know, and so that really, really is awesome. I appreciate saying that Eric spelled out the Wellbridge better than I could, so I won't go there. But I'll say for me personally, what's not been resolved is I am still Dude Ranch. That's all I got to say. Dude Ranch, I got to get that, I got to get that figured out. So it's coming, it's coming, you just wait. But still a ways out from owning a Dude Ranch.
Speaker 1:Well, I thought you were crazy at that Thai restaurant. I think you're crazy today. It seems to be a pattern that whenever I think you're crazy, things start happening, so I can't wait to be invited out to that Dude Ranch Interesting.
Speaker 3:Yep, things start happening, so I can't wait to be invited out to that dude ranch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you bet. Well, guys, uh, really appreciate you joining us today. Again, known you guys for can't believe it 30 years at this point and uh, uh, I've always looked up to you guys and I'm still due to this day what you guys are doing with well bridge and how you guys raise your families and everything else like that. But wanted to thank everyone who joined us today and for listening in for another episode of Risk and Resolve. We will catch you next time.
Speaker 1:Thanks for tuning in to Risk and Resolve. See you next time.
