Mark Haney: And now we have Dr Sarah Almilly on the show today and we're going to talk about her entrepreneurial journey and her way of tackling this, this industry in Medicine.
Mark Haney: That in a little bit different way.
Mark Haney: So welcome the show, sarah.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Thank you.
Mark Haney: So talk to me about how you got into this business.
Mark Haney: Obviously, you're a doctor, but then what made you decide to take it in this direction?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: So first things first.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: I wanted to clarify.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: I am a doctor of pharmacy, so what that?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Means is that I'm an advanced clinical provider and I cater to primary care medicine with the specialty of cardiovascular disease Lots of big words to really mean that my specialty is really in diabetes, heart attacks, strokes Anything that touches your heart, your body and your organs.
Mark Haney: Okay, you said pharmacist, but you know, do you prescribe?
Mark Haney: Is that, is that what your role is?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: We can, yes people that have certain Practices and certain collaborative practice agreements in place.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: We can actually prescribe medications Based on certain agreements we have with the physician on board.
Mark Haney: Okay, so let's back up and go how did you get into this?
Mark Haney: And then maybe dive into the customer journey.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: So I got in this because of two main reasons.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Number one is my own dad his health care journey.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: He had a stroke a few years back and From there on I was able to step away from my duties as a health care professional and be the daughter that I needed to be, and I saw health care with a completely different lens.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: I kind of knew that it was happening, but I did not have that reality check and I think that was my reality check.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Which brings me to the second reason, which has been my experience in health care in general.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: So I've been in the field for 10 years.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Fortunately and unfortunately, I was in front line for a short amount of time and then I quickly Climbed up that ladder to corporate level and high levels in the corporate and from there I realized that we could do better to our patients.
Mark Haney: Did you work for a Hospital group or a pharmacy?
Mark Haney: Hospital group Okay.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Yes, I've worked in health care systems, absolutely so.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: I've worked in five major ones, to be exact, and they all had very similar gaps.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: So, confession, I was part of the problem for a while and then, when my dad had the stroke and then I kind of stepped down to see the problem from a different lens, and that is why I created a lick between my experience from a personal level, professional level, I knew something different needed to happen and I decided to be the difference and what what's broken that you're solving?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Lots of things, so let's try to categorize them.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: So the first thing is the amount of Demands, right, heightened demands on the health care system.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Right now we have extremely high burnout rate.
Mark Haney: We have very high burnout rate amongst medical professionals.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Yes, we had the all-time highest this year 64 percent across the country.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Before COVID it wasn't the 30th percentile and now we're 64 percent.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Sacramento, to be exact, we're hitting 42 percent burnout rate for physicians.
Mark Haney: Yeah, and then when that happens, when when the Healthcare professionals are burned out, that translates to the patient translates to the patients healthcare costs increase right at the more burnout.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: We enter the vicious cycle.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: They get burned out, they leave right.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: And if they leave, what happens?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: We have more staff shortages and if we have more staff shortages?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: What happens then?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: The patients don't have the education they need to get yeah, quality of your services care decreases, right.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: The appointment length of time decreases and instead of spending Spending 20 minutes, we spent 10 minutes.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Seven minutes, right?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: What kind of diabetes can you explain in seven minutes?
Mark Haney: Yeah, yeah, it's like it's.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: You get treated just like a number instead of like a person right, and a vicious cycle continues on both sides of the house right, the physician side of the house, or the primary care practitioners and the patients.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: And now you're seeing that medical schools, for example, right, less and less students are becoming primary care physicians because they're seeing the burnout.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Oh yeah so the vicious cycle is a lot more bigger and extreme than we think, than just what's under our feet and from the patient standpoint, we have a huge, high rate of patients entering our hospitals and eddies and creating that bottleneck Because of the lack of education, because of the lack of quality of care.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: So they're both happening at the same time and they're hurting each other.
Mark Haney: Yes, so which one are you?
Mark Haney: Are you addressing both?
Mark Haney: So you said you talked about because our lifestyles are putting us in the hospital, and then we get to the heart of the doctor, and then we get to the doctor and you know we get worse treatment, right?
Mark Haney: Okay, so tell me about your solution.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: I so the solution is to cater to both, because I think every other solution we've had so far caters to only one side patient side or the physician side and I think ILLIC is innovative in a way that it's catering to both sides of the house.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: So what that means is for the physicians or primary care practitioners in general whether they're nurse practitioners, dos, mds then we go and support them.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Let's remove this administrative burden that they have.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: We're advanced pharmacists, we're clinical pharmacists.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: We can do practically everything a physician can do except diagnose.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: So let's get the refills out of the way.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Let's get the prior authorizations out of the way.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Let's get the trainings out of the way, your competencies, all of that.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Let's get that out of the way and let you focus on what you need to focus on the most and the best.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Then, from the patient standpoint, let's get you what you need to get the quality of care that you deserve.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: So instead of having the 10-minute appointment with your physicians, let's sit them for an hour, because, believe it or not, an hour will have a lot of things surface that need to be treated, more than the problem that's presenting in the 10 minutes.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: And if you hit those core problems, your other problems will kind of solve themselves out.
Mark Haney: Okay.
Mark Haney: So when do I call you?
Mark Haney: Okay?
Mark Haney: So I'm feeling good.
Mark Haney: Should I go get a checkup or should I go visit you?
Mark Haney: I'm feeling bad.
Mark Haney: Should I go to regular doctor or go you?
Mark Haney: I'm trying to figure out, like what's going to prompt me to come see you.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: So a couple of things, or a lot of things.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: If you have already, or if you already know what problems you have and you're currently concerned about these problems, so let's say you have.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: You know you have diabetes and now your blood sugars are acting up.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: You know you have heart failure and you're seeing that you're accumulating fluid in your feet.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: If you know that what the problem is and you're seeing exacerbations or symptoms of that problem, you can come straight to ELIC, because then we can help you out.
Mark Haney: So then I go to you and you're not a general practitioner, you're not a I shouldn't say regular doctor, you're more like a doctor of pharmacy, correct?
Mark Haney: So in terms of like, comparing to, I'm gonna get more time with you, but are at what kind?
Mark Haney: What's the difference in my care?
Mark Haney: When do you send them over to the hospital or what?
Mark Haney: How do you sort that out?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: So that's the beauty of ELIC, right?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: So when you come to me knowing exactly what diagnosis you have, I get to dig deep into what the problem is.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: That's the one hour that we spend together multiple times, or one time.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: From there, we assess together Do you need a physician?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Is this the time that we start involving your physician, or is this the time that I need to help you out without a physician at this point, while communicating to the physician?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Do you absolutely need that access?
Mark Haney: So you're the place we can go to.
Mark Haney: That's not a physician, physician and the and the normal treatment you get.
Mark Haney: It's more like a concierge service to help get us directed to the right place or maybe get something simple, just handled, correct, absolutely.
Mark Haney: Give me.
Mark Haney: Walk me through an example.
Mark Haney: Let's say I'm feeling good, but you know, I feel like I need a physical to make sure because I'm getting old and I want to live a long time.
Mark Haney: But I'm feeling good.
Mark Haney: Should I go see you to get pointed in the right direction for that?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: No, if you're feeling good, you need to make an appointment.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: I encourage everyone to make their one year at least one year of physical checkup with their physician or whatever hospital they go to.
Mark Haney: Okay, so it's when I have some sort of symptom that I would come and see you and then walk me through maybe something typical, some of the typical scenarios where I walk in I've got you talked about diabetes, I've got some of these symptoms, and what do you do at that point?
Mark Haney: Walk me through that journey.
Mark Haney: I get my one hour consult with you and what kinds of things.
Mark Haney: What would that feel like?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: So I would first start collecting your health history right, just like any physician, except that they may have they may do it on steroids.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: I will do it over 20 minutes just to collect what else is going on.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Why do you think you have the symptoms?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: What has happened in the past few weeks or few months?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Who lives differently with you?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Where do you live differently?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Everything from a financial standpoint, social standpoint, emotional, mental, everything.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Collect all that history, because everything counts, and then, from there on, I look at your medications.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: What is it that you're taking?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Are you still taking them?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Are you taking the right things?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Did you decide to improvise and add things on your own?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: The supplements and the herbs?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Are you sticking to what you're supposed to be taking, the way you're supposed to be taking them, and believe it or not?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: From all these conversations cause it's a lengthy one lots of other things surface.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: For example, I had one of my patients that came to me just for diabetes, just speaking of that, but it turns out that it was the PTSD from.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Something completely different is what's messing up her blood sugars, and I really needed to leave diabetes alone.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Address what is really the core problem, then go back and fix the blood sugars Cause.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Bendating blood sugars is not gonna work.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Hitting the core is what's gonna work.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Oh, interesting.
Mark Haney: The PTSD was changing their habits and what they do all day what they put into their body.
Mark Haney: Yes, and that was the ultimate cause, correct?
Mark Haney: Okay, so you're getting more to the root of the cause.
Mark Haney: Okay, interesting.
Mark Haney: And what about somebody who has a cold or maybe just feels like they've got the flu, or oh no, maybe I have COVID or something like that?
Mark Haney: Would I go to you if I'm just like feel like I might have a virus coming on?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Yeah, so we have specialties under ELEC.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: We have the chronic conditions, which is everything we just touched on, and then we have medication therapy management and then we have consultations If you're feeling like you have a cold and you need someone to really walk you through the cold symptom without it being diagnosed.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Ie, a lot of patients of mine don't even sometimes have a physician at all, or they don't want to go to a physician, they just have a cold.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: They want over the counters, they want something to help them out.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Then, yes, then we can help you with this.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: This is usually a much shorter service.
Mark Haney: I don't need an hour for that.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Yeah, but the beauty of ELEC is that they also have that provider on demand and at their fingertips.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: You can call us at 7 pm because you are at Rayleigh's not knowing what to pick out of the shelf.
Mark Haney: And we'll help you out with that.
Mark Haney: Oh, interesting.
Mark Haney: Okay, so you have an actual facility that I can walk into or just handle something over the phone.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: It's all virtual or we go to you.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: It's really the most old school way of doing healthcare.
Mark Haney: Oh, okay, so there is no facility.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Yeah, there is no facility.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: It's remember those times when we used to maybe my parents would know that more but we'd call a doctor and they'd come to you and have this bag and it has like a stethoscope right and a thermometer and a Tylenol and you have the bag.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: It's practically very similar to that.
Mark Haney: Oh wow, you come to the house, so Okay, good dog.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: I have been to some of my patients houses to go and cater to them if they're elderly.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Some of them a lot of my patients like virtual, so we do a lot of virtual zoom calls and team calls.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Lots of my patients like to meet elsewhere and then we also cater to public education.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: So a lot of times I'm giving like public education speaking engagements about medication, adherence, COVID, whatever you name it.
Mark Haney: Now, in terms of the industry, there's a lot of people that are.
Mark Haney: You use the term supplements so that a lot of people want to take, want to be as healthy as they can, so they end up taking different types of supplements.
Mark Haney: Are there certain types of things that you recommend for healthy people to take, or is it predominantly just sick people?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: So vitamins are no brain right.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: If I can make one public advice, it would be the vitamins, because they're the safest part.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: I think it gets tricky when you dive into things off of social media Like if you take this, your blood sugars are going to like be okay.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: The other day I got an email that if you make this one hand movement you will cure your diabetes.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Let's not do that Because that's not going to work.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: So I think supplements are good if they want to have them, if they have the affordability.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: From where I sit, a lot of medications are a lot of these things over the counter are not FDA approved or they have not been tested through safety and other measures, so I try to caution against them if the patient is on a lot of other medications.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: The other thing people don't know is they will do a lot of internet search and Google will tell them all the kinds of different things, which is great.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Some of it is credible, some of it is not.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: But most patients don't know what's a credible source versus what's not a credible source.
Mark Haney: So I'm a believer in exercise, very strenuous cardio, weightlifting and things like that.
Mark Haney: As far as health, I do yoga.
Mark Haney: In terms of recommending lifestyle choices, obviously I've kind of mentioned what we put into our bodies, but what about the activities that we do?
Mark Haney: How important is exercise, you think, in keeping us healthy?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Oh, crucial, very important, very important and I would say, know what you need to do.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: If you're a healthy man and you're doing yoga and different vigorous exercises, great.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: If you are a person that has a congestive heart failure, that may not be the route for you Right.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: If you have a disability of one sort or another, some people resort to say like, oh, I can't move, there are exercises to do, while you cannot move certain way or whatever.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: So every disease state also prefers a certain type of exercise.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Some need cardio, some need muscle resistance, because it depends on what your body is going through.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: So exercise overall is crucial for our health.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: What kind of exercise?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: That is dependent on the person and what they have.
Mark Haney: Okay.
Mark Haney: So in terms of the business so you referred I got referred to you through Scott Crocker and he's a friend of mine.
Mark Haney: He's a business consulting guy, has a marketing practice.
Mark Haney: What are you in terms of like building a business like this?
Mark Haney: Is this a scalable type of business, I mean, or is it just you and your one person show and you do your thing?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: I'm going to follow your statement here.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: No great company is built on one person, right, oh you?
Mark Haney: saw that down below Nobody builds a truly great company alone.
Mark Haney: I love it Okay, cool, tell me about that.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Definitely not alone.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: I am the co-founder with my husband.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: We are both co-founders of this Elec idea.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: That started as an idea.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: We saw a problem, we saw an opportunity.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: We wanted to solve it.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Now we have a team.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: We have a team of seven people, so our company is growing.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: It is scalable because people are longing for that attention when it comes to their health.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: People need that bond.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Think about this it's the strongest bond in the world to talk to someone about their health.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Why?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Because health is not one of those things that can come and go.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Finances come and go, relationships come and go.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Health, when it goes, it doesn't come back.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: So that is one strong bond and you want to bond with someone, you want to have that continuity of care, you want someone to listen to you and that is why it's scalable.
Mark Haney: Absolutely.
Mark Haney: You have a very excellentamisit device, probably easier to scale.
Mark Haney: I know I'm invested into one telemedicine company that's done really well and grown fast, and I think they were.
Mark Haney: You know you don't have all the infrastructure costs with brick and mortar that you had with brick and mortar.
Mark Haney: If you're doing it online, it seems like it is kind of a more scalable opportunity.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Absolutely so.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Right now, for example, we have partners in Sacramento and then we also have partners in Los Angeles, right.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: So it is definitely scalable, at least in the California market right now.
Mark Haney: Do you envision scaling it be?
Mark Haney: How's the company gonna change?
Mark Haney: Will you be adding different kinds of offerings, or is this duplicating what you've got now only?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: So it's going to morph in different ways.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: If I were to tell you our business strategy in a big way, first is the patient part.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: The just the patient piece alone is scalable because it's different subscription packages, right.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: There are the patients that need something on demand, one and done and go.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: And then there are patients that want to be with us for the three months or the six months or even the year because they have a chronic condition.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: A chronic condition is non-curable by definition and is not going away.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: And then we have the physician side.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: So physician sides are more like partnerships.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Please take care of these patients, please take care of this part of the clinic for us.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Multiply that by the different physician clinics or like groups in general physician groups.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: And we also cater to the organizations that cater to the public, so healthcare organizations or non-healthcare organizations.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: A lot of them are nonprofit organizations.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: So I know we've done COVID, vaccine clinics, for example.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: We've done speaking engagements to teach about how adverse child experiences impact your stress level and your diet and exercise.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: As a 30 and four year old man, right, you would have never thought about that.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: How to have better medication adherence.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: And that has scaled.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Started out by the nonprofits, and now it branched out to having us go to like Escatons and other facilities that cater to senior livings, assisted livings and so forth for their patients.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: And then, lastly, the next step is that the employer groups.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: If we can cater to your employees and be there for them, then you have less people absent from work, you have much better retention right and you have a lot less workers come because of the stress of the work environment.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: If you have a provider right there with them, then they can cope with that stress a lot more and better and that way, as an employer, you're benefiting a lot more than what you think you're putting in.
Mark Haney: So in terms of I'm here at a few different revenue streams.
Mark Haney: So you have, you've obviously got people that you supply medication to that's probably paid for by the insurance company many times.
Mark Haney: Yes, okay, and then I guess they can pay cash forward or they can use their insurance, but your service is more of a subscription model, correct, is that right?
Mark Haney: Okay, and then maybe from a speaking engagement, that would be like a one-off type thing.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Correct One-off or you know, you'd be surprised.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Some facilities wanted us to go every three months for a different topic.
Mark Haney: Very interesting.
Mark Haney: Okay, what else am I missing in terms of those revenue streams there?
Mark Haney: So kind of simplified it to three because it's how my mind works.
Mark Haney: But where else does the money come in for you to grow the company?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: I think these are the four primary ones.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: The business to consumer, which is straight to the patient, and then the physicians.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: These are like BTCs right.
Mark Haney: Okay, and that's a referral to a physician, correct?
Mark Haney: Okay?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Yes, and then we have the non-profits or the different organizations for the public education or their patients, or bulk or whatever and then we have your employer groups.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: The last one I haven't talked about is a different side of ELEC and it's not the most famous side right now, but that's okay which is the operational performance improvement side, and that is currently another revenue stream that we have.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: So I personally and that's a one-man show piece I personally have been in performance improvement for like almost a decade, right.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: So I've been certified in multiple of these avenues per se, whether lean or six sigma.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: I know these are terms that are probably foreign to most people, but because of these certifications, what I can do, and what I have been doing, is that I go to an operation, any organization that has productivity measures that are suboptimal staffing issues, performance improvement issues, and what I do is that I go in and enhance those opportunities or jump on the opportunities, enhance the performance, increase productivity, increase staffing.
Mark Haney: You do that, for you said all organizations.
Mark Haney: You don't have a focus within healthcare, then it could be anybody.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Oh, correct.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Currently I'm doing it with two different entities One is related to healthcare and one is not.
Mark Haney: Wow, that's interesting.
Mark Haney: Why did you start that when you got this other stuff that's rolling.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: You know, I think it's because I'm a problem solver by nature.
Mark Haney: Yeah, you're an entrepreneur.
Mark Haney: You're going a lot of different directions here.
Mark Haney: Very interesting, Okay.
Mark Haney: So what did I not ask you?
Mark Haney: That you wanna make sure that our audience gets a chance to know about you and your business?
Dr. Sarah Almilli: I think one thing that I wanted to make sure everyone knows is that this company is built based on real, real human, like Reliability, if that's a word right A lot of companies.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Sometimes we see them and we think like, oh well, they don't know what they're talking about, or like that's so far removed, or the current situation where healthcare is run by, like, administrators and not clinicians.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: But this company is founded by clinicians.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: My co-founder, my husband, is a pharmacist as well and he's a different kind of professional pharmacy, and together we complete each other to cater to everyone that we encounter.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: So I think that's the one part that distinguishes us so much where it's clinicians running a healthcare and that has become rare.
Mark Haney: Yes, yes, well, very cool.
Mark Haney: I love the idea that you're attacking this problem from a different direction, and I think that's how that's what entrepreneurship is all about You're innovating on something that needs to be innovated.
Mark Haney: So thank you for bringing this to the world, and I wish you the best of luck.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Thank you, thanks for having me here.
Mark Haney: Congratulations on your success.
Dr. Sarah Almilli: Thank you, thank you.