Laurie Baedke (00:02.356)
Well, hello, and welcome to another episode of the Growth Edge Leadership Podcast. I am your host, Laurie Baedke and today I'm joined by a dear friend and fellow Omahan and Taya Gordon. Taya is a healthcare executive, a consultant, author, speaker, and podcast host, and one of those people that just somehow manages to combine deep expertise with an unforgettable sense of humor. Taya's the CEO of
Atlas Perpetua Healthcare and is one of the nation's leading experts on healthcare revenue cycle management. I am so excited to dig in today's conversation because I have a feeling that we're gonna learn a lot and probably laugh a little bit along the way. Welcome, Taya. I'm so glad to sit down with you.
Taya (00:48.076)
Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here and I love the intro. Thank you.
Laurie Baedke (00:52.904)
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, Tea, you are such a formidable and well-regarded expert in a very, very niche portion of healthcare. And that's not even the topic that we're planning to dig into today. It may come up in relevant comments, but you and I were recently together at an event on the West Coast and we were talking a little bit about hope.
And so that's really kind of our target in today's conversation. But before we even started recording today, we were joking a little bit about healthcare and leadership chaos, hence the importance of hope. So maybe just start off by sharing what's one thing in healthcare that still somehow surprises you.
Taya (01:42.155)
that's a good question because it there's so much. there's so much that still surprises me in this industry. But I think the one thing that's been consistent from when I started in healthcare till now is how hard it is for providers to get paid and to keep their money. I remain constantly surprised at all of the new ways that that there are challenges in that, there are hiccups, that extra steps get created.
That seems really shocking to me.
Laurie Baedke (02:15.336)
Yeah, I totally agree. And you know, I I start to dread even acknowledging this, but I think this summer is my 28th year in healthcare, starting my 29th year in healthcare. And from the late 90s through today, like it has been very iterative in its process, the nomenclature and the alphabet soup that we use to talk about certain things that are going on in health.
care and specifically in the financial and and reimbursement realms of healthcare have evolved. But you're right, the velocity of change is increasing and just the amount of barriers or hurdles or headwinds that face healthcare professionals and their teams is seemingly insurmountable.
Taya (02:58.829)
Yes.
Taya (03:08.576)
It seems to just be increasing every year, kind of year over year. And it's it's interesting. There's a lot of people that ask me, like, have you watched The Pitt Do you watch The Pitt on HBO? And they're so excited about it. And so many people are loving it because they feel seen. And it's so beautiful that it exists, but it's also so sad that they didn't feel seen before that. It's such a challenge.
Laurie Baedke (03:30.632)
It is. Yeah. So maybe on a scale of I've got this to I am one email away from moving to live in the woods. Where do you think healthcare leaders are today?
Taya (03:45.679)
You know, I it that is challenging because I feel like they probably vary between all of that, everything on that spectrum every day. So I think I think clinically every they're like, I've got this, I've got this covered. I went to school, I learned how to do the things. I'm very good at at patient care. But, you know, when you look at the regulatory complexity, when you look at the the payer challenges and just the general hoops they have to jump through and then
Kind of that general opacity in the industry, that I think is where they want to go into full bunker mode. And sometimes you see, you know, clinicians, managers, billing staff go through those iterations multiple times a day. You you might get a single task and think, okay, I've got this one. And then the very next phone call that you get, or the very next patient in front of you, you're Nope, where's the bunker? I'm back on Zillow and I'm looking for a bunker again.
And I think it I think that is kind of where some of the burnout comes from is the you know yo-yoing between those two feelings. And it is really it really is like a yo-yo kind of a pendulum swing. I don't see a lot of people that are like, it's been better, it's been worse. It's like it this is awful or it's okay, this is great, and this industry is beautiful. It's really that whole swing back and forth kind of consistently and sometimes even inside of the same day.
Laurie Baedke (05:07.122)
Yeah. I think you're right. And I think that that cognitive load, right, is the thing that depletes even the most capable and extraordinary human beings from being able to bring their best to what it is that they do, regardless of the role that they play. If they're a physician, if they're for a receptionist at the front desk, if they're someone who's working in Rev Cycle, or if they're one of the nurses, etc., whatever that role is.
Taya (05:12.43)
Yeah, huh?
Laurie Baedke (05:34.02)
That yo-yo and that level of distraction and weight and just the obstacle course and the whack-a-mole game is a big drain or depletion on those highly trained professionals and very, very capable and strong humans capacity to continue to get through every single day or week. Yes.
Taya (05:57.76)
Yes, I would absolutely agree. And I would also say that something that adds to the cognitive load is the context switching. So you might be doing clinical care, but then as soon as you step out of the room, you're doing insurance regulation conversations and talking to the billing manager about something that happened before or maybe a CPT code that you haven't been using correctly. And that constant context switching switching, I think, is adding to the cognitive load in a way that is really tremendous, but also something we really aren't talking about.
Laurie Baedke (06:27.88)
Yeah. So where does that intersect with hope? Because, you know, you kind of whispered in my ear in a conversation a couple of weeks ago this concept of hope. And I have seen and I've I've read some of the most recent research on how hope is one of the, if not the single most impactful and influential gifts that leaders can give to their followers. And it's powerful, but
What depletes it and what has caused it to be front of mind for you?
Taya (07:01.717)
I think you know, you and I were at that event, and it I think that's part of why it was so front and center. I had the opportunity to say a piece to a group of independent physicians that were in the room, and we maybe had somewhere near a hundred people in the room. It wasn't a massive event. but in building that piece, I recognized, particularly in independent practice where it's it's smaller, it's entrepreneurial.
You kind of go into that thinking, I want my freedom. I don't want to work with a big system. I want to do what I want to do. I want to help my community in my way. And feeling that really empowered sense of an approach to the clinical care setting. And then you get in there and you really start to feel lonely. And digging into that and realizing how alone so many practices and providers feel.
I really just started thinking, man, no wonder they're so stressed out. They don't have hope that anything's gonna get better. They don't have hope that anybody is, you know, moving along in the same path with them. And not only that, but I mean my clients are all over the country. And so I might talk to somebody in South Carolina who is feeling really hopeless about payer contract negotiations. And I talked to two other clinics in Massachusetts and Oregon and Nebraska that are having the exact same issues and the exact same struggles and stresses and
Then, you know, I think it kind of came up also because there's these Facebook mom groups. And, you know, I have a bunch of children, a variety of ages. So when I see somebody panic about something, I'm like, don't worry about that. That's not a big deal. All kids do that. You're doing good. You're doing so good. Where is that in our industry where the people who are going through the same thing are saying, you're doing great. We see you. You're doing fantastic. I was where you are. Let me help you with that.
Laurie Baedke (08:38.068)
Mm.
Taya (08:45.867)
We are missing kind of that community. We're taking care of the community, but we're doing it without community. That's an inherently hopeless place to be. And so that's why I think we've got to start bringing it more into the fold and creating that space because otherwise you have physicians telling their children not to go into medicine when we already have a shortage of providers in the nation. So it's one of those things that it really cascades, it kind of snowballs the problem does quickly when we lose hope and we lose sight of that light at the end of the tunnel.
Laurie Baedke (09:15.42)
Yeah. So I think that you're cueing in on something really, really important. And I'm I'm curious what you think is the difference between someone saying everything's gonna be fine and hey, we're gonna figure this out together.
Taya (09:32.631)
So when people say everything's going to be fine, it's just so totally untrue. It's so totally untrue. It's like when you bump into somebody in the elevator and they're like, hi, how are you? And you're like, I'm good. How are you? And maybe you're not good. And I mean, I'm guilty of that. I've said that a thousand times. I'm totally fine. Like, are you fine? Are you really fine? Or like that meme where the world is building down, like burning down around him. And he's like, everything's fine. This is fine. Everything's going to be fine. It's not true.
Laurie Baedke (09:38.794)
Mm-hmm.
Taya (09:59.648)
It's just simply not true. And that's really frustrating. And also, how are we even defining what is fine? Because in this industry, we keep accepting more and more and more burden and just trying to suss through it on our own. I think the difference is when you're approaching something by saying, we're going to figure this out together, first of all, you're accepting that things do need to change. You are stating out loud things are not fine. And it's okay that they're not fine, but you've also injected kind of a call to action. While things are not fine.
We are going to fix it. We are going to work on this. We're going to figure this out together. When you say, I'm going to figure this out together with you, I'm telling you, you're not alone. I am called to action with you. And I'm also recognizing that none of this is okay and that none of this is fine. There's so much camaraderie in that that it builds hope. I think when we just say this is fine or it's going to be fine.
we really negate our own our our own our own gut feelings. We're like trying to convince ourselves of something that's not true. That's that's an uncomfortable space to be in.
Laurie Baedke (11:04.82)
Yeah. I think you're spot on. And I I think that it's important to clarify. I don't think that hope is pretending that things aren't hard or that pretending that things are okay. And in those superficialities, like someone that you barely know or don't know at all asks you how you are and you say fine, that is the appropriate response because even though things may be a complete dumpster fire, it's not necessarily socially appropriate to dump that on a stranger.
Taya (11:14.157)
Yeah.
Taya (11:32.653)
Of course. Yeah.
Laurie Baedke (11:35.422)
But on the other hand, hope isn't necessarily pretending that things aren't hard because that fake positivity, healthcare professionals can smell that fake positivity a mile away. And that is demoralizing. That compounds moral injury in healthcare professionals. But when we find the community of people where that tension between
Taya (11:43.158)
Yes.
Taya (11:50.605)
Mm-hmm.
Laurie Baedke (12:03.612)
This morning I was doing great, and the sky is falling this afternoon, and I had a little bit of bandwidth to help you out earlier. And now I have to acknowledge that I need to have you help me carry some of the water. That community and that sense of camaraderie to use the term that you just mentioned, I think that that is the antidote. And I think that there's something really powerful and magical in connection. It might just be one other human being that.
you trust and can hold things together for you, or it might be a much larger collective of individuals. Would you agree?
Taya (12:41.854)
Yes, I would absolutely agree. And I think that I heard something recently that somebody said and it was a provider and I I absolutely loved it because I said, How are things going? And it was before we kicked off like a deep evaluation, but I wanted sort of their perspective. And they said, better than yesterday, not as good as tomorrow.
And that just encapsulated it for me. Yes. Yes. Like, even if, and I agree with you, you can't always just like dump on everybody about the healthcare woes when they ask how your day is. But I loved that answer because it kind of recognized where they were at. It recognized the space that they were currently in while stating like we've got some work to do, but we're feeling good about it, kind of a thing. And it was so, it was so quick, but I was like, that's it. That's the nugget.
Laurie Baedke (13:29.318)
It is. And Taya, I love that because that's just the smallest thing, action statement, that really kind of quietly but very, very powerfully creates hope. And when leaders can do that, it is it actually has a ripple effect in a team. Would you agree?
Taya (13:52.921)
a hundred percent. A hundred percent. If we're all stating, you know what, we're better than yesterday, but we're not as good as tomorrow, we are inherently saying that we all have hope. We all have hope that it's going to get better and we're all in alignment and trying to get there. I love it.
Laurie Baedke (14:08.552)
Yeah. Have you ever worked for someone who was either a pessimist or a cynic or unintentionally and inadvertently constantly just sucked all of the oxygen and hope out of every room that they were in?
Taya (14:24.722)
absolutely. I think we probably all have. And it's I and I hope that I've not ever been that person. I'm kind of stupidly optimistic as a human. so hopefully I've not been that person, but even on a bad day, I'm sure I could have been. I think particularly in healthcare, sometimes there's a failure to understand, I think, just how much we are all sort of hanging on by a thread. And
Laurie Baedke (14:48.372)
Mm-hmm.
Taya (14:49.95)
It's not just the physicians, it's not just the advanced practice providers, it's really everybody, the clinical support staff, the front desk. I mean, it's it's everybody in there. Everyone is working at mass max capacity. Everybody is right on the edge of of burnout. And so then when you have somebody come in and they say something really simple like, Well, you're coding this wrong, just that is like, do you not understand what's on my plate? Do you not understand what I'm dealing with here? It's that that failure to.
kind of recognize what everybody else is doing. And I see it often when we have consultants, like external consultants, come in. And I'm an external consultant, so I I get it, you know, but I also was a practice administrator, so were you. So we know we approach consulting very differently. Some consultants I come in and they they're like, you're they're doing this wrong, they're doing this wrong, they're doing this wrong. And I'm like, but what did they do right? How many patients have they taken care of?
How many things did they fix on a gut reaction before they even had the evidence to know that something was broken in their revenue cycle or they've renegotiated their own payer contract? Like let's lift them up in that. That's hard work. And it's this recognition of we don't just need to point out the flaws. We also need to give them some boost. And so it's so common for me to see people suck all of the air out of the room. And if you want any example of that, just put your front desk and your billing team in the same room together and then watch.
watch the sparks because usually they're not working together yet. I mean they should be. We want to get there. but they will suck the air out of the room for each other in a heartbeat, typically.
Laurie Baedke (16:23.59)
No, you're so spot on. And I think that that's a really important moment that anyone who's listening, and I know the listeners to this show are very diverse. They are all those different roles that you just mentioned. And so if speak directly to the listener right now and give them a practical call to action to challenge them to go and find one person that they can affirm something that they did right and just the power of that.
Taya (16:54.368)
Yes. There's there's so much power in that and and also just listening to to individuals, letting them know they're not alone. whenever I'm working with groups, what's really seems to be driving kind of hope for them is not only the knowledge that other people are dealing with the same challenges and that they kind of are together in that, but also knowing what that you've done and how impressive that is to some other groups. So I just got off a call with a group.
And I was talking to them about days in AR and they were sad because their days in AR is at 36. And I always recommend they get lower than that. But I had worked with a group two weeks ago and their average days in AR is 147. And so once I told them that, they're like, my gosh, we're not doing terrible. No, you're not doing terrible. So sometimes what they need is really not just the
Hey, you did a good job with this, but also like, no, you actually did. And here is evidence that proves I'm not just patting you on the back, I'm not just placating you. Like, you really are doing really good hard work. And I can see that. And it's so interesting because I'm in this session, I don't want to talk about what I do. I want to stay on hope. But one of the things that's so easy to do with what I do is to show the evidence of where people are working hard and to highlight that. And I think that's so critically important. And it doesn't matter what position you're in.
If you're at the front desk and you're sitting next to a peer of yours and you see they handled a really difficult patient really well, lean over and say that. Like that can really change somebody's entire day. And I think we all have to do that for each other. We all need to be that for each other.
Laurie Baedke (18:27.368)
Agree. Well, and I think that so often healthcare doesn't give the time. There's really no extra margin to sit in the sun or metabolize any wins. They're fewer and farther between, but there are really powerful and palpable moments of impact all over the place in the clinical and non-clinical domains or sides of the house. But
There's not enough time unless we intentionally take time to look at what is right versus what's wrong. Both will always exist. To sit in the sun and celebrate even the smallest of wins, perhaps. And to really kind of metabolize the success or the growth or the progress. And for leaders, again, it can feel like
Those things don't matter, but sometimes they are the only things that matter to keep people moving from kind of that just trying to survive to maybe thriving or feeling more energized or having just enough of a hit of oxygen in their lungs to climb that next hill. Yes.
Taya (19:47.56)
Yes, yes. I would completely agree. And I think that it's it's so easy to get into a place where you don't feel energized in the organization just because of the nature of the work is so cyclical, it's never ending. So those senses of achievement sort of disappear. You don't get to a point where you're like, that's it, all the claims forever are done. You know, as soon as you finish it, more get piled onto your desk. And so that can really it it takes away that sense of achievement. I mean
everything else you do in life, you wash your car at the end of it, your car is clean. Isn't that beautiful? But it's like washing a car and every time you wipe off the last few drops, somebody pours a bucket of mud on it. So we have to be really intentional about about building in those little moments because they don't come inherently in the organization. And it doesn't have to be like big huge things. It can be little tiny moments of recognition. I mean I've sent out Teams messages before giving people out awards.
Because they have that little recognition thing in Teams. And sometimes they're silly awards. One time I gave out an award for unlikely survivor and it was for somebody who withstanded or withstood a call with a payer, even though they'd been on hold for three and a half hours with the payer, and eventually were able to get to the right person to get the claim readjudicated.
And I was like, You are an unlikely survivor. We didn't think you were gonna make it. You powered through. And it gave her a little medal and we made a meme about her. And she printed it out and hung it on her desk. Like she was so proud to be an unlikely survivor. It took me all of forty seconds to draft that up and send it to her, but to her it was important enough to print it and hang it at her desk. It's the little things that we can do to let people know we see them that I think are so valuable.
Laurie Baedke (21:28.734)
Yeah. Well, and that is just, it's so reinforcing because the the pain of three plus hours on hold or in process with a payer organization, that's just brutal. And it should not be that hard. Let me just say that again, yell it from the rooftops like it should not be that hard, but that is impactful and it does matter, even if you have to fight that hard.
Taya (21:37.959)
Mm-hmm.
Taya (21:49.29)
Yes.
Laurie Baedke (21:58.196)
for every payment, for every penny that comes in. But those impacts, especially when they're acknowledged, really then reinforce that behavior. And celebrating it is a very, very light lift for a leader in comparison to the actual effort that went into that. But it is strongly motivating for that individual to come and show up again the next day or the next time they pick up the phone to make a call to do that again.
Taya (22:15.189)
Mm-hmm.
Taya (22:27.807)
Yes, I think it gives them a little bit more energy the next time remembering the win. Absolutely. You know, you if you r are running races, you remember the medals you previously got. You remember that it's worth it to do that extra little push. And that's kind of what we're doing. Try and remind each other to keep taking those steps forward, I think.
Laurie Baedke (22:46.226)
Yeah. Okay, so you've already given a couple of really amazing examples, but are there any other tiny leadership moments or leadership habits that create way more hope than people might realize?
Taya (23:01.355)
good question. you know, one of the things that I used to do when I was actively working in clinics is I would just randomly go shadow or go, you know, tell somebody like go take a an a long lunch or something like that. But shadowing at their desk is really helpful if you're doing it in a way to learn. So if you're going to shadow to point out what you think they maybe aren't doing right, or if you're going to shadow to
Laurie Baedke (23:21.546)
Mm-hmm.
Taya (23:27.687)
oversee or to be really controlling, that's going to have the opposite of the intended effect. But if you're going there for insight and to learn, like what is causing you extra struggle? What is something that you think could be avoided? What's the biggest pain point that you have in your day so I can see if there's a way that I can help you fix it. Not only are you letting them know that they are seen, but also that the work that they're doing is important and that their level of burnout is important to you.
And I think that when that happens, what they start to do is surface things to you that you really needed to know. That's when you hear things from the the billing team like, well, we never have time to get to 120 plus because we're so busy working all of these. Okay, that's really important for me to know. How can I help address that? Or you'll hear at the front people say things like, Well, nobody knows when this payer card comes in how to enter it because they never put the prefix on the card, which is a real thing that regularly happens. And
Okay, well, I need to know that so I can solve that for you. Let me get you the resources you need for that because I have more time than they do it at intake, you know, or the MAs or the patients are never ready on time when I need to bring them back, and so it disrupts the whole clinical workflow. I need to know that. People aren't just going to run to come tell me that they have a problem because they're also busy. And they also get into this space of, well, they should know what I'm dealing with. So if you sit down and you can take the time to observe or sit at the desk with them, even for little bits of time, it doesn't need to be super structured.
pop in for 15 minutes when you have a little bit of extra time on a Tuesday and just say, no, I just want to check in, see how you guys are doing, how's everything going? Is there anything you need from me? Anything I can do to support? Just that little bit can reduce turnover. It can make your staff more engaged. It can surface problems that really need to be addressed. It it's so much more valuable than the 15 minutes it takes to actually do it.
Laurie Baedke (25:12.222)
Yeah. absolutely. Okay, so I was gonna ask you a question, and that was going to be if if hope had a recipe, what ingredients would be in it? And I already heard you speak to listening. You just talked about active listening. You talked about recognition and celebration. If those are two of the ingredients, anything else that you would add to the hope recipe?
Taya (25:21.206)
Ooh, if Hope had a recipe.
Taya (25:29.917)
yes. I'm sure that I've already said a couple of them. Mm-hmm.
Taya (25:38.834)
Yes. I would absolutely include humor. We don't laugh enough in healthcare. And sometimes it's silly humor. and it just the little bits of laughs are occasionally funny. I think communication is the biggest component, not only you communicating to your team, because that if you're speaking at them, that's really not communication. but making it safe for them to come talk to you as well.
really having that collaborative problem solving approach. Like this is your desk. You have to deal with this all day. I'm not going to go back into my office and make a solution and tell you to implement it. You need to be part of the solution so that I can make sure it works for you. I also think protected strategy time, you know, making sure that you have protected time to be intentional about the direction of where you want the organization, the operations, the revenue cycle, if you don't protect that time, you will find that you never meet and have those strategy sessions.
And I mean I already said humor, but I will just say an abundance of laughter makes a difference. I'm big on team education, and team education also should be fun and engaging. We have to inject what we are missing in this organization, just like taking a supplement. And there's not a lot of humor in this industry unless we put it into there. So I really highly believe that getting a good supplement of laughter can help bring some joy and some hope. Those seem to be kind of intertwined, I think.
Laurie Baedke (27:06.173)
Yeah, I agree. And that has just constantly, for the years that I've known you, Taya you are such a superb and and serious subject matter expert in again, one of the most niche areas in healthcare, which is revenue cycle management. And yet you, A, don't take yourself too seriously. And B, I am never around you and not finding myself with a deep belly laugh.
Taya (27:12.234)
Mm-hmm.
Taya (27:22.28)
Yeah.
Laurie Baedke (27:33.384)
or two which is really, really good for the soul.
Taya (27:34.834)
thank you. That makes me happy to hear. Cause that's usually my goal is to to make it fun, make it engaging, make it something that doesn't just give you nightmares, right?
Laurie Baedke (27:46.16)
Nailed it. You are nailing it. Okay, our time is running out, but are you open for a rapid fire? let's let's get after it and get amongst it.
Taya (27:47.791)
Ha ha ha
Taya (27:55.505)
Yeah, absolutely.
Laurie Baedke (27:57.456)
Okay, okay. target is one word or no more than one sentence answer. Coffee or hope?
Taya (28:04.902)
Okay. Hope.
Laurie Baedke (28:08.132)
One person who gives you hope.
Taya (28:11.655)
usually I would say you, but I'm talking to you, so I'll say Julie Lazarga.
Laurie Baedke (28:16.05)
Love it. Love it. Another Omahan. One word healthcare needs more of.
Taya (28:18.802)
Mm-hmm.
Taya (28:22.218)
Patience. Patience with a C. We need more patience for each other.
Laurie Baedke (28:23.518)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Finish the sentence, hope grows when blank.
Taya (28:32.958)
When it's sought after.
Laurie Baedke (28:36.116)
Worst leadership advice you've ever heard.
Taya (28:39.045)
easy, that's the way we've always done it.
Laurie Baedke (28:42.767)
Touche. Best leadership advice you've ever heard.
Taya (28:47.36)
the person doing the job knows where the pitfall is.
Laurie Baedke (28:51.422)
What's one small thing that immediately improves your mood?
Taya (28:55.452)
Music. Hands down. Dance whenever you can.
Laurie Baedke (28:56.842)
Amen. Okay. If your leadership style had a warning label, what would it say?
Taya (29:04.774)
likely to tell puns, constantly oversharing, and probably going to laugh too loud.
Laurie Baedke (29:12.35)
Love it. I love it. I love it. That's amazing. Last question. Taya if healthcare leaders, I'm gonna I'm gonna resay that. Taya healthcare leaders are carrying a lot right now. Understatement of the year. If someone's listening while they're driving home after a hard day and only remember one thing, what would you want it to be?
Taya (29:28.873)
Mm.
Taya (29:37.478)
Ooh, serious question. I think given where we are right now in the industry, the most important thing for all of us to tell each other is that you're not alone. This industry can make you feel really unseen, unappreciated, unloved, unknown, but you are 100% not alone. If you are one of us, then you are genuinely with all of us. You are all of us, and we are all with you. So reach out to one of us. If something is causing you a lot of friction and a lot of pain,
then reach out. That's what all of us are here for, not just consultants, but also your fellow providers, your competitors are also even there for you. And sometimes the hope that you are needing to receive today is the hope that you're able to give somebody else tomorrow. So remember that you're not alone and just really try to be there for one another.
Laurie Baedke (30:24.008)
Yes. I love that so much. Taya, as usual, you have just taught a master class on a topic that is so, so important and I am certain it's gonna resonate because I am feeling so much more hopeful just from this conversation. So thank you so much for sharing.
Taya (30:41.348)
thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
