The Every Ancillary Podcast is a weekly podcast that highlights products and sales techniques pertinent to the medical sales and ancillary space. This episode launches the Diabetes Diagnostics and Treamtent Protocol. This podcast gives you an outline of what the new protocol is all about.

We’ve been working on a treatment protocol for one of the top chronic diseases that costs roughly about 50 billion dollars a year in this country, which is diabetes and diabetes related illnesses. What we’ve done is put together a whole treatment protocol, from start to finish, that helps diagnose patients, screen patients for obesity, and for pre-diabetes, and diabetes, track the progression of their disease, and most importantly, help with the treatment of the condition.

That’s quite a power packed bundle in my opinion. We’ve been talking about this for quite a while, and I think we’ve finally got all the pieces of the puzzle put together to make it a very lucrative, and important program for physicians to implement because it’s really going to help them with such a large percentage of their diabetic population. I was reading earlier there’s 86 million people in the United States alone that are currently undiagnosed with pre-diabetes. That’s a staggering number, and I know with this program, physicians can certainly help identify these patients much earlier and help them more proactively through ongoing screening, and then of course treat them with the medical weight loss program that we’ve got as our partner now.

Yeah, it’s very empowering. Not just for the doctor, but for the patient as well. You’re going to be able to detect patients before they have diabetes, in a lot of cases, or patients that maybe don’t have full onset diabetes yet and you can nip it in the bud. Research suggests lifestyle changes including weight loss have a major impact on patient outcomes. This can result in positive correlation with even reversing the symptoms and signs of diabetes. I know I was just reading, Viv, one study that was published in “Journal of Diabetes Care” that found that 40% of people who lost 33 pounds and kept it off for six months, were able to send their diabetes into remission.

That’s quite a huge number, definitely. I know from just my knowledge around the TM-Flow, that’s one of the things that particular device tests for is it looks at overall cardio metabolic risk and the impact of lifestyle has a huge improvement on the cardio metabolic risk, which is that precursor to diabetes. So it’s definitely a power packed bundle. So Mike, what do they get in the bundle?

This might be a long podcast Viv, because there’s a lot of things that are included here, so I won’t spend too much time on each individual thing, but just what this is is a turnkey model so that your doctors can take advantage of existing codes, and take advantage of the quality measures that are out there too. I mean, this is the other thing we haven’t talked about Viv, but this is something that CMS and insurance companies want doctors to do. This is the definition of an ounce of prevention here. This saves the healthcare system money, so they want to spend money on these codes because this will ultimately save the system lots and lots of money.

But it will make your doctor a lot of money. Now what gets included in the package, first and foremost – it is turnkey. So that means full onsite training. It’s two days of intensive training in the practice. What they’re going to be trained on is the medical weight loss protocol, which has counseling codes as well as some additional codes for remote patient monitoring. We also will be including tons of equipment with this, so number one is a BMI scale. This also includes the TM-Flow. This includes the Diabetic Neuropathy Device. It includes a heart rate variability device called The Max Pulse. It includes a really cool little retina scanner that attaches to an iPhone that is a digital ophthalmoscope to check for diabetic retinopathy, and it includes patient handouts, and it includes a treatment protocol for the practice to follow. Am I forgetting anything off that list, Viv?

Yes you are. The scales that the patient takes home that is part of the medical weight loss program.

There is a scale that the patient takes home, and it has that Bluetooth capability that taps into an app that helps them track and manage their weight, their BMI, and their body composition as well.

Yes, and that is covered under the remote patient monitoring codes so that’s part of the revenue the doctor will be seeing. The patient basically weighs themselves at home, and that data will get transmitted to the EMR system for the practice. So they can monitor their own chart.

Then there’s also some foods. Part of the 5 step medical weight loss program is that it helps the patient feel full, and it provides foods that actually the patient feels satisfied after they’ve eaten because they taste good, and actually fill them up, and have good nutritional value as well. So part of the program is meal replacements, but the good news is that the doctor doesn’t need a fridge or freezer to store these in their practice. They’re going to be room temperature ones, and the package comes with an initial allocation of those meals as well. So the practice is really going to have everything that they need for proactive diabetes screening and patient care. It’s going to be a power packed bundle, and the other good thing with the package is that it provides ongoing revenue.

It’s just, not just a show-up today and you make all your money in one hit. That patient’s going to be returning back to that practice every month for additional visits regarding counseling and addressing the things that are really stopping patients from losing weight. I’m going to segue into just talking about the medical weight loss component. A big part of that is the behavioral component, and this is where physicians are challenged as well as patients in helping them to manage patient weight loss is that they’re not addressing that root cause of why is the patient having challenges losing weight. So not only are we giving them food to help them lose weight, we’re addressing those behavioral aspects.

There are about 44 different education modules across nine different categories that the patient can be educated in to help them improve their behavior, and that comes with a behavioral counseling code that the physician can bill. All that counseling’s automated so it’s not actually going to take up time for the people in the practice to actually provide counseling verbatim every time the patient shows up. It’s really going to provide a lot of value to the practice in ongoing patient loyalty. The reimbursements come month after month, and that is not just from the counseling, but also retesting. Patient motivation will come as the patient starts to get results.  It’s going to tie into some other nice things like the remote patient monitoring, as you already mentioned as well.

It is set to give the doctor a real full term case solution by the time they complete training after a couple of days, that they’re going to have everything they can make to see, potentially about  $3-4,000 per patient per anum. That is significant revenue for a very important condition. The average diabetic, their health expenditure is about 2.3 times the average person’s health expenditure. So the burden on the health costs is huge from these patients. This protocol will provide a cost saving overall too. The good news is reimbursable codes, reimbursable through commercial and Medicare, and also there’s a cash component with some of the medical weight loss components such as some additional injections that the patient can get too.

Yeah, so the value of this is tremendous. Number one, we’ve had success with other programs that are turnkey models. Doctors like turnkey models because one of their biggest complaints is lack of time. We are going to save them time by holding their hands and walking them through the whole process. Training them on every piece of machinery, training them in the whole protocol, so they’ll have peace of mind there. But while the price tag might look high, it’s really actually a pretty good value. Only 25 patients is about the break even point. 25 patients enrolled into the program will completely pay off that program. There is financing available by the way guys, so what this is going to cost the doctor roughly $1,700 per month depending on what they qualify for, but for $1,700 per month, they’ll be making at least $3,000 per year, per patient that’s enrolled.

Roughly 40% of their patient population, or more, would qualify for the program. But the best part, the best part Viv, is this is really built to sell. We have made this very, very attractive for distributors who are wanting to promote this program. You’re not coming in under any middle man. You’re selling direct. This is an exclusive product that we have.  There is a residual component through the remote patient monitoring and there are some other things that you can add onto it, but the main bulk of this comes in an upfront payment. So as you close the deal, when we go to do the installation, and we show up at the practice, you’re usually paid within a few days of the installation.

You are looking at, for the rep side, a healthy commission. It does not take many of these sales. I mean Viv we sold several of these just in February, so to think that a rep could put their head down, and close one of these every three months, you’re already at a six figure salary, and that’s not including the add on programs and the residual component. You have things like chronic care management, which is an easy add on because this is a chronic illness. They only have to have two chronic illnesses, and better than nine out of 10 of these patients are going to have a second chronic illness to pair with their diabetes or obesity. You also have things like the wound care, which is a huge market, and a ton of innovation going on in that market as well with the MyOwnSkin through CSQ, that’s very nice income there.

You have different lab tests that you may be able to add on. These are not included in the bundle, but these are things that you’re going to get your foot in the door. There are some great things that you can add on to the bundle to earn even additional, residual revenue on top of the $25,000 that you’re going to get upon closing.

So with the, what the practice is looking to make, the practice is probably going to make anywhere from $1-300,000 per provider just in the equipment testing, and then the weight loss component on top of that is going to add anywhere from probably another 300 to 400,000 to even over a million dollars per year in revenue collectively. It’s a major revenue generator for a practice because they already have the patients in the four walls at their practice that would quality for this program. It’s not something that they need to go out and market to attract patients to their practice. As you said already, probably close to between 35 to 40% of patients that attend a physician’s office are diabetic. If they’re diabetic, they already qualify more than likely because most of those patients are going to be overweight with a comorbidity, and also many of them will be obese as well.

That’s not including the patients that are part of that 86 million people that are pre diabetic who are yet to be diagnosed with diabetes. So add on another, I don’t know how many, but if you’re a physician seeing 20 patients a day, you’ve got to say at least half of those patients would qualify for at least some components, if not all of this particular program. So if they just enroll one patient per day, so that’s one patient per day, 22 working days in a month and times that by 12 months in the year. That’s over a million dollars a year right there just enrolling one patient per day. So if that doesn’t get their juices flowing, I don’t know what does.

By the time we roll this podcast out, if you’re listening to this, this means we have launched. Viv and I are putting the final touches on this as we’re recording it so you can find this on Everyancillary.com. Just look under the DDT protocol. Diabetes, diagnostics and treatment protocol. You can sign up directly. This is very easy to sell. We’re going to have all the materials for you. On top of a training video we have, a video that you’ll be able to show your doctors. We have a pro forma to show them all the codes, and a full one year schedule on all the visits, and which codes they’re going to hit at each visit with a patient. We have a one page flyer that Viv has put together. A front and back, plus another flyer that shows the different components of the treatment protocol.

Then, of course, we have individual videos for all of the different components of this. The medical weight loss, the DI, the max pulse et cetera. If any of your doctors want to take a deeper dive we have plenty more information. You’ll also have a credit application, and that’s basically your close. Most doctors are going to finance it. When they are ready to go, you can just have them fill in a credit application and submit it to Vivien. We usually have approvals within hours, if not a day on the long end. We can be out to that practice, usually between two and three weeks, to get all the equipment out and to schedule the training. You’re paid right then, so this isn’t something that you’re three to six months out from pay day. You could have this money in March. Anything else to add Viv?

If you want to start talking to your doctors about it the best thing you can do is just get into a conversation with them about diabetes. Ask them how they currently are treating their diabetic patients. Ask them about their frustrations about motivating them with a lifestyle change, or just ask them how many diabetic patients they see each day. From that, you’ll be able to tell the physician exactly how much money it can be making. Money talks.

To find out more about the Diabetes Diagnostics and Treatment Protocol, go to www.everyancillary.com.