Scott Schnell 4:27

Laurel Donnellan 11:18
So welcome Scott to the podcast,

Scott Schnell 11:22
thank you for having me.

Laurel Donnellan 11:23
It's my great honor. So I'm going to have you tell us all about med Zed. And what med said is, I'm very curious about the name, like, what is, where did it come from? And what do you guys do?

Scott Schnell 11:40
So, you know, so I do orientation with I do orientation with every person as they start. It's part of my, part of my thing. And the first I do two different parts of orientation. The first one is couple, 1015, minutes, the day they start. I want to introduce myself, give them my story, tell them who I am, and then, and then I'll do a longer, a longer session after they've been here about a month, where I talk about values and and take them through what's important to the company, and behaviors and that kind of thing, our mission. And in the first section, 10 or 15 minutes, brand new, brand new people, I end my session saying, what questions do you have for me? And I always get no answer. But the few times where anyone is asked a question that is the that is the question they ask. So I chuckle, because the answer is kind of boring. The answer is, when I started med Zed, I was approached by a friend of mine who was working with a doctor, and they had an idea, and they were looking for somebody who might want to take that idea and turn it into a business. And my personality is such that I think I can solve any problem. And healthcare was a we even talked about my background, but healthcare is, is, is certainly a sticky one. And I said, that sounds interesting. And they said, here's, here's our business plan, and here's what we're using to sort of think about the business. And it had the name meds that at the top. And I, I, I'm an operator, I'm, I'm a lot of things, but a creative marketer is not on my list. And I, I didn't come up with anything better. So the med said, name is what stuck, and I've kept it, and, you know, the further I've gotten into it, it's now 12 years, and I have enough shirts, and my team has enough shirts that it's sort of getting out there, and people are wearing it, that it is that I kind of like it as a brand. I think it's, I think it has, it has, it's starting to have a cachet of its own in the markets we serve. So it's good.

Laurel Donnellan 14:02
Well, I've been following what you all have been doing for a while, and it has a good it's memorable, which is important, and you get to create meaning yourself. But I do want to go back to your history. I noticed that you went to the University of Michigan. I've spent some time in Michigan. I'm curious about you as a person, like where you grew up, and how you ended up solving business problems. Yeah, so I'm born and raised in New York. In the New York area. I went to school in the Midwest. I had businesses. I used to pull a wagon when I was eight, 910, years old, and and sell. I sold juice in containers. This was in a time where where you can only get frozen orange juice, for example, or frozen other juices. And there was a store that that sold half gallons

Scott Schnell 15:00
of pre made juices. And I used to my mother used to drive me to a to that store. I would pick them up. I would call on my neighbors and go door to door with my little wagon to sell. I was entrepreneurial from a young age, and I kind of knew that's where I ultimately wanted to be. And I went to school in Ann Arbor, as you said, Go Blue. For any listener, Go Blue. And I became an accountant. The numbers sort of worked for me. I knew I wanted to be in business on some entrepreneurial way. I didn't know how to get there. Wasn't sure how I would get there, but I decided that that that that accounting and finance would be a great, a great foundation upon which to build. Turned out to be a good decision for me. It I was good at it came it came easy. I was good at it, and I was a public accountant for five years my career. I knew I wanted to be an operator. I wasn't sure what that would look like, but I got an opportunity to move to Georgia, and so I left New York, I moved to Georgia, and I ultimately met my wife, and we raised three boys down here, and I ran a baseball card company in Georgia that we grew very, very quickly. We grew it from nothing to about $80 million in a four year period. So I got to cut my teeth, sort of in, in a new industry operational, and really, really enjoyed the experience. I will tell you that getting to Georgia was, was sort of an exercise for me in in leaning in and saying Yes. Someone said, Do you want this opportunity? And I've interviewed hundreds of people since then. And there are some people who are looking to say, No, you can tell. And there are some people who are looking to say, Yes, I was. I'm of the ilk that if something's interesting me, interesting to me, I want to say, I want to say, yes. So great decision for me. I went on from there to co found a company with a someone I know since, since I'm five years old, that we sold and installed home improvement products for one of the for one of the major, the major home improvement retailers, and we did it in 40 states. We had 5000 people that we grew from scratch, and it was a service business similar to what I have here, and it created a I walked away, or we built that business on a foundation of a strong team living by sort of a robust set of values and and culture, and then overlaid with a with with technology. And that was foundational to our success in that business, and something I carried with me. I went on from there to run a chain of garden centers, nurseries down in the southeast, a retail business, and went on from there to work at a building materials company that took me back and forth to China. So the common sort of, the common thread through all that is, is because they're disparate Industries, a curiosity and a relentless drive for to get to an answer. There's no question I won't answer, or excuse me, there's no question I won't ask, and I am relentless in sort of driving to an answer and to and looking for a better solution. I'm never I tend not to be satisfied. Which brought me to meds Ed, which I told you earlier, was where the name came from. I was introduced to an idea, and I had an opportunity to lean into healthcare. And I'm sure we'll talk a bit about what do we do? But

Laurel Donnellan 19:04
no, I love thank you so much for your story, and I'm already thinking about titles for the Forbes post, and it might be from baseball cards to healthcare. I do love what I hear in your story is saying yes, leaning into Yes, curiosity, and I do think great business skills cross sectors very easily. I think sometimes people pigeonhole themselves in a particular discipline or sector, and I love that you've you've been able to apply all your skills to so many things, yeah, so tell us the creation we heard the creation story of Scott. So let's hear the creation story of med. Said how that came about and and for my listeners, what you actually do, like every day as a company.

Scott Schnell 19:57
So I was introduced to an idea which has now evolved. Over the last 12 years we've been doing doing it, and before I get to what we do, I'd love to tell you, sort of my the journey within meds. It For Me, I grew up fortunate. I grew up blessed. I didn't think about where my next meal was coming from. I was lucky, and I will tell you that I realized today I am more grateful for how lucky I was today than I was when I was in the moment going to school, etc, etc. And I I am. I take everything I've learned over many, many decades, multiple decades, and I get to apply it to healthcare, which is a very complicated industry, not a surprise, but it's complicated, and I am in a business today that gets to help people who really need the help, and I get to, I get to lead a team of of people who are empathetic and want to support the those who are who are more needy than we are. And I think maybe most importantly, from a personal learning perspective, because I don't come from, I come from a I come from a good, lucky place. I get to lead a business that helps people live be the best versions of themselves and and over the years, I have learned, over 10 years, I have learned to I not used in the past, and I am grateful for that. As I approach end of career, closer to end of career than the beginning of my career, to be able to give back is phenomenal. So what do I do? So med said, we keep people out of the hospital. Nobody wants to go to the hospital. There's nobody who wakes up in the morning and say, Gee, I really want to go spend 10 hours at getting triaged and then and then getting cared for, and then getting admitted because I have a sore throat. There's nobody who wants to do that. People do it because they're frightened, people do it because they feel unsupported. People do it because they don't have the skills to take care of to get that care somewhere else, and by keeping people out of the hospital, we are able to save effect. We are able to save the system money. And that's what makes that's what makes our world work. By taking teams. We take teams of community health workers. These are people who are of the communities that we serve. Many of them share the stories around which we, we our members have, and we, we will. We put them in the community. They they're they live in the community. They serve members in the community, and they help them with their social needs. They help them with their food. They help get them to the doctor. They help them. They help them overcome. They help them get a job. Sometimes, they help them learn to dress for to get to look to to buy clothes for a job, we help people with housing. We help people get medications, because the system doesn't accommodate them effectively. Most importantly, we help them get get to their doctor's appointment or schedule a doctor's appointment. You and I both know that even for us, scheduling an appointment can take months. It can be very difficult, cumbersome. You're pressing lots of buttons, and you get a run around. We help people who are far less fortunate than us make that do, do that work. So by doing that work, we we empower them, we inspire them, we help them stay out of the hospital, and that team of community based resources serve, serve our members with compassion, building trust, to to to to, as I said, inspire them to help them be the best versions, be the be The be the best versions of themselves, so they are very much in the communities they serve. Some of them, many of them had stories. I used to interview every person we we hired. They had stories about their grandmother or their fill in the blank, their sibling. And those are the those are the people we take care of by helping them engage with the system, with the goal of not needing to go to the hospital and the focus of art. The people we support are those who are struggling the most, those who might be living on the street, those who might be be disengaged from from society in many, many different ways, and we help reconnect them and inspire them. We call our technical software, our technology platform. We call it tapestry. And a long time ago, we dubbed it tapestry. It came from somebody I was chatting with in the space, and I think of our members, I think of, I think of myself as having this rich, multicolored, dense tapestry. It's the weave is tight, and it's, it's a, it's a, it's my life. It's, it's a, it's colorful. And the people we serve, they're fraying, and there are holes in it, and they're monochromatic, and we seek to bring a little bit more color to it, a little bit more support to it, so they can, so they can thrive, and ultimately reduce the amount of time and cost that they have to spend in a hospital.

Laurel Donnellan 26:04
I'd like to dig a little into the business model, because I think there's probably listeners like me who don't really understand how this works. And then I'd like to hear a couple of stories about your community. What do you call them? Community?

Scott Schnell 26:20
Community health navigators.

Laurel Donnellan 26:22
Community health navigators so that we can get a sort of boots on the ground feeling from you. But who pays for this? How does How do you make money as a company?

Scott Schnell 26:34
So the we're paid by the insurance company. The insurance company has groups of people that they call, unable to contact, these people, as I said, are in and out of the hospital, and they say, and they're, they're, they're not using their primary care doctor and but they're using more expensive forms of care, so they have a bolus of people that needed, that need, that care, and they say, Here, med said, we can't find them. Can you help us and our secret, our secret, our differentiator, what makes us better than, better than anyone out there, is that we'll find upwards of 40% of the people that were referred. So normally, people companies do telephonic outreach and and they that's mostly what they'll do. And they'll find 15% 20% of them by making phone calls. We will do that, and then we'll find another. So the people that are unable to contact, we will find 15 or 20% on the phone, and then we will find another 15 or 20% by knocking on their doors. So we found them, and now we do now, we do our now we do our thing. But that's, that's where it starts

Laurel Donnellan 27:55
amazing. So you need people to work for you that really, really care, but also have courage to get out in their community and and seek people out

Scott Schnell 28:04
very, very true. And you know, it's a challenge, because the people that we seek to hire have to do two things. Well, they have to be willing to knock on a stranger's door, which is never easy, and they need to build a relationship that's also hard, and then they have to provide care to on an ongoing basis for six to 12 months. So very distinct activities that they do, the skill sets that they have to have to do that work.

Laurel Donnellan 28:38
Could you tell us a couple of stories, maybe, of people out in the field and how they're doing and how they figure this out, and maybe how they help people.

Scott Schnell 28:47
So I think we have, we have team meetings so they, they they're they're good, they're always every part of every team meeting is for those in the those who are working in the field to share their stories, to keep the rest of us connected to what we do and why it's why we do. The Best Story, the best story that I take away is we had a person who showed up at someone's house, and they went into the house and it smelled like rotten eggs, and there are four or five people in the home, they're going to see one person, and it smelled like rotten eggs. And they knew that. They knew we teach that rotten eggs means your gas is off, so that the person got everyone out of the house, was very dangerous, got everyone out of the house and called the gas company, and the gas company came, and they turned the pilot light back on, and we they were able to go back in the house. But in that, in that moment, what the family realized, and what the gas company said, was the family didn't know they would have gone to sleep that night and they would have all died, and because we were there, because our Community Health Navigator was able to solve the problem, that family is alive today, and we do things like that. And I hear these stories with regularity, I heard another story about about a person we were trying to help who was living in a trailer, very, very dirty, An unhealthy environment, and was resistant to care, and as we built the relationship, what the person really wanted was to be able to see. Well, they needed eyeglasses, so we worked with that person to get them eyeglasses. And it took it's not easy working the system is not easy, but we helped them get eyeglasses. We were that we were there. Remember, our goal is to keep them out of the hospital, but things, a lot of things, contribute to somebody needing health care. And this person, we got them eyeglasses. They went into their home, they see better, and they say, Oh, I've got to clean we've got to clean this up. So the next step was, we're working and helping them clean up the place they live in, or helping make that happen. And then as you're building that trust, you get to the health care, the health care that they need, whether it's help with diabetes or or depression or whatever it might be, then you can start to get to those things.

Laurel Donnellan 31:42
It's amazing what has happened from just connecting people to another human like so many beautiful ripple effects.

Scott Schnell 31:52
And for us, it's very much about their labors of love that the people that I work with do they love the care they love, what they do, it's they're deeply empathetic and passionate about it, and and good things, good things come of it,

Laurel Donnellan 32:11
beautiful. So tell us about your growth. How have you you've been doing this for 12 years, is that right? Yep, so tell us about how you've grown and what the future might look like for growth.

Scott Schnell 32:29
So we grew last year. We grew 35% over the year before that, and this year, we're expecting to grow by 50 or 60% so we were growing very quickly. Sadly, the need is greater than the need is great. The need for services like ours is vast, and we're growing with it. Where I think about the future, and I talked about our brand a little bit and where the name came from, and I kind of talked about this being important. I go back to that, which is, in 510, 15 years down the down the road in the future, I really want us to be a respected, a respected brand, that people smile when they see it because they know that what we're doing for for people who really need it. So the people are you're smiling because you know that we're helping somebody, and the person that we're helping smiles because they know that we're coming to help them, and that that we the brand, starts to have its own, it starts to have its own cachet and trust embedded within it.

Laurel Donnellan 33:50
So how can we all help you that are listening do more of this or get custom I mean, your your customers, your paying customers are insurance companies, yes,

Speaker 1 34:01
yes. So

Laurel Donnellan 34:02
can I, like, call my insurance company and say, Hey, you should, you should do this? Or how, how can we help you?

Scott Schnell 34:11
Great question. How could you help me? Um, sure, for your, for those, for those listeners who are leaning into this, you or others who are who are saying, Yeah, this is incredibly valuable. You can certainly make introductions to to insurance companies or to large, what I'll call at risk provider groups who have members who are disengaged, members who are who are unable to contact. They tend to be poorer, older and struggling in the in their in their daily lives, and those are the people that we're most suited to help the system does well with people who have good support networks, people who have cars, people who are still working. But for those who are who are truly struggling with with behavioral health issues or substance use disorders, or or, or or mobility, we can really provide that support. And for insurance companies that every insurance company has those people, and we, somebody referred to us as their Navy SEALs, we go where no one else goes, and we're sort of the last, the last last mile. Those are the people we work with.

Laurel Donnellan 35:40
Yeah, I before knowing about you, I really had no idea that something like this exists. And I just think it's amazing. It's a miracle, really. And it it does make me smile and and it makes me sad that there's so many people that aren't touched yet, right, like that aren't helped yet.

Scott Schnell 36:00
And look, there are a lot of community based organizations that help a lot of people. I was on a board of one. It's part of how I, I sort of learned how to, I just learned a lot about about the people we serve from this board I was on and working in the in the Food Bank and and, you know, and maybe that's part of my answer. How can people help? I'm not sure that they can help meds and directly, but we can. We can. We can volunteer at our food banks. We

Laurel Donnellan 36:31
can all do something for our communities, through our church, through not for profits, through food banks. And the need is huge.

Scott Schnell 36:40
Yes, yes. So I think those are, those are all, yeah, those are all, all things that that we can do, we can do to help.

Laurel Donnellan 36:52
And how many states are you in? Or how do you, how do you measure your growth or your impact?

Scott Schnell 36:57
I met, we serve about 10,000 people today, we have served, gosh, over close to 100,000 people over, over the time we've been doing this. Our goal is so we measure it in the in in the lives that we impact, the number of lives we impact. And that's how, that's how I think about it. Yeah, that's how, that's how I think about it.

Laurel Donnellan 37:26
I saw a lot of stats on your website. I didn't remember any of them, but I am also curious, like, what is the impact on the insurance companies? Or, how do you save them money? I think that's interesting, too.

Scott Schnell 37:38
So it's what. When you ask me what we do, I tend to start with the benefit to the insurance company, because while what we do pulls at the heart and makes the engine run at the end of the day, well, it is the engine, but, but the what has to happen is we have to reduce utilization, and we've had health plans tell us that we will reduce we will reduce hospitalizations by as much as 50% and we will reduce ed ed visits by 30 and 40% so we are moving the needle. We are generating a return on investment for our customers, which is which is impactful and which is why they can hire us and engage us and let us serve more members.

Laurel Donnellan 38:31
The things I like to ask my CEOs that I get to talk to is, what is the best part of your job and what is the hardest part of your job,

Scott Schnell 38:43
best part of my job, hardest part of my job. The best part of my job is the best part of my job is working with the people I work with, watching them grow, helping them grow, solving their problems. I get I get joy out of being able to do that every day, not sure they get joy out of me doing it every day. But I get joy. I get joy out of helping them do that every single day, the hardest part of my job. The hardest part of my job is probably, how do I say this? How I recognizing through whatever is going on, that how I show up matters and the organization. I'm 60 plus years old, and it's taking me a long time to realize that that the organization feeds off of me one way or another, and the way I show up impacts how they show up, instills confidence or lack of confidence, and doing that through thick and thin, and in times when you're worried about making payroll can be really hard. Be really hard. Fortunately, I'm not in that position. I'm not in that position, but I have certainly been there. And when you're worried about making payroll, and you're saying, I've got payroll in three days. How am I going to do this? That can be really trying. And knowing that you've got hundreds of lives who you are responsible, hundreds of families that are dependent on you, is that a massive amount of stress and and showing up, showing up the right way, that's that's really hard.

Laurel Donnellan 40:43
How do you manage your own stress?

Speaker 1 40:47
What

Scott Schnell 40:49
did you say? Do

Laurel Donnellan 40:50
you have any tips for all of us?

Scott Schnell 40:52
Well, three years ago, I decided I was going to become a triathlete. I I've leaned into swimming, biking, more exercise, swimming, biking and running. In fact, last year I did a half Ironman, which takes for those who don't know, it's a mile swim, it's 55 miles on a bike, and it's 13 miles of running. Took me six plus hours, and that, I would say that that is how I've sort of, that is the thing that I've done to maintain my own health and sanity.

Laurel Donnellan 41:31
I'm very impressed with that. Scott, well done.

Speaker 1 41:34
Thank you.

Laurel Donnellan 41:35
Well done. So we'd like to, is there anything else you want people to know about? Med, Zed or you before we wrap up with a few final questions.

Scott Schnell 41:47
Um, what do I want you to know? I think, I think that, uh, every business is a people business. There's some, there's some, there's some number of people who are, who are in the business. In our case, we are very much dependent on adding more people to grow faster. And to do that is to do that requires a lot of different things, a lot of moving parts. To do that, it requires the right people doing the teaching. It requires the right the right training materials. It requires hiring the right people. It requires the right management. And I think fundamentally, what it requires is that what I what I call balancing humanity and productivity, because on the one hand, I need to generate revenue. Each person has to do more, but for each person to do more is hard, so we lean into technology to do that for sure, and we also always, can never lose sight of the humanity, of what we do for Our members, and live that with each other, and it's hard, and it conflicts with one another, and it's really important for us to grow and and to build the company we want to build. Our turnover is very low, for healthcare, for our space, what we do is really difficult, and the people that I the people who do it every single day, I am, I am grateful for them being being at my side to do it and and providing them the support they need. Is, is, is, is, is a challenge and something we live with every day.

Laurel Donnellan 43:58
I would say that being the Navy Seals of healthcare is not for everyone, but it's probably super satisfying for those that are part of your team.

Scott Schnell 44:06
I think that's right.

Laurel Donnellan 44:07
Yeah. So we always like to ask two questions at the end of our podcast, what is one life lesson you'd like to share with our listeners? And what is one leadership lesson you'd like to share.

Scott Schnell 44:21
The life lesson is to be relentless and never give up, perhaps be curious and ask lots of questions. Figure out, figure out what you care about, figure out your passion, and never lose sight of it. And then, I think, most importantly, and this is something that's coming more recently for me, that you should enjoy the journey, because it's the only one you get. And I would tell you that the leadership lesson I talked about this a little earlier, how you show up, matters. The team is always watching you and try and let joy and humor be part of every day.

Laurel Donnellan 45:08
Yeah. I mean, it may not be fair as a leader or as a parent, but it's like your your team is watching you. They're feeling if you're coming in grumpy, they're feeling it. Someone told me a long time ago how you show up as a leader is going to be at the dinner table of your team later on. So you're not only affecting them, but you're affecting their spouse and their kids and their parents, and everyone's going to hear about you if you don't show up in a dignified way, and if, when you do show up in a dignified way, people are going to hear about that too. So

Scott Schnell 45:45
well true, yes.

Laurel Donnellan 45:47
And how do we find out about you? Your company? Where do we go?

Scott Schnell 45:54
So, best places. Website, it's it's my med z.com, m, y, M, E, D, z, E, d.com, we spend a lot of energy iterating that, that site. So it's, it's, it's, I think it's, it's, it's pretty good.

Laurel Donnellan 46:13
Well, I am so impressed with you. You, you are an amazing, compassionate leader. You bring home this idea of sustainability. Before we met, I didn't know that you were a triathlon or how do you say triathlete? Get the English Correct. Laurel, it's been a pleasure spending time with you this afternoon. Thank you,

Scott Schnell 46:37
Laurel. Thank you very much. It's great to meet you. Bye.

Laurel Donnellan 46:44
Judy, you can come back now.

Judy Brennan 46:47
Okay, I thought it was great. Judy

Scott Schnell 46:49
is going to yell at me. Let's hear Come on, Judy.

Laurel Donnellan 46:54
Is there

Speaker 1 46:54
anything

Judy Brennan 46:55
different turn than I thought it would but no, it was great.

Laurel Donnellan 46:58
Hey. I mean, if I was listening to this, I'd want to apply for a job at meds ed. So,

Speaker 1 47:04
yeah,

Laurel Donnellan 47:05
we, we did that. I think I'd want to support you in growth. It's kind of a no brainer for insurance companies, if they know about you, right? Like,

Judy Brennan 47:17
yeah, you would think, I think with the regulation the way it is right now. It's a sticky place. But yes,

Speaker 3 47:23
yeah,

Scott Schnell 47:24
the thing, the things that we do, the things that we do bear fruit, you don't bear fruit day one.

Laurel Donnellan 47:32
Yeah, no, say it's a long sales cycle.

Scott Schnell 47:36
Well, it's a long sales cycle, but caring for somebody changing behaviors.

Laurel Donnellan 47:41
Oh, right, right, right. It's not going to be a quick ROI, it's not a right, but over the life of someone, it could save, I'm sure, 1000s and 1000s of dollars.

Judy Brennan 47:54
That's a big distinction. But about med Zed, compared to other companies that do similar things, is med zch ends or community health navigators, stick with people for a long time. So if you've got someone who's got an addiction problem and they're not ready to give it up today, you call them three months letter and say, Hey, how's it feeling? And they may be ready, you know, but you never give up. This the point,

Laurel Donnellan 48:18
yeah, and that's, I mean it, and I'm it's remarkable that you have low turnover, and the low turnover is probably critical to making that happen, right? Like you have, you have to stick, yeah. I mean, it's also, even if you're not an addict, as I am, I am, I'm past my I'm 66 so you know, there's a lot more problems with me now than there was Judy, anything we didn't hit on that, you

Speaker 1 48:48
know,

Judy Brennan 48:49
I think you've got everything. I thank you for your time. I think we're good.

Laurel Donnellan 48:53
Yeah,

Judy Brennan 48:53
thank you, Scott.

Laurel Donnellan 48:55
It's great to meet you, and I'm gonna circle back with you for some networking in the next few months, if that's okay,

Scott Schnell 49:02
perfect, Laurel, thank you very much. Great to meet you. Thanks for your time.

Laurel Donnellan 49:06
Yeah, thanks.

Speaker 1 49:08
Take

Judy Brennan 49:08
care. Thank you, Laurel, appreciate it. Bye

Speaker 1 49:11
bye.

Laurel Donnellan 49:11
Great afternoon. Bye bye.

Judy Brennan 49:13
You too. Bye bye bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai