March 13, 2025 • 51 mins
From the 82nd Airborne to Disrupting Pharmacy! In this episode, host Wayne Lowry sits down with Matt Hoff, CEO of A-S Medication Solutions, to discuss how he’s tackling medication accessibility through innovative direct sourcing and physician dispensing. They cover the growing issue of pharmacy deserts, the impact of legislative roadblocks in Texas, and why Direct Primary Care is the future of healthcare. Plus, hilarious dad jokes, travel stories, and a surprise Metallica reference.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Matt HoffLuckily not here. Just see my 2-year-old son running around wearing just a diaper with a large—You know, like it's a car that holds Hot Wheels, a large Hot Wheels on his head, running around screaming so…
(00:19):
Wayne LowryWhat? What superhero is he trying to impersonate?
Matt HoffHot Wheels Man? I have no idea. He's 2. He's having the best day he's ever had. Him and his sister are on spring break.
Wayne LowryHey, living his best life.
Matt HoffAnd yeah, I'm sure in 2 minutes he'll come back and he'll be swinging the bat. You know, it's funny. My daughter is like a rambunctious high energy kid. But my son is just a guy who's a dude. He is. He acts like a boy, jumps around, tries to break things.
(00:57):
Matt HoffHe has all of those, like if it's not a hot wheel or an airplane, he doesn't care about it like it is just it's just funny to see somebody who's like so purely a dude.
(01:18):
Wayne LowryHello and welcome to the Best DPC podcast, The World's #1 podcast for All Things Direct Primary Care. I am your host Wayne Lowry. I am not a doctor. But my dad jokes will leave you in stitches.
Wayne LowryToday, I am thrilled to have Matt Hoff with us. He is the CEO of A-S Medical Solutions, a former paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne and a pharmacy guru who is about to make medication more accessible for you and for me.
(01:49):
Wayne LowryFrom jumping out of planes to running a family business, Matt's got a story and we're excited to introduce him to you today. Welcome, Matt.
Matt HoffThanks, Wayne. I, as a dad, I really like the dad jokes, so keep those coming because that is right up my alley.
Wayne LowryOK, well, trust me. None of them are funny. That's the best part of a dad joke.
(02:12):
Wayne LowryIt’s the cringe. Matt Hoff That's the best part.
Wayne LowrySo, I know we talked a little bit about your kids just a moment ago. You got younger kids. I will tell you there is something special about having a teenage daughter when you tell that joke and it's so cringe and they cringe at it and you know it. And it's just like full of pride, full of joy knowing that you've embarrassed your daughter.
(02:37):
Wayne LowryBut on the flip side, when you think you said something cool, and then they look at you with embarrassment, and they do the, “No, dad. Don't.” That's the moment of pure terror of , like, “I am old and no longer awesome.” And so I tell you, it's like the total opposite. If you know, going in, that you're trying to embarrass them, it's great.
(03:01):
Wayne LowryBut when you do it accidentally, it's the worst 5 minutes of your life, but thankfully at our age. 5 minutes, you've forgotten—you moved on so…
Matt HoffYeah. Been there, done that. Been embarrassed plenty of times. It's gonna happen plenty more times in the future.
Wayne LowrySo, Matt, tell us about yourself. Where do you live? What do you do? So, just who are you, Matt? Tell the world.
(03:25):
Matt HoffI live in Atlanta, GA. I have a 2-year-old named Eddie and an almost 7-year-old named Libby and we live there with my wife Anne. So I was—a very interesting story to get into healthcare and pharmacy uhm…
Matt HoffI grew up in Atlanta and then went to West Point and I graduated high school in 2003. So, I remember I was actually in a class called “History of The Modern Middle East” when the second plane struck, and I'm one of like 7 different West Point classes that claims to be the class of 911.
(04:11):
Matt HoffBut I remember having that moment because this was right when we were doing the application process that applying to West Point is really a two year ordeal.
Matt HoffAnd you know, you grew up in the 90’s, you had Gulf War when you were a little kid that you don't really remember and war was kind of “movies” and this was sort of like,”Oh, I'm actually going to go sign up and do this absolutely insane thing.”
(04:38):
Wayne LowryThis is real. Yeah, this is real.
Matt HoffNot that my parents were ever not proud of it. It’s just we’re not a military family. They, you know, I may as well have said that I was going to go try to become a cosmonaut in Kazakhstan. Like it was just so far outside of what they expected was going to happen.
(04:59):
Matt HoffSo I went to West Point, was a military history major. A very practical degree that I would recommend to anybody. Huge. Just a huge, huge job opportunity for military history. Majors. Yeah. So much money and telling people what happened at Austerlitz.
Wayne LowryA lot, lot of opportunity there.
Matt HoffAnd I became an infantry officer. So did the, you know, training.
(05:22):
Matt HoffIt's again Fort Benning now, which is stupid but went through and did all the infantry training, went to—again—Fort Bragg again. But that's what they were called when I was there.
Matt HoffAnd then, I was a platoon leader with Third Brigade 82nd. We went to Iraq, part of Operation Iraqi Freedom, in 2008, 2009. We were there, sort of at the end of the surge, beginning of—what they called—the status of forces, or SOFA.
(05:59):
Matt HoffSo you know, my war stories are like most people's fishing stories.
Matt HoffI definitely caught fish storing it, but wasn't exactly Moby Dick or old man in the sea. But you know, careful what you wish for.
Matt HoffAt the same time I had friends that were in some terrible situations, and to paraphrase what one of them says, “Firefights sound really cool until you're in them.” So, was proud of what I did.
(06:27):
Matt HoffIf you're watching this online, I had this cool local artist do a painting inspired by my unit. So, you have the 82nd patch in the Ranger tab and the Combat Infantryman's badge. So, leave no doubt that I got mine. And then, you know, Third Brigade 82nd is the Panther Brigade. The guy does some pretty cool stuff. He's done stuff with Atlanta Zoo and some other things.
(06:56):
Matt HoffAnd in the middle of it, that kind of gem in the forehead is the distinguished unit Insignia. So pretty cool zoom background that I got made, but…
Wayne LowryI mean, I like my zoom background, but it's a picture of a monkey dressed in a suit. I mean, yours is—carries a little bit more weight.
Matt HoffSee, I don't need a picture of a monkey dressed in a suit because I'm basically a monkey dressed in a suit at all times, so you know? Why would you have a picture of yourself? Right, so after that I was a…
(07:27):
Wayne LowryThat's actually my dad. That's my dad, actually. So. And he's not gonna watch this. He's probably not gonna watch this, so I could probably say that and get away with it.
Matt HoffYeah. Then I was a Ranger instructor. And after that I decided to get out of the army.
Matt HoffAnd didn't really know what I wanted to do, just that I wanted to not be in the army anymore. So I applied for some jobs and applied for some business schools and got into a Business School at Georgia Tech and got a job working at Home Depot’s corporate and instead of making a decision, just decided to do both at the same time.
(08:04):
Matt HoffI did that for a couple of years and then as I was finishing up grad school, you know, trying to figure out what I was going to do and didn't want to do the typical consulting thing where you go and fire a bunch of people, call everybody.
Wayne LowryYeah, consultants, consultants are the worst. Let me tell you, you can't stand those guys.
Matt HoffIt is…but I think there's a difference between like the healthcare inspired consultants that are trying to make a positive change in the world that have been there done that.
(08:36):
Matt HoffAnd when you first come out and, frankly, the idea of spending my day making a very pretty PowerPoint slide that has no meaning to the world. I was like, “I could have stayed in the army and done that so…”
Matt HoffIt was, you know, it would have been the irony of ironies to have spent all that money to get a fancy degree, just to go do the same stuff I would have done if I'd stayed in, you know, minus metals and baggy pants.
(09:05):
Matt HoffSo I had sworn I would never join the family business, but when they say everybody has a price, they found mine and—no, it was more than that. One of the things that—Home Depot is a great company and I really enjoyed my time there, but I didn't feel like anything I was doing was making the world a better place to be.
(09:28):
Matt HoffAnd with healthcare, you know that at the end of the day, you're dealing with real patients with real people with real things that are affecting real systems, so.
Matt HoffYou know, I go to bed every night knowing that somebody, somewhere, life is marginally better because they were able to afford their medication or were able to get access to their medication or were able to better take care of a difficult patient because of something that A-S meds is doing for the world.
(09:59):
Matt HoffAnd it just makes you feel it makes you feel like you're doing something right.
Wayne LowrySo you know, you travel a lot, right? I mean, you're not really—you mentioned that you are at your home office as if that's where you spend most of your days, but you travel quite a bit.
Matt HoffI am over a million miles lifetime on delta. They take all of my money and all of my time.
(10:26):
Wayne LowryYeah, but they probably give you nice upgrades.
Matt HoffAt the end of the day, you're still on the same metal tube. I get an extra 6 inches of leg room. But at 5 '4, it didn't do it all that much for me.
Wayne LowryYou really spread out. Just sprawl out, really lean back and enjoy it..
Matt HoffYeah, I can do the full, like starfish. Yeah.
(10:49):
Wayne LowrySo, traveling as much as you have.
Wayne LowryTell me a little bit about some of those experiences. Like, are you a foodie? Do you like to try interesting foods?
Matt HoffI am a foodie, so I like going to Texas because Texas is a good food place.
Wayne LowryIt is, you are correct, sir.
Matt HoffYou know, unfortunately, people think that you're doing like the business travel and they're like, “Oh, you're going to, you know, Austin and San Diego in the same week, like, that's got to be amazing.”
(11:21):
Matt HoffIt's like, well, you spend 90% of your time getting there. You know, most of the rest of it, asleep and answering emails. You'll get like one or two nice meals, and then you'll have a meeting in an office that could be in Sheboygan. But I spend a lot of time in places that people are not going to for a vacation.
(11:44):
Matt HoffSo business travel really just becomes a…like a method of survival.
Matt HoffPeople ask me—if anybody's getting to the point in their life or taking a sales job, this is my sage advice. People will ask you, “How do you do it?”
Matt HoffAnd it's a really simple answer. You get in the Uber and you drive to the airport. The more you think about it and the more you're like, “I've spent the equivalent of seven weeks out of 10 weeks away from my, you know, living out of a suitcase and, you know, eating stuff out of the mini bar.”
(12:20):
Matt HoffYou know that's just gonna get you depressed. This is your mental health moment. Just don't think about certain things and you'll be much happier.
Wayne LowryI want to take a quick break to talk about bestdpc.com. Are you a doctor looking to break free from the headaches of insurance and take control of your practice? Or maybe you're an employer searching for an affordable healthcare solution that actually works at bestdpc.com we cut through the noise and connect you with the country's best Direct Primary Care clinics.
(12:45):
Wayne LowryWhether you're a patient, tired of surprise medical bills or a physician ready to build a thriving membership based practice. We've got the tools and resources you need.
Wayne LowryFind the best CBC doctors near you. Get expert advice and take the first step towards a better healthcare. Visit bestdpc.com today and see why Direct Primary Care is the future of medicine. That's bestdpc.com because great healthcare should be simple, affordable and built around you.
(13:17):
Wayne LowryWell, there's got to be some highlights from travel. I mean, I imagine there's certain places you've gone and have you been able to take your family on any of those trips?
Matt HoffNone of the work trips yet, but I'll say that I've been to all 50 states. If I'm going some place for the first time, I always do try to carve out a little bit of time to go see something or do something that I've never done before.
(13:40):
Matt HoffBut you know, the nice thing about what I do is I really don't have any clients that I wouldn't want to spend a meal or a drink with. So, just because you're going and seeing quality people who are doing quality work, it's always inherently a little bit interesting.
Matt HoffThere's definitely been some really fun things, like we've sponsored some fun events at hints, so a couple of years ago when they hosted it at Red Rocks and they had that, was it a Pink Floyd cover band at Rocks?
(14:12):
Wayne LowryThat was an awesome concert. I will say, that was an awesome concert.
Matt HoffYeah. So that was my first concert at Red Rocks and it was kind of cool because I got, you know, pictures with—sponsored by me, we didn't sponsor the whole thing, just the dinner for the folks that were at Hints.
Matt HoffBut you know, it was me and two of my coworkers and one of them kept talking about how she was this huge Pink Floyd fan and and frankly, Pink Floyd was no longer in existence several years before she was even thought of. So we're like, “Oh, was your favorite song ‘Free Bird’?”
(14:49):
Matt HoffSo we spent the entire time, you know, at the event, asking her if they were going to play “Free Bird”.
Wayne LowryI've got a good Free Bird story for you. So when I was—since we're on the subject, so when I was—oh man, this is a long time ago. We had a gentleman that attended our church and he would always ask on Wednesday nights. Let's just say he had challenges in life. He had challenges, okay? And so every once in a while they'd say, “Hey, would you like to request a song for us to lead at church?”
(15:22):
Wayne LowryAnd he’d go, “Free bird. Free bird, man.”
Wayne LowryI was like, “This is church. How about, you know, ‘I'll Fly Away’? Let's go that route.” But you know…
Matt HoffSimilar vein. So when I was at the 82nd, you can request certain things if you're enlisted and reenlist, and every morning they would play over the loud speakers along all of the run routes the 82nd Airborne course, which was like an acapella singing group that sings army songs. It is like…
(16:07):
Matt HoffIf you were going to choose something to torture somebody with while they worked out, it is like a half step away from the Frozen soundtrack, right? Like it is that close. So, somebody, whose name I'll never know, reenlisted but his thing that he wanted for was, you have to play Metallica during PT1 morning.
(16:34):
Matt HoffAnd this got out, you know, thousands of people in a division. This got out to everybody. Everybody was very excited. You know, I'm not the biggest Metallica fan in the world, but it could have been like it could have been the wiggles, anything other than the 82nd Airborne Chorus would have made my day.
Matt HoffAnd they played, you know, this poor SOB gave them three extra years of his life for Metallica and they repaid him by playing one song.
(17:02):
Matt HoffSo they played, you know, “Master of Puppets”. Everybody's having a great day. And then all of a sudden, you hear them, you know, the very first song that starts the recording every single time was the very next thing and the amount of hearts that were breaking and smiles that disappeared from faces.
Matt HoffMan…
Wayne LowryYou'll never forget it .
(17:23):
Matt HoffNever forget it.
Matt HoffThere's some things that only the army can do to ruin your day and that was definitely…
Wayne LowryThat was one of them. Matt Hoff That was definitely an evil genius's plan.
Wayne LowryOh, well, let's transition over to A-S meds and tell us a little bit about what you've got going on. I mean, obviously you mentioned you, you were working at Home Depot and you got the call to go work for the family business. How has that transition been? How long have you been there?
(17:51):
Wayne LowryTell me a little bit about that.
Matt HoffWell, it's been a 10 year transition and so…
Matt HoffNow I've been with the company for a decade, started in summer 2020 or 2015. Believe it or not.
Matt HoffHeld a number of different positions there and it's been an interesting experience. You know, I think I was really hesitant to work with family. I think a lot of people are hesitant to work with family.
(18:18):
Matt HoffI think 9 times out of 10, it's just a recipe for strife and conflict, but…
Matt HoffAnd man, if my dad and I got along when I was a teenager, the way that we get along at work, he probably would still have a full head of hair. But it's just been a really inte—
(18:39):
Wayne LowrySo is he still? Is he still in the business? Is he still working with you?
Matt HoffSo he stepped back from the CEO role about two years ago, but he's the executive chairman, so he runs the board for the company.
Matt HoffAnd there's a…
Matt HoffYeah, there's another family involved, too. So, he kind of spearheads the folks who make sure I'm not getting too crazy.
(19:00):
Wayne LowryOK, cool. So you've been CEO now then for two years?
Matt HoffTwo years and I was CEO—COO, excuse me, before that and then I headed up a position called Strategic Alliances.
Matt HoffSo I had half of our customer service and accounts. I had all of the sales and then I had all of our vendor negotiations. So, we're really unique in the space and that we're buying most of our drugs directly from the manufacturer. So, we try to cut out as many middle men as possible.
(19:35):
Matt HoffNot only does that help lower prices, but it also shortens the supply chain so we have a better quality of supply. But we also know what's going on and we know what's new and what's next
Matt HoffWhich helps us just stay really sharp.
Wayne LowrySo by buying direct you see that I mean obviously that's going to create some cost savings. What does that mean for a traditional pharmacy like how does that differentiate you and going down to CVS?
(20:02):
Matt HoffSo a different, you know, different pharmacy, you don't really know what medication you're going to get, most of the time.
Matt HoffYou'll know what drug and there could be 10 manufacturers, but your small white round pill could turn into a light blue oblong pill and you know not to say that our drugs never change because manufacturers exit the market.
(20:27):
Matt HoffBut for the most part, we have more consistency of the things that cause patient confusion than other groups would.
Matt HoffYou know, we're a repackager in addition to being a wholesaler. So, we're licensed by the FDA as a manufacturer. So, we have additional steps and scrutiny that we have to hit and doing that gives us a lot more efficiency, a lot more scale and volume. And that you know, that helps keep down the operating cost, which gives us more time to focus on our customers and their patients.
(20:59):
Wayne LowrySo you know, coming from a military background, you obviously lived a very structured life. How has that transitioned to your role as CEO? Do you find yourself leaning into some of the old habits?
Matt HoffNot as not as much as you think.
Matt HoffI sort of burnt myself out on the anal retentiveness about hospital corners on beds and shiny shoes. And you know, I've, like, checked that box and have moved on with it. Yeah. You know, I really have a passion for making sure that we're set up for growth.
(21:38):
Matt HoffWe've been doing a phenomenal amount of new business, we've been doing a phenomenal amount of helping more clients and patients, getting us more efficient and getting us to those next steps.
Matt HoffBut you know, the biggest thing that you learn in the military is everybody may sort of look like an automaton from the outside and you think military it's very lockstep. The American army is not, you know, the Prussian army, right. Like, there is a lot of…
(22:09):
Matt HoffThere's a lot more free thought. There's a lot more dissent, there's a lot more individuality than you think.
Matt HoffAnd so, when you take that, you take sort of a defined box and you say, “Here's the mission. Here's what you have to think inside of.”
Matt HoffIt's amazing how much creativity can happen in that box.
(22:32):
Matt HoffSo, one of the things I've really enjoyed of structuring the team over the last couple of years is you find those really, really talented people and we have an amazingly talented team and making sure they're set up to do the things that they do best and let them run with it.
Matt HoffAnd you know, not everybody's going to be able to do everything as well as everybody else, like it is not plug and play by any stretch of the imagination, but you also learn that in the military like hey, you may have 3 lieutenants and each of them have the same you know credentials and skill sets and training.
(23:08):
Matt HoffBut A focuses and does exceptionally well at A's types of tasks and B does the same for B's and knowing when to use A for A and B to B.
Matt HoffBut knowing that they all have to have a certain baseline.
Matt HoffThat's a lesson that I don't think people realize that you learn in the military because people think everybody goes in and they say turn right and everybody does a right face.
(23:35):
Matt HoffBut it just…It really, in practicality, just isn't like that.
Wayne LowrySo, let's talk a minute about your, within your business, the tech stack. I'm really curious to know more about what you're using for tech day-to-day. And then also, what kind of integration have you brought your system into?
(23:57):
Matt HoffSo Tech is a very interesting thing for us. We are going through a massive modernization right now.
Matt HoffIt's really exciting. We just brought a new CTO on in January named Lance, and he's absolutely phenomenal.
Matt HoffOur VP of IT, who stayed with us, who shepherded us to the last couple of years, is incredibly smart, but it's part of that. Like we're taking things up even to a higher level. So I'm really excited about it. You know where we are now versus where we were two years ago.
(24:34):
Matt HoffYou know, you couldn't even compare, but I'm being a little cagey on my answer because we're sort of in the middle of this really rapid modernization, yeah.
Wayne LowrySo, y'all are building out your own system, so it's all custom. You built your own platform and then what systems are you able to integrate with or what is the goal as far as integration?
Matt HoffHmm.
(24:57):
Matt HoffSo, you have to think, there's two different types of tech stacks that we're working with.
Matt HoffOne is our back end, our internal and that's you know we're a manufacturing company, so it's invoices, order productions, everything else like that. It's our data analytics, it's our order receiving.
Matt HoffThat's going through a tremendous modernization. What really triggered it a couple of years ago was a law that takes effect in May that requires every individual bottle of medication to be serialized. It's called DSCSA.
(25:32):
Matt HoffIt's not really well known, especially in the DPC space, but you know, not every manufacturer and wholesaler is going to cross the finish line
Matt Hoffand if you're buying from somebody who does not meet that standard, or if your dispensing platform doesn't meet that standard, you're going to be in violation of a federal law.
(25:55):
Matt HoffSo that's something that should be of growing importance.
Matt HoffSo that's half of our tech stack.
Matt HoffI'm sorry?
Wayne LowryI'm going to put a pin in that because I want to come back and talk about that. So when we come back to that, so I'm just making a little note here because I want to talk more about that in the legislative conversation about what, what that might look like in the future. But back on the front end of your tech stack, what does that look like?
(26:23):
Matt HoffSo there's a number of really great solutions out there for the actual physician dispensing. So if you're the DPC doc, what do you have in hand that allows you to get our prepackaged medication into patients hands?
Matt HoffSo we own a system that we call Pedigree. We give that away for free, all of it's integrated with surescripts. So you can eat, prescribe and it goes right into the system.
(26:49):
Matt HoffAnd then MD scripts is one of our longtime partners. Most of DPC is using MD scripts because there's integration with systems like hint.
Matt HoffBut all of them have that awesome integration with surescripts. You know, at the end of the day, a doctor doesn't want to be playing pharmacists. It's not a good use of their time. This is two non-doctors talking about a good use of the doctor's time.
(27:16):
Wayne LowryYeah. Matt Hoff But the National Association of Chain Drug Stores did a study before COVID and they found that it costs a pharmacy almost $13 to dispense the medication and that's with the tech doing the pill counting and the pharmacist doing the verification. And then that process takes about 5:00-ish minutes.
(27:39):
Matt HoffWith our process, it takes less than two minutes to dispense the medication, so one of the things that I think is missed is the cost of medication, the cost of the pill, absolutely matters to how expensive the drug is. But the cost of the doctor's time is even more valuable.
Matt HoffYou can get a lot more pennies than you can get those minutes back that somebody's counting out, you know, counting to 90 instead of actually seeing their patients and making sure they understand what the medication is and what it's for.
(28:12):
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(28:34):
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(28:57):
Wayne LowrySo your platform, I mean obviously this is the Best DPC podcast, so DPC Direct Primary Care is going to be a focus of our audience. Are you working with DPC's as well as other healthcare systems or providers or what's your typical market look like?
Matt HoffWe're all over.
(29:19):
Matt HoffWe work with DPC's. We work with urgent care. We work with groups that are dedicated to employer health. We work with even some groups that are still on the dark side that adjudicate to payers. But you know at the end of the day, my mission is to make it easier for providers to get medication into patients' hands.
(29:44):
Matt HoffI have always been supportive of the DPC movement. We've been there, we've put the blood, sweat and tears, we go out to DC and help with the lobbying,
Matt Hoffbut just because we haven't been able to convert everybody to see the light doesn't mean that their patients need to suffer. So we do work with all kinds,
Wayne LowryRight.
(30:06):
Matt HoffBut on the DPC front, I think our biggest value add is between the on-site medication dispensing and what we can do for our mail order home delivery program, we can get the medications directly to the patient in the way that's the most efficient for the doctor.
Matt HoffAnd that does overall the most good. There's some effective altruism in there.
(30:31):
Wayne LowryCan you describe really the difference between those two strategies? And obviously, some states like Texas, there's some laws and we'll get into that in a moment. But can you just describe for our listeners the difference between those two processes?
Matt HoffYeah.
Matt HoffSure. So on-site medication dispensing is when you go into your doctor's office, your DPC provider says, “Hey Matt, you need an atorvastatin and Z pack” and then they put it in the MR, it gets E-prescribed to the dispensing software their MA will grab the pre-packaged pre-counted medication.
(31:08):
Matt HoffBarcode scanned it out, the label goes out of the meds, they hand it to you. You pay a cash price or they bill it to your employer and in less than two minutes, you're on your way with your drugs.
Matt HoffVersus having to go to a pharmacy and waiting for God knows how long to get your medications and pay whatever the copay is going to be, and you know, shop around with a good RX card and all that other crazy stuff.
(31:33):
Matt HoffThe home delivery program is a little different. Wayne Lowry All right.
Matt HoffHome delivery program, they say “Hey Wayne, you're due for a refill. I'm sending the script in and it's going to come right to your house.” So that's kind of the Amazon of the system. The two work really well together.
(31:56):
Matt HoffYou don't need to go into the office for a refill unless the doctor decides you need to go into the office, so it gives them some time back to make sure you're getting their medication. They can be charging you for it.
Matt HoffThey can be making sure you're taking it so you're getting the outcomes without them needing to take time from their schedule to actually hand you a bottle so the two programs are symbiotic together like that.
(32:22):
Matt HoffYou know Z Pak is not going to come through the mail and time for it to be useful to you so you have time for both. But having that combination program is something that I think is under utilized in DPC.
Matt HoffI think the best DPC's know that getting patients their medication is going to save them money and improve their health in the long term.
(32:49):
Matt HoffThere's only a 60% chance that most drugs are picked up, 60% is the nationwide adherence rate. If you dispense, that takes it over 98%.
Wayne LowryWow.
Wayne LowryNow when you're dispensing, when you're really rolling out, say, in a typical DPC clinic, are you talking about 1000 different, you know types of medication or is it the top most useful emergency? Like how does it relate to what I might get at CVS or the hometown pharmacy?
(33:10):
Matt HoffNo.
Matt HoffI'll use the joke everybody says about DPC. If you've seen one DPC, you've seen one DPC.
Wayne LowryOne DPC. Yeah.
Matt HoffSo the doctors have full control over it.
Wayne LowryThat's a good dad joke. That's a good dad joke we'll put iIt in there.
(33:33):
Matt HoffIt's a good dad joke. No, but the doctor has full control over their formulary. So.
Matt HoffSome doctors are going to say I want to cover about 80% of what I'm going to prescribe. So versus a CVS or an independent pharmacy, they're going to need to cover about 100% of what any prescriber could prescribe.
(33:57):
Wayne LowryGotcha. Matt Hoff So the first step back is you're only going to cover what you're writing for. If you don't write for, you know Hep C medications, you should not carry Hep C medications, right? So you only have what you're going to write for.
Wayne LowryRight.
Matt HoffAnd then we always say the sweet spot is you want to carry enough medications to cover about 60 to 80% of what you're going to be prescribing. Now let's think about this though. You could have a super active population and you know Colorado and everybody skis.
(34:25):
Wayne LowryOK.
Matt HoffOr mountain bikes, you know, if they're not skiing their mountain biking, right?
Matt HoffAnd they're relatively young, they're relatively healthy. You're probably carrying antibiotics and you know, maybe some stuff for sore muscles, right?
(34:46):
Matt HoffIf you had a more elderly population in southern Florida or Arizona, and those people have a, you know, a bevy of medications you may be carrying close to 100 drugs
Matt HoffBecause everybody's on a statin and everybody's on something for diabetes. Everybody's on something for this, that or the other, so.
Wayne LowryRight.
(35:07):
Matt HoffOne of the beauties of the program is no order minimums. Stock what you need. We have great dating, so anything you buy has about 14 months before it expires or more, and you control what you carry. So you really are only carrying the things you need to take care of your patients and the mail order.
Matt HoffWell, that has an almost unlimited formulary. Like we said, it's not going to work great for the acute care meds, but if you have a one off patient, you have one of your high performing, high mountain biking, high snowboarding patients needs a statin.
(35:35):
Matt HoffWell, you can still take care of that patient because you can do that through the mail order without having to increase what you stock.
Wayne LowrySo what about on the mail order? How do you price that? Is that a do y'all do like a capitated rate or is it you just pay per prescription? Or…
(35:57):
Matt HoffSame price.
Wayne LowryWhat's your model on that?
Matt HoffSame price per prescription. So we have a consistent drug price and we're the only people who do this between on-site and mail order.
Matt HoffAnd I'm a very strong believer that you're going to bill per prescription. If you're going to go into a capitated plan, it turns into a Planet Fitness, right? Planet Fitness makes money for people who don't show up. If I'm charging you for the drugs that you don't take, and that's how I make my money.
(36:32):
Matt HoffI'm disincentivized to have good service, so I want to give the best service. I want to give the fastest rate. I want to give, you know, a very good price for the medications we're providing, but I want to make sure that folks are going to have an enjoyable experience.
(36:53):
Matt HoffThat keeps them following the doctor's orders. If I'm doing capitated plan, I make more money when you choose to use your pharmacy benefit. And that's just totally against the spirit of what DPC should be.
Wayne LowryAwesome. So if you were to say, who is your ideal client? Who would you say would be your ideal client? What are you looking for as far as small mom and pop shops DPC's
(37:21):
Wayne LowryOr are you looking for a large employer? You know people that are serving large employers. Do you really have an ideal client that you would say?
Matt HoffI don't say I'd have an ideal client, obviously from my responsibilities as a CEO, I have to say the larger the employer, typically the more opportunities we have to serve patients.
(37:43):
Matt HoffBut I really have a passion for working with the small mom and pops.
Matt HoffYou know, I think that those DPC's, all the different things they have to do to run an effective business; this is something that becomes daunting for them. So, having the ability to make it easy to provide those extra services like the home delivery.
(38:09):
Matt HoffIt gives them the ability to have a, you know, to go head to head with the bigger systems and have a parity of offerings without having to have this gigantic office staff because most of the time the doctor is also the accountant, is also the front desk in the back of house.
(38:30):
Matt HoffSo I really love working with them, you know, I love the “if you've seen one DPC, you've seen one DPC.”
Matt HoffBecause we love being a solutions company, it's right in our name. A-S Medication Solutions. We love trying to find…
Matt HoffOK, you're mostly seeing pediatric patients in your practice. You just have a lot of folks that are having a lot of babies. What can we do to help make that better? So that's why we've been spending a lot of time working on a vaccine program.
(39:00):
Matt HoffThat's the kind of stuff that keeps the job fun.
Matt HoffAs much as we love high volumes and sales, we really love making sure that we keep that human element alive and there's no better place to do that than in DPC.
Wayne LowrySo what are some of the trends you're seeing in pharmacy? What are some of the trends?
(39:24):
Matt HoffWell, I I think we'd have to come back for a whole other hour on GOP ones, but…
Wayne LowryWell, we will come back. Don't worry. This is we're gonna have you on more often. I'm already looking at the clock going ‘I've got so many questions.’ But who would you say or what is something that's like in the news relevant right now in regards to pharmacy.
Matt HoffOK.
Matt HoffYou know, pharmacy access and pharmacy closure is the most important thing.
(39:48):
Matt HoffWhen I started 10 years ago, there were 75,000 retail pharmacies nationwide. We're down to below 72,000. And then you look at Walgreens announced 500 store closures by August of this year. CCVS announced store closures in the hundreds. Where are these patients going to get their medications?
Matt HoffSo if your job as a doctor is to treat a patient and make sure they get better, they have to follow the doctor's orders, right? If you say you need to take atorvastatin or you need to do this, or you need to go to physical therapy or eat an apple a day.
(40:25):
Matt HoffWell, if there's no apples in the grocery store, how's the patient going to eat an apple a day? if there's no grocery stores, how are they going to get apples? So we have a very simple and elegant solution to solve that problem of pharmacy deserts.
Matt HoffAnd that's really the biggest trend we're seeing is it's getting harder and harder for doctors, especially in rural areas and in urban areas to get patients the medications they need to follow the doctor's orders.
(40:54):
Wayne LowrySo what are y'all doing to address that?
Matt HoffWell, doing things like coming on Best DPC podcast so DPC's know it's the right thing to do. We're speaking at a number of conferences coming up.
Matt HoffWe're continuing to scream from a mountaintop about it, you know, some states make it harder than others. Texas is one of two states that outright prohibits physician dispensing, which you know, here's a…
(41:19):
Wayne LowryWell, let's talk about that.
Matt HoffYeah. Wayne Lowry Let's talk about that. So I mean, you've spent a lot of time in Texas. In fact, I think we were both in Austin a couple years ago at the same time. I know you've done a lot of work in that area. So tell me a little bit about what's going on in Texas and what was the other state that's also in the same boat.
Matt HoffMassachusetts. Yeah. If you can name another two things that those guys have in common politically.
Wayne LowryMassachusetts.
(41:44):
Wayne LowryReady? Alex Bregman? Alex Begman. Houston Astro. Now, Boston Red Sox.
Matt HoffThere you go. I've been telling people you guys both had teams in the NBA Finals last year.
Wayne LowryI don't know.
Wayne LowryI don't know about that. I don't know anything about that team from Dallas. I don't care about them.
(42:05):
Matt HoffIs that recent after the trade of Luca or are you a long time Spurs fan?
Wayne LowryNo, I'm a Houston guy originally, so I'm Houston Rockets, Houston Astros, Houston Texans and a good friend is all about The Mavericks and the Rangers and all them. So, I try to avoid those teams as much as possible.
(42:28):
Matt HoffWell, as a non-Texan and I'll stay away from that, but…
Wayne LowryOK, so Massachusetts Texas on-site this dispensing is not legal. So what can be done and what's in the works there?
Matt HoffThere's been a number of legislators who have been addressing this issue and have been aware of it that are pushing forward some legislation. We've been working really closely with different medical societies that also realize.
(43:01):
Matt HoffHey, a doctor's hands are tied more in Texas than they are in Oklahoma and Arizona, and that's just not right.
Matt HoffWe're hopeful that some legislation will go through. It's really a legislative fix, but the goal is to get Texas and they're sort of leading the charge between the two states onto a parity with the rest of the country. Montana had the same issue a number of years ago and you know their state Supreme Court saw the light and made a ruling.
(43:40):
Matt HoffIt's good for patients. It does not hurt pharmacies. It's not a scope creep. It's not any of the things that people try to castigate it as. It is just something that is common, safe, easy, and effective.
Matt HoffThat helps solve what is a very real problem, which is pharmacies, unfortunately, are shutting it down and I'm not anti-pharmacy. I know that could it's a logical conclusion but you know pharmacists signs my paycheck. Our company's been… Yeah.
(44:10):
Wayne LowryI was gonna say, In a sense, it's just creating a different kind of competition, because then it would open up for those same local pharmacies to have direct contracts with their local DPC's or clinics to provide that on-site as well.
Wayne LowrySo and in one sense you might argue or it might be argued that it's just opening up, you know, opening it up to competition that might be beneficial to the employees. So I mean it would be no way a monopoly.
(44:46):
Wayne LowryIn other words, it's not like this happens in all of the local pharmacies. I can see the big pharmacies fighting this tooth and nail, but yeah.
Matt HoffBut at the end of the day, like we said, a DPC is not going to be a pharmacist. The doctor doesn't want to play pharmacy, they're going to do a limited number of scripts for what they want to treat for their patients.
(45:10):
Matt HoffAnd it's not going to take away from all of the rest of it. So there's always going to be a space there and you know, frankly, people forget a pharmacy is a doctor of pharmacy. They have a lot to add as a member of a care team. So if you have that complicated patient with 9 medications.
Matt HoffHell yes, send them to the pharmacist. That's when you need to use that person. In many cases, just making sure that the white round pills were counted to 90 is, you know, you're having a doctor do something that can be done by a machine.
(45:45):
Wayne LowryGotcha. So what's cooking? We're almost out of time. So I want to make sure we cover anything that is of urgent concern. So, what do you got cooking right now? Anything exciting you want to talk about in the last few minutes we have.
Matt HoffYeah, I think the legislative opportunity in Texas is really real, so anybody who's listening in Texas or Massachusetts or a state that makes it more difficult for physicians to dispense or to delegate that active dispensing to a mid level that works for them.
(46:20):
Matt HoffYou know, call your congressman, call your legislators at the state level. Get loud about it. You know, most of the time this falls below the radar for folks.
Matt HoffBut this is the time to get loud, especially in Texas. Let's reach out to folks and make sure they know that, “Hey, I'm a doctor. I'm having a hard time treating my patients and this is a solution for it.”
(46:44):
Wayne LowryAll right, so we are now going to transition to our last little section. It's a little section we call “Keeping it Reels”.
Matt HoffAll right. Wayne Lowry The focus of this section is kind of a rapid fire approach going to ask some questions, get some great sound bites. I mean, I've already had great sound bites. You've been awesome, but hopefully we'll get something that I can't promise you'll go viral. But you know, at the very least, you will definitely get some additional exposure with these awesome answers on social media platforms.
(47:18):
Wayne LowrySo, starting off on “Keeping it Reels”, what is the wildest thing your kid has done in the last hour?
Matt HoffWell, I think running around in just the diaper with the Hot Wheels Car being worn as a hat is probably—in the last hour—the biggest thing I've seen.
Wayne LowryYeah, I was gonna say, yeah, it helps. I already knew that.
(47:42):
Matt HoffYeah.
Wayne LowryAlright. Next question, it's a real simple question. I'm just going to say it and then I want to get your honest reaction. GLP-1.
Matt HoffLot of good that can be done, a lot of abuse going on, so.
(48:04):
Matt HoffIt's part of the future, but needs to be done carefully and is not a magic bullet.
Wayne LowryAwesome. If you could fix one thing about the pharmacy industry with a snap of your fingers, what would it be? You've got your magic wand, Matt. What are you going to fix?
Matt HoffI would give parity in all states that allows physicians to dispense medication.
(48:29):
Matt HoffSimple.
Wayne LowryAll right. Last question, how did your military experience shape your approach to healthcare and leadership?
Matt HoffI think my employees would say, unfortunately, probably too much they have heard—I think a lot of folks give military expressions and examples as a cliche. I do it because that's the only way my brain functions.
(48:56):
Matt HoffSo, your tax dollars did a very good job of making sure that part of me is in there to stay.
Wayne LowryAwesome. Well, thanks, Matt. That's it for today's episode of the Best DPC podcast. Big thanks to Matt Hoff for joining us and sharing some profound knowledge. I think that's a good word for it. Profound knowledge and a few great stories, Matt, it wasn't long enough. We've got to do this again.
(49:25):
Wayne LowryMaybe when Texas session wraps up, we can get some.
Wayne LowryReally dive into what happened this session and get some more insight on that, but thanks for having or thank you for coming, being a part of this show. If you want to check out his work, we'll have all of his contact information in the notes in the show notes below, but check out their website.
(49:51):
Wayne Lowrya-smeds.com and connect with Matt on LinkedIn. He's there. He's active. Follow him and you can learn more.
Wayne LowryFor more DPC awesomeness, visit our bestdpc.com website. Follow us on social media now if you're listening to us on a podcast format, iTunes, Spotify, you name it, we're there, or you may have found us on YouTube.
(50:22):
Wayne LowryEither way, subscribe to our channel, share it to a friend, share it to an enemy. Just put it out there for the world to see. Every little bit helps. We're not charging you to watch this podcast.
Wayne LowrySo pass along the free information and help us continue to grow DPC until next time. Keep demanding the best for your health with direct primary care. Bye bye.
Matt HoffLuckily not here. Just see my 2-year-old son running around wearing just a diaper with a large—You know, like it's a car that holds Hot Wheels, a large Hot Wheels on his head, running around screaming so…
(00:19):
Wayne LowryWhat? What superhero is he trying to impersonate?
Matt HoffHot Wheels Man? I have no idea. He's 2. He's having the best day he's ever had. Him and his sister are on spring break.
Wayne LowryHey, living his best life.
Matt HoffAnd yeah, I'm sure in 2 minutes he'll come back and he'll be swinging the bat. You know, it's funny. My daughter is like a rambunctious high energy kid. But my son is just a guy who's a dude. He is. He acts like a boy, jumps around, tries to break things.
(00:57):
Matt HoffHe has all of those, like if it's not a hot wheel or an airplane, he doesn't care about it like it is just it's just funny to see somebody who's like so purely a dude.
(01:18):
Wayne LowryHello and welcome to the Best DPC podcast, The World's #1 podcast for All Things Direct Primary Care. I am your host Wayne Lowry. I am not a doctor. But my dad jokes will leave you in stitches.
Wayne LowryToday, I am thrilled to have Matt Hoff with us. He is the CEO of A-S Medical Solutions, a former paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne and a pharmacy guru who is about to make medication more accessible for you and for me.
(01:49):
Wayne LowryFrom jumping out of planes to running a family business, Matt's got a story and we're excited to introduce him to you today. Welcome, Matt.
Matt HoffThanks, Wayne. I, as a dad, I really like the dad jokes, so keep those coming because that is right up my alley.
Wayne LowryOK, well, trust me. None of them are funny. That's the best part of a dad joke.
(02:12):
Wayne LowryIt’s the cringe. Matt Hoff That's the best part.
Wayne LowrySo, I know we talked a little bit about your kids just a moment ago. You got younger kids. I will tell you there is something special about having a teenage daughter when you tell that joke and it's so cringe and they cringe at it and you know it. And it's just like full of pride, full of joy knowing that you've embarrassed your daughter.
(02:37):
Wayne LowryBut on the flip side, when you think you said something cool, and then they look at you with embarrassment, and they do the, “No, dad. Don't.” That's the moment of pure terror of , like, “I am old and no longer awesome.” And so I tell you, it's like the total opposite. If you know, going in, that you're trying to embarrass them, it's great.
(03:01):
Wayne LowryBut when you do it accidentally, it's the worst 5 minutes of your life, but thankfully at our age. 5 minutes, you've forgotten—you moved on so…
Matt HoffYeah. Been there, done that. Been embarrassed plenty of times. It's gonna happen plenty more times in the future.
Wayne LowrySo, Matt, tell us about yourself. Where do you live? What do you do? So, just who are you, Matt? Tell the world.
(03:25):
Matt HoffI live in Atlanta, GA. I have a 2-year-old named Eddie and an almost 7-year-old named Libby and we live there with my wife Anne. So I was—a very interesting story to get into healthcare and pharmacy uhm…
Matt HoffI grew up in Atlanta and then went to West Point and I graduated high school in 2003. So, I remember I was actually in a class called “History of The Modern Middle East” when the second plane struck, and I'm one of like 7 different West Point classes that claims to be the class of 911.
(04:11):
Matt HoffBut I remember having that moment because this was right when we were doing the application process that applying to West Point is really a two year ordeal.
Matt HoffAnd you know, you grew up in the 90’s, you had Gulf War when you were a little kid that you don't really remember and war was kind of “movies” and this was sort of like,”Oh, I'm actually going to go sign up and do this absolutely insane thing.”
(04:38):
Wayne LowryThis is real. Yeah, this is real.
Matt HoffNot that my parents were ever not proud of it. It’s just we’re not a military family. They, you know, I may as well have said that I was going to go try to become a cosmonaut in Kazakhstan. Like it was just so far outside of what they expected was going to happen.
(04:59):
Matt HoffSo I went to West Point, was a military history major. A very practical degree that I would recommend to anybody. Huge. Just a huge, huge job opportunity for military history. Majors. Yeah. So much money and telling people what happened at Austerlitz.
Wayne LowryA lot, lot of opportunity there.
Matt HoffAnd I became an infantry officer. So did the, you know, training.
(05:22):
Matt HoffIt's again Fort Benning now, which is stupid but went through and did all the infantry training, went to—again—Fort Bragg again. But that's what they were called when I was there.
Matt HoffAnd then, I was a platoon leader with Third Brigade 82nd. We went to Iraq, part of Operation Iraqi Freedom, in 2008, 2009. We were there, sort of at the end of the surge, beginning of—what they called—the status of forces, or SOFA.
(05:59):
Matt HoffSo you know, my war stories are like most people's fishing stories.
Matt HoffI definitely caught fish storing it, but wasn't exactly Moby Dick or old man in the sea. But you know, careful what you wish for.
Matt HoffAt the same time I had friends that were in some terrible situations, and to paraphrase what one of them says, “Firefights sound really cool until you're in them.” So, was proud of what I did.
(06:27):
Matt HoffIf you're watching this online, I had this cool local artist do a painting inspired by my unit. So, you have the 82nd patch in the Ranger tab and the Combat Infantryman's badge. So, leave no doubt that I got mine. And then, you know, Third Brigade 82nd is the Panther Brigade. The guy does some pretty cool stuff. He's done stuff with Atlanta Zoo and some other things.
(06:56):
Matt HoffAnd in the middle of it, that kind of gem in the forehead is the distinguished unit Insignia. So pretty cool zoom background that I got made, but…
Wayne LowryI mean, I like my zoom background, but it's a picture of a monkey dressed in a suit. I mean, yours is—carries a little bit more weight.
Matt HoffSee, I don't need a picture of a monkey dressed in a suit because I'm basically a monkey dressed in a suit at all times, so you know? Why would you have a picture of yourself? Right, so after that I was a…
(07:27):
Wayne LowryThat's actually my dad. That's my dad, actually. So. And he's not gonna watch this. He's probably not gonna watch this, so I could probably say that and get away with it.
Matt HoffYeah. Then I was a Ranger instructor. And after that I decided to get out of the army.
Matt HoffAnd didn't really know what I wanted to do, just that I wanted to not be in the army anymore. So I applied for some jobs and applied for some business schools and got into a Business School at Georgia Tech and got a job working at Home Depot’s corporate and instead of making a decision, just decided to do both at the same time.
(08:04):
Matt HoffI did that for a couple of years and then as I was finishing up grad school, you know, trying to figure out what I was going to do and didn't want to do the typical consulting thing where you go and fire a bunch of people, call everybody.
Wayne LowryYeah, consultants, consultants are the worst. Let me tell you, you can't stand those guys.
Matt HoffIt is…but I think there's a difference between like the healthcare inspired consultants that are trying to make a positive change in the world that have been there done that.
(08:36):
Matt HoffAnd when you first come out and, frankly, the idea of spending my day making a very pretty PowerPoint slide that has no meaning to the world. I was like, “I could have stayed in the army and done that so…”
Matt HoffIt was, you know, it would have been the irony of ironies to have spent all that money to get a fancy degree, just to go do the same stuff I would have done if I'd stayed in, you know, minus metals and baggy pants.
(09:05):
Matt HoffSo I had sworn I would never join the family business, but when they say everybody has a price, they found mine and—no, it was more than that. One of the things that—Home Depot is a great company and I really enjoyed my time there, but I didn't feel like anything I was doing was making the world a better place to be.
(09:28):
Matt HoffAnd with healthcare, you know that at the end of the day, you're dealing with real patients with real people with real things that are affecting real systems, so.
Matt HoffYou know, I go to bed every night knowing that somebody, somewhere, life is marginally better because they were able to afford their medication or were able to get access to their medication or were able to better take care of a difficult patient because of something that A-S meds is doing for the world.
(09:59):
Matt HoffAnd it just makes you feel it makes you feel like you're doing something right.
Wayne LowrySo you know, you travel a lot, right? I mean, you're not really—you mentioned that you are at your home office as if that's where you spend most of your days, but you travel quite a bit.
Matt HoffI am over a million miles lifetime on delta. They take all of my money and all of my time.
(10:26):
Wayne LowryYeah, but they probably give you nice upgrades.
Matt HoffAt the end of the day, you're still on the same metal tube. I get an extra 6 inches of leg room. But at 5 '4, it didn't do it all that much for me.
Wayne LowryYou really spread out. Just sprawl out, really lean back and enjoy it..
Matt HoffYeah, I can do the full, like starfish. Yeah.
(10:49):
Wayne LowrySo, traveling as much as you have.
Wayne LowryTell me a little bit about some of those experiences. Like, are you a foodie? Do you like to try interesting foods?
Matt HoffI am a foodie, so I like going to Texas because Texas is a good food place.
Wayne LowryIt is, you are correct, sir.
Matt HoffYou know, unfortunately, people think that you're doing like the business travel and they're like, “Oh, you're going to, you know, Austin and San Diego in the same week, like, that's got to be amazing.”
(11:21):
Matt HoffIt's like, well, you spend 90% of your time getting there. You know, most of the rest of it, asleep and answering emails. You'll get like one or two nice meals, and then you'll have a meeting in an office that could be in Sheboygan. But I spend a lot of time in places that people are not going to for a vacation.
(11:44):
Matt HoffSo business travel really just becomes a…like a method of survival.
Matt HoffPeople ask me—if anybody's getting to the point in their life or taking a sales job, this is my sage advice. People will ask you, “How do you do it?”
Matt HoffAnd it's a really simple answer. You get in the Uber and you drive to the airport. The more you think about it and the more you're like, “I've spent the equivalent of seven weeks out of 10 weeks away from my, you know, living out of a suitcase and, you know, eating stuff out of the mini bar.”
(12:20):
Matt HoffYou know that's just gonna get you depressed. This is your mental health moment. Just don't think about certain things and you'll be much happier.
Wayne LowryI want to take a quick break to talk about bestdpc.com. Are you a doctor looking to break free from the headaches of insurance and take control of your practice? Or maybe you're an employer searching for an affordable healthcare solution that actually works at bestdpc.com we cut through the noise and connect you with the country's best Direct Primary Care clinics.
(12:45):
Wayne LowryWhether you're a patient, tired of surprise medical bills or a physician ready to build a thriving membership based practice. We've got the tools and resources you need.
Wayne LowryFind the best CBC doctors near you. Get expert advice and take the first step towards a better healthcare. Visit bestdpc.com today and see why Direct Primary Care is the future of medicine. That's bestdpc.com because great healthcare should be simple, affordable and built around you.
(13:17):
Wayne LowryWell, there's got to be some highlights from travel. I mean, I imagine there's certain places you've gone and have you been able to take your family on any of those trips?
Matt HoffNone of the work trips yet, but I'll say that I've been to all 50 states. If I'm going some place for the first time, I always do try to carve out a little bit of time to go see something or do something that I've never done before.
(13:40):
Matt HoffBut you know, the nice thing about what I do is I really don't have any clients that I wouldn't want to spend a meal or a drink with. So, just because you're going and seeing quality people who are doing quality work, it's always inherently a little bit interesting.
Matt HoffThere's definitely been some really fun things, like we've sponsored some fun events at hints, so a couple of years ago when they hosted it at Red Rocks and they had that, was it a Pink Floyd cover band at Rocks?
(14:12):
Wayne LowryThat was an awesome concert. I will say, that was an awesome concert.
Matt HoffYeah. So that was my first concert at Red Rocks and it was kind of cool because I got, you know, pictures with—sponsored by me, we didn't sponsor the whole thing, just the dinner for the folks that were at Hints.
Matt HoffBut you know, it was me and two of my coworkers and one of them kept talking about how she was this huge Pink Floyd fan and and frankly, Pink Floyd was no longer in existence several years before she was even thought of. So we're like, “Oh, was your favorite song ‘Free Bird’?”
(14:49):
Matt HoffSo we spent the entire time, you know, at the event, asking her if they were going to play “Free Bird”.
Wayne LowryI've got a good Free Bird story for you. So when I was—since we're on the subject, so when I was—oh man, this is a long time ago. We had a gentleman that attended our church and he would always ask on Wednesday nights. Let's just say he had challenges in life. He had challenges, okay? And so every once in a while they'd say, “Hey, would you like to request a song for us to lead at church?”
(15:22):
Wayne LowryAnd he’d go, “Free bird. Free bird, man.”
Wayne LowryI was like, “This is church. How about, you know, ‘I'll Fly Away’? Let's go that route.” But you know…
Matt HoffSimilar vein. So when I was at the 82nd, you can request certain things if you're enlisted and reenlist, and every morning they would play over the loud speakers along all of the run routes the 82nd Airborne course, which was like an acapella singing group that sings army songs. It is like…
(16:07):
Matt HoffIf you were going to choose something to torture somebody with while they worked out, it is like a half step away from the Frozen soundtrack, right? Like it is that close. So, somebody, whose name I'll never know, reenlisted but his thing that he wanted for was, you have to play Metallica during PT1 morning.
(16:34):
Matt HoffAnd this got out, you know, thousands of people in a division. This got out to everybody. Everybody was very excited. You know, I'm not the biggest Metallica fan in the world, but it could have been like it could have been the wiggles, anything other than the 82nd Airborne Chorus would have made my day.
Matt HoffAnd they played, you know, this poor SOB gave them three extra years of his life for Metallica and they repaid him by playing one song.
(17:02):
Matt HoffSo they played, you know, “Master of Puppets”. Everybody's having a great day. And then all of a sudden, you hear them, you know, the very first song that starts the recording every single time was the very next thing and the amount of hearts that were breaking and smiles that disappeared from faces.
Matt HoffMan…
Wayne LowryYou'll never forget it .
(17:23):
Matt HoffNever forget it.
Matt HoffThere's some things that only the army can do to ruin your day and that was definitely…
Wayne LowryThat was one of them. Matt Hoff That was definitely an evil genius's plan.
Wayne LowryOh, well, let's transition over to A-S meds and tell us a little bit about what you've got going on. I mean, obviously you mentioned you, you were working at Home Depot and you got the call to go work for the family business. How has that transition been? How long have you been there?
(17:51):
Wayne LowryTell me a little bit about that.
Matt HoffWell, it's been a 10 year transition and so…
Matt HoffNow I've been with the company for a decade, started in summer 2020 or 2015. Believe it or not.
Matt HoffHeld a number of different positions there and it's been an interesting experience. You know, I think I was really hesitant to work with family. I think a lot of people are hesitant to work with family.
(18:18):
Matt HoffI think 9 times out of 10, it's just a recipe for strife and conflict, but…
Matt HoffAnd man, if my dad and I got along when I was a teenager, the way that we get along at work, he probably would still have a full head of hair. But it's just been a really inte—
(18:39):
Wayne LowrySo is he still? Is he still in the business? Is he still working with you?
Matt HoffSo he stepped back from the CEO role about two years ago, but he's the executive chairman, so he runs the board for the company.
Matt HoffAnd there's a…
Matt HoffYeah, there's another family involved, too. So, he kind of spearheads the folks who make sure I'm not getting too crazy.
(19:00):
Wayne LowryOK, cool. So you've been CEO now then for two years?
Matt HoffTwo years and I was CEO—COO, excuse me, before that and then I headed up a position called Strategic Alliances.
Matt HoffSo I had half of our customer service and accounts. I had all of the sales and then I had all of our vendor negotiations. So, we're really unique in the space and that we're buying most of our drugs directly from the manufacturer. So, we try to cut out as many middle men as possible.
(19:35):
Matt HoffNot only does that help lower prices, but it also shortens the supply chain so we have a better quality of supply. But we also know what's going on and we know what's new and what's next
Matt HoffWhich helps us just stay really sharp.
Wayne LowrySo by buying direct you see that I mean obviously that's going to create some cost savings. What does that mean for a traditional pharmacy like how does that differentiate you and going down to CVS?
(20:02):
Matt HoffSo a different, you know, different pharmacy, you don't really know what medication you're going to get, most of the time.
Matt HoffYou'll know what drug and there could be 10 manufacturers, but your small white round pill could turn into a light blue oblong pill and you know not to say that our drugs never change because manufacturers exit the market.
(20:27):
Matt HoffBut for the most part, we have more consistency of the things that cause patient confusion than other groups would.
Matt HoffYou know, we're a repackager in addition to being a wholesaler. So, we're licensed by the FDA as a manufacturer. So, we have additional steps and scrutiny that we have to hit and doing that gives us a lot more efficiency, a lot more scale and volume. And that you know, that helps keep down the operating cost, which gives us more time to focus on our customers and their patients.
(20:59):
Wayne LowrySo you know, coming from a military background, you obviously lived a very structured life. How has that transitioned to your role as CEO? Do you find yourself leaning into some of the old habits?
Matt HoffNot as not as much as you think.
Matt HoffI sort of burnt myself out on the anal retentiveness about hospital corners on beds and shiny shoes. And you know, I've, like, checked that box and have moved on with it. Yeah. You know, I really have a passion for making sure that we're set up for growth.
(21:38):
Matt HoffWe've been doing a phenomenal amount of new business, we've been doing a phenomenal amount of helping more clients and patients, getting us more efficient and getting us to those next steps.
Matt HoffBut you know, the biggest thing that you learn in the military is everybody may sort of look like an automaton from the outside and you think military it's very lockstep. The American army is not, you know, the Prussian army, right. Like, there is a lot of…
(22:09):
Matt HoffThere's a lot more free thought. There's a lot more dissent, there's a lot more individuality than you think.
Matt HoffAnd so, when you take that, you take sort of a defined box and you say, “Here's the mission. Here's what you have to think inside of.”
Matt HoffIt's amazing how much creativity can happen in that box.
(22:32):
Matt HoffSo, one of the things I've really enjoyed of structuring the team over the last couple of years is you find those really, really talented people and we have an amazingly talented team and making sure they're set up to do the things that they do best and let them run with it.
Matt HoffAnd you know, not everybody's going to be able to do everything as well as everybody else, like it is not plug and play by any stretch of the imagination, but you also learn that in the military like hey, you may have 3 lieutenants and each of them have the same you know credentials and skill sets and training.
(23:08):
Matt HoffBut A focuses and does exceptionally well at A's types of tasks and B does the same for B's and knowing when to use A for A and B to B.
Matt HoffBut knowing that they all have to have a certain baseline.
Matt HoffThat's a lesson that I don't think people realize that you learn in the military because people think everybody goes in and they say turn right and everybody does a right face.
(23:35):
Matt HoffBut it just…It really, in practicality, just isn't like that.
Wayne LowrySo, let's talk a minute about your, within your business, the tech stack. I'm really curious to know more about what you're using for tech day-to-day. And then also, what kind of integration have you brought your system into?
(23:57):
Matt HoffSo Tech is a very interesting thing for us. We are going through a massive modernization right now.
Matt HoffIt's really exciting. We just brought a new CTO on in January named Lance, and he's absolutely phenomenal.
Matt HoffOur VP of IT, who stayed with us, who shepherded us to the last couple of years, is incredibly smart, but it's part of that. Like we're taking things up even to a higher level. So I'm really excited about it. You know where we are now versus where we were two years ago.
(24:34):
Matt HoffYou know, you couldn't even compare, but I'm being a little cagey on my answer because we're sort of in the middle of this really rapid modernization, yeah.
Wayne LowrySo, y'all are building out your own system, so it's all custom. You built your own platform and then what systems are you able to integrate with or what is the goal as far as integration?
Matt HoffHmm.
(24:57):
Matt HoffSo, you have to think, there's two different types of tech stacks that we're working with.
Matt HoffOne is our back end, our internal and that's you know we're a manufacturing company, so it's invoices, order productions, everything else like that. It's our data analytics, it's our order receiving.
Matt HoffThat's going through a tremendous modernization. What really triggered it a couple of years ago was a law that takes effect in May that requires every individual bottle of medication to be serialized. It's called DSCSA.
(25:32):
Matt HoffIt's not really well known, especially in the DPC space, but you know, not every manufacturer and wholesaler is going to cross the finish line
Matt Hoffand if you're buying from somebody who does not meet that standard, or if your dispensing platform doesn't meet that standard, you're going to be in violation of a federal law.
(25:55):
Matt HoffSo that's something that should be of growing importance.
Matt HoffSo that's half of our tech stack.
Matt HoffI'm sorry?
Wayne LowryI'm going to put a pin in that because I want to come back and talk about that. So when we come back to that, so I'm just making a little note here because I want to talk more about that in the legislative conversation about what, what that might look like in the future. But back on the front end of your tech stack, what does that look like?
(26:23):
Matt HoffSo there's a number of really great solutions out there for the actual physician dispensing. So if you're the DPC doc, what do you have in hand that allows you to get our prepackaged medication into patients hands?
Matt HoffSo we own a system that we call Pedigree. We give that away for free, all of it's integrated with surescripts. So you can eat, prescribe and it goes right into the system.
(26:49):
Matt HoffAnd then MD scripts is one of our longtime partners. Most of DPC is using MD scripts because there's integration with systems like hint.
Matt HoffBut all of them have that awesome integration with surescripts. You know, at the end of the day, a doctor doesn't want to be playing pharmacists. It's not a good use of their time. This is two non-doctors talking about a good use of the doctor's time.
(27:16):
Wayne LowryYeah. Matt Hoff But the National Association of Chain Drug Stores did a study before COVID and they found that it costs a pharmacy almost $13 to dispense the medication and that's with the tech doing the pill counting and the pharmacist doing the verification. And then that process takes about 5:00-ish minutes.
(27:39):
Matt HoffWith our process, it takes less than two minutes to dispense the medication, so one of the things that I think is missed is the cost of medication, the cost of the pill, absolutely matters to how expensive the drug is. But the cost of the doctor's time is even more valuable.
Matt HoffYou can get a lot more pennies than you can get those minutes back that somebody's counting out, you know, counting to 90 instead of actually seeing their patients and making sure they understand what the medication is and what it's for.
(28:12):
Wayne LowryTake a quick break to talk about scalebyseo.com
Wayne LowryIf you run a direct primary care clinic, you already know the power of patient relationships. But here's the thing, patients can't sign up if they can't find you. That's where Scale By SEO comes in. We help DPC clinics get seen where people are searching. So you're not just waiting for word of mouth referrals.
(28:34):
Wayne LowryWith the right SEO strategy, your practice becomes the obvious choice. When people are looking for better healthcare options. If you're not showing up where they're searching, you're missing out. Be visible, get found, grow your practice, don't lead growth to chance. Visit scalebyseo.com today and let's get your clinic in front of the right people.
(28:57):
Wayne LowrySo your platform, I mean obviously this is the Best DPC podcast, so DPC Direct Primary Care is going to be a focus of our audience. Are you working with DPC's as well as other healthcare systems or providers or what's your typical market look like?
Matt HoffWe're all over.
(29:19):
Matt HoffWe work with DPC's. We work with urgent care. We work with groups that are dedicated to employer health. We work with even some groups that are still on the dark side that adjudicate to payers. But you know at the end of the day, my mission is to make it easier for providers to get medication into patients' hands.
(29:44):
Matt HoffI have always been supportive of the DPC movement. We've been there, we've put the blood, sweat and tears, we go out to DC and help with the lobbying,
Matt Hoffbut just because we haven't been able to convert everybody to see the light doesn't mean that their patients need to suffer. So we do work with all kinds,
Wayne LowryRight.
(30:06):
Matt HoffBut on the DPC front, I think our biggest value add is between the on-site medication dispensing and what we can do for our mail order home delivery program, we can get the medications directly to the patient in the way that's the most efficient for the doctor.
Matt HoffAnd that does overall the most good. There's some effective altruism in there.
(30:31):
Wayne LowryCan you describe really the difference between those two strategies? And obviously, some states like Texas, there's some laws and we'll get into that in a moment. But can you just describe for our listeners the difference between those two processes?
Matt HoffYeah.
Matt HoffSure. So on-site medication dispensing is when you go into your doctor's office, your DPC provider says, “Hey Matt, you need an atorvastatin and Z pack” and then they put it in the MR, it gets E-prescribed to the dispensing software their MA will grab the pre-packaged pre-counted medication.
(31:08):
Matt HoffBarcode scanned it out, the label goes out of the meds, they hand it to you. You pay a cash price or they bill it to your employer and in less than two minutes, you're on your way with your drugs.
Matt HoffVersus having to go to a pharmacy and waiting for God knows how long to get your medications and pay whatever the copay is going to be, and you know, shop around with a good RX card and all that other crazy stuff.
(31:33):
Matt HoffThe home delivery program is a little different. Wayne Lowry All right.
Matt HoffHome delivery program, they say “Hey Wayne, you're due for a refill. I'm sending the script in and it's going to come right to your house.” So that's kind of the Amazon of the system. The two work really well together.
(31:56):
Matt HoffYou don't need to go into the office for a refill unless the doctor decides you need to go into the office, so it gives them some time back to make sure you're getting their medication. They can be charging you for it.
Matt HoffThey can be making sure you're taking it so you're getting the outcomes without them needing to take time from their schedule to actually hand you a bottle so the two programs are symbiotic together like that.
(32:22):
Matt HoffYou know Z Pak is not going to come through the mail and time for it to be useful to you so you have time for both. But having that combination program is something that I think is under utilized in DPC.
Matt HoffI think the best DPC's know that getting patients their medication is going to save them money and improve their health in the long term.
(32:49):
Matt HoffThere's only a 60% chance that most drugs are picked up, 60% is the nationwide adherence rate. If you dispense, that takes it over 98%.
Wayne LowryWow.
Wayne LowryNow when you're dispensing, when you're really rolling out, say, in a typical DPC clinic, are you talking about 1000 different, you know types of medication or is it the top most useful emergency? Like how does it relate to what I might get at CVS or the hometown pharmacy?
(33:10):
Matt HoffNo.
Matt HoffI'll use the joke everybody says about DPC. If you've seen one DPC, you've seen one DPC.
Wayne LowryOne DPC. Yeah.
Matt HoffSo the doctors have full control over it.
Wayne LowryThat's a good dad joke. That's a good dad joke we'll put iIt in there.
(33:33):
Matt HoffIt's a good dad joke. No, but the doctor has full control over their formulary. So.
Matt HoffSome doctors are going to say I want to cover about 80% of what I'm going to prescribe. So versus a CVS or an independent pharmacy, they're going to need to cover about 100% of what any prescriber could prescribe.
(33:57):
Wayne LowryGotcha. Matt Hoff So the first step back is you're only going to cover what you're writing for. If you don't write for, you know Hep C medications, you should not carry Hep C medications, right? So you only have what you're going to write for.
Wayne LowryRight.
Matt HoffAnd then we always say the sweet spot is you want to carry enough medications to cover about 60 to 80% of what you're going to be prescribing. Now let's think about this though. You could have a super active population and you know Colorado and everybody skis.
(34:25):
Wayne LowryOK.
Matt HoffOr mountain bikes, you know, if they're not skiing their mountain biking, right?
Matt HoffAnd they're relatively young, they're relatively healthy. You're probably carrying antibiotics and you know, maybe some stuff for sore muscles, right?
(34:46):
Matt HoffIf you had a more elderly population in southern Florida or Arizona, and those people have a, you know, a bevy of medications you may be carrying close to 100 drugs
Matt HoffBecause everybody's on a statin and everybody's on something for diabetes. Everybody's on something for this, that or the other, so.
Wayne LowryRight.
(35:07):
Matt HoffOne of the beauties of the program is no order minimums. Stock what you need. We have great dating, so anything you buy has about 14 months before it expires or more, and you control what you carry. So you really are only carrying the things you need to take care of your patients and the mail order.
Matt HoffWell, that has an almost unlimited formulary. Like we said, it's not going to work great for the acute care meds, but if you have a one off patient, you have one of your high performing, high mountain biking, high snowboarding patients needs a statin.
(35:35):
Matt HoffWell, you can still take care of that patient because you can do that through the mail order without having to increase what you stock.
Wayne LowrySo what about on the mail order? How do you price that? Is that a do y'all do like a capitated rate or is it you just pay per prescription? Or…
(35:57):
Matt HoffSame price.
Wayne LowryWhat's your model on that?
Matt HoffSame price per prescription. So we have a consistent drug price and we're the only people who do this between on-site and mail order.
Matt HoffAnd I'm a very strong believer that you're going to bill per prescription. If you're going to go into a capitated plan, it turns into a Planet Fitness, right? Planet Fitness makes money for people who don't show up. If I'm charging you for the drugs that you don't take, and that's how I make my money.
(36:32):
Matt HoffI'm disincentivized to have good service, so I want to give the best service. I want to give the fastest rate. I want to give, you know, a very good price for the medications we're providing, but I want to make sure that folks are going to have an enjoyable experience.
(36:53):
Matt HoffThat keeps them following the doctor's orders. If I'm doing capitated plan, I make more money when you choose to use your pharmacy benefit. And that's just totally against the spirit of what DPC should be.
Wayne LowryAwesome. So if you were to say, who is your ideal client? Who would you say would be your ideal client? What are you looking for as far as small mom and pop shops DPC's
(37:21):
Wayne LowryOr are you looking for a large employer? You know people that are serving large employers. Do you really have an ideal client that you would say?
Matt HoffI don't say I'd have an ideal client, obviously from my responsibilities as a CEO, I have to say the larger the employer, typically the more opportunities we have to serve patients.
(37:43):
Matt HoffBut I really have a passion for working with the small mom and pops.
Matt HoffYou know, I think that those DPC's, all the different things they have to do to run an effective business; this is something that becomes daunting for them. So, having the ability to make it easy to provide those extra services like the home delivery.
(38:09):
Matt HoffIt gives them the ability to have a, you know, to go head to head with the bigger systems and have a parity of offerings without having to have this gigantic office staff because most of the time the doctor is also the accountant, is also the front desk in the back of house.
(38:30):
Matt HoffSo I really love working with them, you know, I love the “if you've seen one DPC, you've seen one DPC.”
Matt HoffBecause we love being a solutions company, it's right in our name. A-S Medication Solutions. We love trying to find…
Matt HoffOK, you're mostly seeing pediatric patients in your practice. You just have a lot of folks that are having a lot of babies. What can we do to help make that better? So that's why we've been spending a lot of time working on a vaccine program.
(39:00):
Matt HoffThat's the kind of stuff that keeps the job fun.
Matt HoffAs much as we love high volumes and sales, we really love making sure that we keep that human element alive and there's no better place to do that than in DPC.
Wayne LowrySo what are some of the trends you're seeing in pharmacy? What are some of the trends?
(39:24):
Matt HoffWell, I I think we'd have to come back for a whole other hour on GOP ones, but…
Wayne LowryWell, we will come back. Don't worry. This is we're gonna have you on more often. I'm already looking at the clock going ‘I've got so many questions.’ But who would you say or what is something that's like in the news relevant right now in regards to pharmacy.
Matt HoffOK.
Matt HoffYou know, pharmacy access and pharmacy closure is the most important thing.
(39:48):
Matt HoffWhen I started 10 years ago, there were 75,000 retail pharmacies nationwide. We're down to below 72,000. And then you look at Walgreens announced 500 store closures by August of this year. CCVS announced store closures in the hundreds. Where are these patients going to get their medications?
Matt HoffSo if your job as a doctor is to treat a patient and make sure they get better, they have to follow the doctor's orders, right? If you say you need to take atorvastatin or you need to do this, or you need to go to physical therapy or eat an apple a day.
(40:25):
Matt HoffWell, if there's no apples in the grocery store, how's the patient going to eat an apple a day? if there's no grocery stores, how are they going to get apples? So we have a very simple and elegant solution to solve that problem of pharmacy deserts.
Matt HoffAnd that's really the biggest trend we're seeing is it's getting harder and harder for doctors, especially in rural areas and in urban areas to get patients the medications they need to follow the doctor's orders.
(40:54):
Wayne LowrySo what are y'all doing to address that?
Matt HoffWell, doing things like coming on Best DPC podcast so DPC's know it's the right thing to do. We're speaking at a number of conferences coming up.
Matt HoffWe're continuing to scream from a mountaintop about it, you know, some states make it harder than others. Texas is one of two states that outright prohibits physician dispensing, which you know, here's a…
(41:19):
Wayne LowryWell, let's talk about that.
Matt HoffYeah. Wayne Lowry Let's talk about that. So I mean, you've spent a lot of time in Texas. In fact, I think we were both in Austin a couple years ago at the same time. I know you've done a lot of work in that area. So tell me a little bit about what's going on in Texas and what was the other state that's also in the same boat.
Matt HoffMassachusetts. Yeah. If you can name another two things that those guys have in common politically.
Wayne LowryMassachusetts.
(41:44):
Wayne LowryReady? Alex Bregman? Alex Begman. Houston Astro. Now, Boston Red Sox.
Matt HoffThere you go. I've been telling people you guys both had teams in the NBA Finals last year.
Wayne LowryI don't know.
Wayne LowryI don't know about that. I don't know anything about that team from Dallas. I don't care about them.
(42:05):
Matt HoffIs that recent after the trade of Luca or are you a long time Spurs fan?
Wayne LowryNo, I'm a Houston guy originally, so I'm Houston Rockets, Houston Astros, Houston Texans and a good friend is all about The Mavericks and the Rangers and all them. So, I try to avoid those teams as much as possible.
(42:28):
Matt HoffWell, as a non-Texan and I'll stay away from that, but…
Wayne LowryOK, so Massachusetts Texas on-site this dispensing is not legal. So what can be done and what's in the works there?
Matt HoffThere's been a number of legislators who have been addressing this issue and have been aware of it that are pushing forward some legislation. We've been working really closely with different medical societies that also realize.
(43:01):
Matt HoffHey, a doctor's hands are tied more in Texas than they are in Oklahoma and Arizona, and that's just not right.
Matt HoffWe're hopeful that some legislation will go through. It's really a legislative fix, but the goal is to get Texas and they're sort of leading the charge between the two states onto a parity with the rest of the country. Montana had the same issue a number of years ago and you know their state Supreme Court saw the light and made a ruling.
(43:40):
Matt HoffIt's good for patients. It does not hurt pharmacies. It's not a scope creep. It's not any of the things that people try to castigate it as. It is just something that is common, safe, easy, and effective.
Matt HoffThat helps solve what is a very real problem, which is pharmacies, unfortunately, are shutting it down and I'm not anti-pharmacy. I know that could it's a logical conclusion but you know pharmacists signs my paycheck. Our company's been… Yeah.
(44:10):
Wayne LowryI was gonna say, In a sense, it's just creating a different kind of competition, because then it would open up for those same local pharmacies to have direct contracts with their local DPC's or clinics to provide that on-site as well.
Wayne LowrySo and in one sense you might argue or it might be argued that it's just opening up, you know, opening it up to competition that might be beneficial to the employees. So I mean it would be no way a monopoly.
(44:46):
Wayne LowryIn other words, it's not like this happens in all of the local pharmacies. I can see the big pharmacies fighting this tooth and nail, but yeah.
Matt HoffBut at the end of the day, like we said, a DPC is not going to be a pharmacist. The doctor doesn't want to play pharmacy, they're going to do a limited number of scripts for what they want to treat for their patients.
(45:10):
Matt HoffAnd it's not going to take away from all of the rest of it. So there's always going to be a space there and you know, frankly, people forget a pharmacy is a doctor of pharmacy. They have a lot to add as a member of a care team. So if you have that complicated patient with 9 medications.
Matt HoffHell yes, send them to the pharmacist. That's when you need to use that person. In many cases, just making sure that the white round pills were counted to 90 is, you know, you're having a doctor do something that can be done by a machine.
(45:45):
Wayne LowryGotcha. So what's cooking? We're almost out of time. So I want to make sure we cover anything that is of urgent concern. So, what do you got cooking right now? Anything exciting you want to talk about in the last few minutes we have.
Matt HoffYeah, I think the legislative opportunity in Texas is really real, so anybody who's listening in Texas or Massachusetts or a state that makes it more difficult for physicians to dispense or to delegate that active dispensing to a mid level that works for them.
(46:20):
Matt HoffYou know, call your congressman, call your legislators at the state level. Get loud about it. You know, most of the time this falls below the radar for folks.
Matt HoffBut this is the time to get loud, especially in Texas. Let's reach out to folks and make sure they know that, “Hey, I'm a doctor. I'm having a hard time treating my patients and this is a solution for it.”
(46:44):
Wayne LowryAll right, so we are now going to transition to our last little section. It's a little section we call “Keeping it Reels”.
Matt HoffAll right. Wayne Lowry The focus of this section is kind of a rapid fire approach going to ask some questions, get some great sound bites. I mean, I've already had great sound bites. You've been awesome, but hopefully we'll get something that I can't promise you'll go viral. But you know, at the very least, you will definitely get some additional exposure with these awesome answers on social media platforms.
(47:18):
Wayne LowrySo, starting off on “Keeping it Reels”, what is the wildest thing your kid has done in the last hour?
Matt HoffWell, I think running around in just the diaper with the Hot Wheels Car being worn as a hat is probably—in the last hour—the biggest thing I've seen.
Wayne LowryYeah, I was gonna say, yeah, it helps. I already knew that.
(47:42):
Matt HoffYeah.
Wayne LowryAlright. Next question, it's a real simple question. I'm just going to say it and then I want to get your honest reaction. GLP-1.
Matt HoffLot of good that can be done, a lot of abuse going on, so.
(48:04):
Matt HoffIt's part of the future, but needs to be done carefully and is not a magic bullet.
Wayne LowryAwesome. If you could fix one thing about the pharmacy industry with a snap of your fingers, what would it be? You've got your magic wand, Matt. What are you going to fix?
Matt HoffI would give parity in all states that allows physicians to dispense medication.
(48:29):
Matt HoffSimple.
Wayne LowryAll right. Last question, how did your military experience shape your approach to healthcare and leadership?
Matt HoffI think my employees would say, unfortunately, probably too much they have heard—I think a lot of folks give military expressions and examples as a cliche. I do it because that's the only way my brain functions.
(48:56):
Matt HoffSo, your tax dollars did a very good job of making sure that part of me is in there to stay.
Wayne LowryAwesome. Well, thanks, Matt. That's it for today's episode of the Best DPC podcast. Big thanks to Matt Hoff for joining us and sharing some profound knowledge. I think that's a good word for it. Profound knowledge and a few great stories, Matt, it wasn't long enough. We've got to do this again.
(49:25):
Wayne LowryMaybe when Texas session wraps up, we can get some.
Wayne LowryReally dive into what happened this session and get some more insight on that, but thanks for having or thank you for coming, being a part of this show. If you want to check out his work, we'll have all of his contact information in the notes in the show notes below, but check out their website.
(49:51):
Wayne Lowrya-smeds.com and connect with Matt on LinkedIn. He's there. He's active. Follow him and you can learn more.
Wayne LowryFor more DPC awesomeness, visit our bestdpc.com website. Follow us on social media now if you're listening to us on a podcast format, iTunes, Spotify, you name it, we're there, or you may have found us on YouTube.
(50:22):
Wayne LowryEither way, subscribe to our channel, share it to a friend, share it to an enemy. Just put it out there for the world to see. Every little bit helps. We're not charging you to watch this podcast.
Wayne LowrySo pass along the free information and help us continue to grow DPC until next time. Keep demanding the best for your health with direct primary care. Bye bye.
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