Episode Transcript
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Corey Chapman
Welcome back to another exciting episode of The Eye on Healthcare podcast. I’m your host Corey Chapman, alongside my cohost Mr.…
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John Bartolovich
Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. It’s my turn to have the hosting duties. I’m going to be asking the questions today.
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Corey Chapman
Ah, that’s right, that’s right. Apologies.
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John Bartolovich
It says this is John Bartolovich Co, host of the eye on healthcare podcast.
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John Bartolovich
Coming at you live from Cleveland. OH, while Corey is in Auburn, NY. So, Corey, we have not podcasted in a while.
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Corey Chapman
True story.
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John Bartolovich
Where have you been? What’s been going on?
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Corey Chapman
First of all, I love that you kind of really gave it like a radial feel at the top there. Yeah. Live from Cleveland and no one’s going to hear this live. John, we’re not. We’re not. We’re not streaming it, but I love it. I love it.
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John Bartolovich
You and I are alive.
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Corey Chapman
As of right now, knock on wood. Yeah. So, it’s trade show season like you said, and really exciting to be out and about amongst the world again, post. Well, I don’t say post COVID, post lockdown, pandemic time where people are back out and just got back from the AAFP organizations biggest show of the year FMX.
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John Bartolovich
Wow. FMX, what is FMX Corey?
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Corey Chapman
Well, FMX is the largest gathering is one of the largest medical organizations in the US It’s the American Academy of Family Physicians. They have regional meetings and see opportunities throughout the year, but they get together as a big, huge group once a year and since COVID they haven’t been live fully live until this year, so the last time we attended at Topcon was 2019 in Philadelphia. And we’re like, yeah, we’ll see you next year. And then COVID hit. So, there’s been some virtual and hybrid shows since then. But this was sort of that welcome back gathering in Washington, DC and we were really excited to be a part of it. FMX is always a good show and some fun times.
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John Bartolovich
DC did you uh happen to see our mutual acquaintance in DC?
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Corey Chapman
No, I and that’s on me. Our mutual buddy who’s DC based did reach out. We’re supposed to get together and he’s a night owl. I just. Yeah. I’m tired at 8:30 at night. I just can’t go out that late. So next time I’m in the district definitely going to reach out to our bud.
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Corey Chapman
Yeah.
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John Bartolovich
So I yeah, I hear you. Well, I would be remiss. I’m going to ask you more about what went on at FMX. But my first question is. Did you see Bigfoot?
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Corey Chapman
No, no, there’s no big foot at FMX. I think it’s because it’s a family physician, you know, show it’s family oriented. We don’t want to scare the kiddies. So. No, absolutely no. Bigfoot. I’m trying to see trying to think if there was anything that stood out. Super memorable. I mean, it’s tough to top a Sasquatch getting their eyes checked, so, but we did see a lot of folks that had really bold fashion choices both exhibiting and doctors alike. One of my fun favorite one was. There were some, some really great pink pants going on at that show, and so to the point where I was right and I’m like, you know, when I get back home, I got to order some pink pants because they really stood out there, really bold. Looks like they go with any kind of blazer. So. So, yeah, pink pants. Hashtag pink pants on that one.
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John Bartolovich
you can never go wrong with a bold fashion statement. So. So really, how was FMX? What were some of the leading topics?
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Corey Chapman
Yeah. You know, we get the syllabus. Unfortunately, we’re busy as a company to be on the exhibitors’ floor for the most part, but we always have time to leave through the path. Let’s see what show or, excuse me, see what sessions and breakouts are going on. There was one of the to me, some of the themes associated with this show included COVID and coming out of the pandemic, for family of medicine, it was a fantastic emphasis on mental health as well, and then just really dealing in a post pandemic world and I say that understanding that we’re not, we’re definitely not out of the pandemic, but I just think that that verbiage is carrying over to or not in 2020 or 2021. So, this is this feel of like this is post pandemic where we’re living with COVID at this point versus you know that lockdown that we talked about at the top of the show. So, there was a lot around that. Surprisingly, a lot of the conversations that came up were around challenges with staffing challenges, with meeting HEDIS measures. I know, you know, we talk about this all the time on this particular show. But again, staffing was another big one where, you know, the great resignation happened and offices are clearly struggling to be able to keep a full-time staff on or have less turnover, right? And you know as well as I do, John, when you lose somebody, not only do you have that process or that time process of bringing somebody new in, but then getting them ramped up and fully trained, right. So as that’s happening with these smaller offices, it’s becoming harder to be able to do all the additional testing and additional, you know, check-ins for the patients. So that was some of the conversation that we had when we were able to go one-on-one with physicians walking around the floor.
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John Bartolovich
Yeah, that and that seems to be a point of discussion with pretty much every practice we’re talking to that you know they’re being asked to do more and more with less and less. And we already know that primary care is woefully underfunded. So, you know the important that when we are asking and this is probably not probably this is where we can fit in and help a little bit in that you know when you’re asking them to do something else, try to make it at easy is easy as possible, which is one of the nice things about what we do with the diabetic eye exam. It’s a couple pushes of a button and you can get an eye exam done in within 24 hours. Know if the patient has retinopathy or any other pathology.
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Corey Chapman
So it’s really interesting that you say that because I go back to a lot of the conversations that we had on our corner booth. A shout out to Katie Spencer who put it together for us and really had a nice little spot. But it’s kind of all what you just mentioned is incorporated into what happened with the flow of our conversations, right. People would come by we’d say what are the challenges and they would lead with ah yeah, I got to try to close this gap and you know it’s just not just can’t do it because of all these other factors. We’ve talked about the social determinants of health factors around this but then let’s add in now that these offices are not fully staffed anymore. So, when they were doing the chart chasing and say yeah, no, I used to have so and so, and Fridays or Thursday afternoons call and get those reports back. Now their staff doesn’t even have time to do that. So, you hear that and you go Oh yeah, that must be tough to add some sort of new technology. But the beauty of being there live was having one of our cameras there. I mean, we had both our handheld and our tabletop camera, but the beauty was oh, hey, why don’t you sit down for a minute, let me let me capture some images of your eyes? and you know, a minute later it’s done. And so, sir you’re done or ma’am, you’re done. What do you mean? Yeah, we just hit a couple buttons and it was all set. And so, the… not sadness but the like, we can’t get this done, we don’t have the staff to add new technology to… Whoa, whoa, whoa. That was it. It was that easy? I could do it. Somebody at the front desk could do it. I want to know more. So, it’s clearly not solving the problem of staffing issues, but we’re also not we weren’t introducing technology that was hard to use. You know anybody could do it. So again, we had a lot of really good conversations that have carried over since the show and you know we’re at that time of year in FMX is really perfectly, you know, like put in that spot end of September early October, offices are thinking of closing gaps and this is where in that final run through to the end of the year. And we were really excited about how much interest was peaked based on if I put this in and I really commit to it, could we close the gap or really make a dent in the gap this year? So yeah, shout out to FMX for their timing and where we were able to exhibit who’s fun.
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John Bartolovich
Well, that’s great. Uh, sorry I missed that one. I know I’ve been on the road quite a bit prior to that and.
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Corey Chapman
You got to set that one out, yeah.
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John Bartolovich
Uh, yeah, I sat that one out and unfortunately, I got to sit another one out because of the dreaded COVID but yeah, yeah, that’s what it is. We’ve got more coming up. I know you and I will be hopefully attending one here in Orlando. Hopefully things will be OK for the folks down there in Orlando after hurricane Ian, but…
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Corey Chapman
Yep, thinking, thinking about everybody down there in Florida and along the coast for sure. Yeah, there there’s some more coming up. I mean, more on the regional level and we talk about conferences and trade shows. The big ones are great. They’re fun. They’re typically in touristy cities. Obviously this one was in DC but find a lot of value in the regional shows, the state shows, because there’s more time, typically, for the physician or for the representative of the office or the health system to spend time and talk through these things versus I got 5 minutes. I got to get back to the next CE because that’s what they’re there for, right? Getting that additional continuing education. So, these I’m going to put air quotes, these smaller shows are more personable. There’s more time that’s available to have deep dive conversations on different solutions. So, we’re excited to attend those as well. And we do have a few more of those coming up. Hopefully we’ll be able to have great conversations and help close these gaps
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John Bartolovich
They, and that’s the main. That’s the main thing we need to remember that the gap closure.
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Corey Chapman
Right.
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John Bartolovich
Is important, but more important is let’s prevent blindness. We need to keep that up front in focus that you know, 95% of diabetic retinopathy and blindness can be prevented with a simple one minute, 2-minute eye exam.
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Corey Chapman
Right now, John, you did not get to join us in DC did not to get to see any of the historical sites or the White House or anything like that. But you’re a Cleveland boy. What are your thoughts on Chicago, IL?
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John Bartolovich
I like Chicago. There’s a lot to do there. You can get a great steak and one of the best steaks I’ve ever had in my life was a bone in filet in Chicago. So. And then you can’t. You can’t beat the deep-dish pizza or the Italian beef. It’s a lot of good food there.
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Corey Chapman
Ah yes, the deep dish. OK, well, the reason I bring it up is Ignite, which is the theme, the name, the event for FMX fired up for family medicine is in Chicago in 2023, at the end of October, so.
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John Bartolovich
But hopefully I will be able to attend this time.
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Corey Chapman
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We’ll get some deep dish. We’ll take in a Cubs or a White Sox game. Maybe a Bulls game and we’ll make some good memories in the Windy City. How about that?
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John Bartolovich
Sounds great. I I’m going to. I know we’re getting close to the end time here, and I’m going to do something that we haven’t done in past episodes. And I’m going to throw a little tease out there for our audience. Be on the lookout. Some of our future podcasts are going to incorporate some comments from a practicing physician on the importance of the diabetic eye exam and we always have the mail bag.
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Corey Chapman
Umm, I love the mail bag, yes.
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John Bartolovich
For the mail bag, lots of people sending questions and so I foresee a mailbag podcast in our future.
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Corey Chapman
We’re overdue and those folks that have sent questions in and we do appreciate it. First of all, we just go back to the subscribers, appreciate you subscribing to the Eye on Healthcare Podcast. We do this for you. We do this for the education, of course. But we love the feedback and it’s coming in all the time. So, you know, I did. I pulled John, assess the channel. We got a bunch of questions here. We got to get to a mail bag show. So that, like John said, we will be bringing that up and out and releasing that soon. If you like the show, tell a friend and have them tell a friend and hit the subscribe button on whatever pod catcher that you’re using and oh, I’m sorry.
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John Bartolovich
That’s quite alright.
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Corey Chapman
I’m acting like the host all the sudden here. I’m sorry, John. It’s your show.
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John Bartolovich
I’m going to ring us out with and that’s a wrap on this episode of the Eye on Healthcare podcast with your hosts Corey Chapman and John Bartolovich. Thanks for listening.
