October 1, 2025 • 17 mins
In this episode of the MGMA Business Solutions Podcast, Daniel Williams sits down with Dr. Rihan Javid to explore how medical practices can balance artificial intelligence with human expertise. Dr. Javid shares insights from his work with EDGE and Rinova AI, where he helps practices leverage remote talent and AI-powered agents to reduce costs, improve billing accuracy, and enhance patient care.
The conversation covers how AI can automate repetitive administrative tasks, the limits of technology in patient interactions, and the importance of maintaining empathy and trust in healthcare. Listeners will also hear real-world examples of AI’s role in revenue cycle management and the long-term potential of AI agents.
Key Takeaways:
- (03:27) - Introduction to Dr. Javid’s background: From law to psychiatry to healthcare operations, and how this experience informs his approach to AI in medical practices
- (06:38) - The billing challenge: Why healthcare billing is so complex and costly, and how practices struggle to retain top coding and billing staff
- (08:21) - Where AI excels vs. where humans are essential: Repetitive coding and data tasks are ideal for AI, while human interaction remains irreplaceable for patient-facing roles
- (09:35) - Defining AI agents: How AI agents simulate human workflows, log into EHRs, code notes, and reconcile payments—dramatically cutting processing times
- (13:15) - Cost savings potential: How practices can reduce billing expenses from 5% of revenue to less than 1%, saving tens of thousands of dollars per physician each year
- (15:42) - Preserving empathy and trust: Why AI cannot replace the doctor-patient relationship and the importance of human connection in healthcare
- (17:08) - Final advice for practice leaders: Adopt AI thoughtfully—integrating tools like billing agents without losing the essence of patient-centered care
Resources
- Visit the EDGE website
- Visit the Rinova AI website to learn more
- Watch a Rinova Agentic AI Insurance Verification Demo
- Connect with Dr. Rihan Javid on LinkedIn
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Daniel Williams (00:02):
Well, hi, everyone, and welcome to the
MGMA Business Solutions Podcast.I'm Daniel Williams, senior
editor at MGMA and host of theMGMA Podcast Network. Today,
we're talking about a topic onevery practice leader's mind,
how to balance AI and humantalent so you can run a smarter,
(00:23):
more trusted operation andpractice. Today we have a guest
that I had an opportunity towork with on a recent webinar,
and we're going to link to thatwebinar so you can capture that
own demand as well. But we haveDoctor.
Rihan Javid today. He'spresident of EDGE and CEO of
Renova AI. So Doctor. Javid,first, good to see you again.
Dr. Rihan Javid (00:49):
You too, Daniel. Thanks for having us on.
It's a pleasure, as always. Iknow we've been working with
MGMA for a couple of years. It'salways great events.
Daniel Williams (00:57):
It really is. So a couple of questions just
for clarification, because Ikeep going back and calling you
guys Edge Health, Renova AI.Help us understand a little bit
about the organization thatyou're the founder of and bring
us up to speed of what you guysdo and how those two different
(01:18):
titles sort of mesh togetherthere.
Dr. Rihan Javid (01:22):
Yeah, definitely. So, you know, a few
years ago we started EdgeHealth, which is, it's kind of
an employer of record where wehave people in multiple
different countries. SoPakistan, Peru, Costa Rica, and
a couple other smaller countriesthroughout the world. And what
we do is we provide remotetalent for medical offices,
(01:44):
dental offices, and insurancecompanies. So we've been doing
that for a few years.
We have about three fiftyhealthcare customers And you
know, we have everything fromsolo practices to the largest
physician owned hospital in thecountry. And for those groups,
you know, do everything frombillings, we do billing, we do
(02:04):
staffing, we do front office,back office, so pretty much
everything across the board. Andso one of the things we heard
from our customers is that, youknow, this is going really
great, but where's AI? Where's,you know, how are you guys gonna
do this? You know, we're stillwanna grow, but it's still hard
to find billers.
It's still hard to find peoplewho are able to do all of this.
So how are you gonna do that?And our CTO from Edge, he's
(02:28):
actually a PhD in AI machinelearning. You know, we sat down
and was like, know, look,billing, a lot of it's
repetitive, lot of it's reallyeasy stuff and AI is able to fix
a lot of it, right? So when wefirst started, we with Renova,
we were trying to offer maybelike a full solution where we
take over your whole billing,but obviously these companies
and healthcare practices,they've been doing it for years
(02:49):
and they're like, man, that'sjust too much of an ask, right?
Because if you mess it up for amonth or two months, you can't
pay your staff, right? It's justnot going to happen. And so, we
worked with them and we used ourexisting solution and we really
enhanced into something calledan AI agent. And so with the
agents, it's just a softwarethat does, you know, maybe
ninety, ninety five percent ofyour billing, but you still have
(03:10):
your human team that supervisesit. So your workflow stays the
same, but you just have the AIthat does most of it.
Daniel Williams (03:16):
Okay. You were walking me through some sort of
a demo on YouTube. You had somevideos up there that were
fascinating. I'm hoping we canget into those in just a second.
But first, you do have thatdoctor in front of your name.
So tell us a little bit aboutyour healthcare background.
Dr. Rihan Javid (03:36):
Yeah, so I was actually a lawyer beforehand. I
went to law school and did somehealthcare litigation stuff. But
I really want to go to medschool. I think even when I was
in law school, was like, man, Ishould have, should have done
that. But at the same time, youknow, I was in there.
So, you know, I went to medschool, I'm a psychiatrist and
(03:56):
worked on administrative sidefor the past three or four
years, chief medical officer atone of the hospitals here in
California, and you know, sameproblems, lot of billing, a lot
of compliance issues, underbilling, over billing,
miscoding, And so we've beenable to work with the hospitals,
the different stuff, use myexperience from this, and really
(04:18):
apply it to the differentaspects of both Edge Health and
Renova.
Daniel Williams (04:22):
Okay. Now you have been talking about those
challenges with billing. Youwere talking a lot about it to
me offline. Just looking at it,because you have really studied
this topic, why are there somany issues with billing? Then
it provides an opportunity fororganizations like you to come
(04:42):
in and fill those gaps.
What's going on with billingthat seems so problematic in
healthcare?
Dr. Rihan Javid (04:48):
I think there's a few different things. The The
insurance companies, that'sprobably one big part of it,
right? They don't wanna pay whatthe contracted rate is, right?
They're really making it hard onpractices. I think that's one
thing.
The other thing is it's hard tofind a good billing and coding
team. If you have someone, youpay them, you know, some places
$25 an hour, they stay with youfor six months, they learn your
(05:10):
systems and they go across thestreet to, you UC San Diego
Scripps where they're paying $35an hour pension, all this stuff.
And so it's really hard tocompete. It's really hard to
keep a talented team together.So I think, you know, those are
two parts of it.
The other thing is billing andcoding, it's such a large
expense for most medicalpractices. Anywhere between four
(05:33):
to 8% we've seen. And so, youknow, if you have 10 doctors,
maybe your annual revenue is10,000,000, out of that you're
paying $500,000 for billing andcoding and it might not even be
right. And so we just thinkthat's too much, It's just
putting too much of a burden onyour team and on your practice
to pay that much. And so reallyour goal is to bring that down
(05:55):
from 5% to less than 1%.
Daniel Williams (05:57):
Thank you for that. Now, one of the things
that was so interesting in thewebinar recently and what we're
going to talk about here, isreally peeling away the layers
of understanding the AI humanbalance. We all hear about AI
now, and then some people go,Well, does this mean I have a
job anymore? And you've got somereally interesting take on here.
(06:19):
So what are some of thoseoperational tasks out of
practice where AI is excelling,but then where do we still need
those human beings to be part ofthat production cycle as well?
Dr. Rihan Javid (06:32):
Yeah, great. So I think there's a few things on
there. I think the main areawhere AI really excels is in
repetitive tasks, simple stuff,right? Just copying, pasting,
like coding, like, you know,coding a note, right? So it's an
algorithm, right?
It's just like step one, steptwo, step three. Do you have
these criteria to send it over?Also, you know, when you're when
you code the note, then yougotta submit it. A lot of times
(06:53):
you're copying and pasting datafrom one software to another and
then you got the payment or thecheck and then you gotta pay to,
you know, go back and pastethat, right? So it's very simple
stuff, but you know, do youreally wanna pay someone $35 an
hour or $20 an hour?
And do they really wanna dothat? You know, think a lot of
times, no. Sometimes you know,people love it and you know,
that's great, but I think thosethings are really easy and
(07:14):
easily, you know, helped with AIAnd some of the stuff that's not
is, you know, I know there'slike agents or chatbots that
will answer the phone call. Imean, I have Verizon and man,
even like calling my doctor'spractice and they're like, oh
man, press 1 and we'll send youa text and you can communicate
with that. Oh, it's hard.
Daniel Williams (07:33):
Yeah.
Dr. Rihan Javid (07:34):
Right? You just want to get on there, you want
to talk to someone and yeah, Iknow like my parents, my, you
know, like in laws, everyone,right? They're sixties,
seventies years old and theydon't want deal with that, they
just want to just talk tosomeone really quickly. And what
this does is it really helps youtransfer people from these
repetitive tasks back officewhere they're not seeing anyone
to really your patients andreally giving your patients the
(07:56):
attention that they need.
Daniel Williams (07:58):
Okay, thanks for that. Now one thing that you
were walking me through beforewe went live here is an AI
agent. You showed me a littlebit of a demo on YouTube and
hopefully you can let me know ifwe can share that link with our
audience. I don't know if that'sproprietary. Definitely.
Okay. Oh, good. Good. So let'stalk about that and define it.
(08:19):
What is an AI agent?
Dr. Rihan Javid (08:22):
Good. So let me get the exact definition. Sure.
An AI agent, it's basically asoftware that acts as a human
and does whatever a human cando, right? So it's usually a
combination, so I know, youknow, pretty much everyone's
probably heard of ChatGPT atthis point, ChatGPT will be the
brains of the agent and thenthere's a memory and then
(08:44):
there's tasks, right?
So the tasks can be, you know,logging into the EHR, pulling up
the schedule for the day,finding the first patient's
note, coding that note andsubmitting it. So the agent will
be trained on those things. Soit can do all of those things as
well as payment reconciliation,whatever you want. And so the
agent is basically a computerprogram that asks acts as a
(09:05):
human to do all of thosedifferent tasks. And so it could
be something as simple as justlogging into the software to,
you know, running your wholerevenue cycle.
And instead of taking ten orfifteen minutes per patient, it
can do it in twenty seconds.
Daniel Williams (09:19):
Wow. Wow. And you walked me through it and I
saw it live and we'll share thatlink with everybody. So what we
keep hearing about AI is it israpidly evolving, rapidly
changing. So what are the rolesof agents in the future of AI as
that continues to grow andevolve?
Dr. Rihan Javid (09:37):
Yeah, think we spoke about a month ago
Daniel Williams (09:39):
maybe, know,
Dr. Rihan Javid (09:41):
agent was like very early, right? We didn't
even mention it, I think in thewebinar, since then when you
came to market, we've gottenlike multiple different agents
that we've applied to differentparts of it. So yeah, I think
the roles of the agent at verybeginning, probably revenue
cycle management's really easyto do. AI scribing, I think is
hit or miss. You know, thinksome of the better ones can get
(10:03):
maybe 95%.
So you still have to go through,so spending time on that. I
think those are probably, youknow, maybe the two easiest to
do. And then obviously there'slike phone agents and stuff like
that, which I think, you know,we already discussed. I think it
seems like both of us agreethat's a challenge, right? If
you've got a call, you can't getahold of them.
Right. I think that's achallenge. So I think that's
(10:24):
maybe further down the road, butdefinitely, you know, the
billing, the priorauthorizations, the eligibility,
where you just log into acomputer, figure the stuff out
and then post it. So I thinkthose are, that's probably the
feature, the media feature,maybe like one to three years.
AI scribing is kind the samething.
It's, you know, it's alreadyhere, but maybe not quite where
it needs to be. And then I thinkthe answering services that are
(10:45):
AI, I think those are, I don'tknow if they're ever gonna be
like 100%. I don't think they'reever gonna be 100% because I
just wanna talk to someone.Right?
Daniel Williams (10:52):
Right.
Dr. Rihan Javid (10:52):
And I like run into a machine and then go back
and forth. Think yeah. I liketalking to people and I think
that'll be limited.
Daniel Williams (10:59):
So I'm asking you a question. You have that
legal side of your backgroundthat may not be muscles you're
exercising all the time thesedays, but this is a general
question. If you know it, pleaseshare with us. But when we as a
consumer are talking orinteracting with someone in a
chat room, do we know, or is itlegally bound to tell us that
(11:24):
it's an AI, or is it fine thatwe don't know? We could be
talking to a chatbot.
We could be talking to a humanbeing, but we don't really know.
Is that something that you haveknowledge of?
Dr. Rihan Javid (11:35):
You know, I'm not sure. There's no, I don't
think there's any federalguidelines. Think even states,
like, I live in California, Ihaven't seen anything in
Daniel Williams (11:42):
California. Okay.
Dr. Rihan Javid (11:43):
And, you whenever I call, like, insurance
companies or, you know, Verizon,T Mobile, whatever, I've never
heard anyone say this is achatbot, so I don't think
there's anything on that.Unfortunately, I think it would
be better if there was, butunfortunately not there.
Daniel Williams (11:58):
Yeah, I was just curious about that. Let's
go a little bit deeper then whenwe're really talking about the
benefits of bringing togetherboth the AI and that human
element. When you're using thoseAI agents, you've talked to me
previously and in that webinarabout reducing cost. Talk about
(12:19):
that. Where are those costscoming down and how low can the
cost go for a practice?
Dr. Rihan Javid (12:25):
Yeah, that's a great question. I think it
really depends on the practice.So we use an average primary
care practice where the doctorbills about a million dollars a
year, about $80,000 a month,plus or minus, know, some places
higher, some places lower. Andso right now, if they're paying
about four to 5%, maybe 6%,that's about $50,000 a year,
(12:46):
which is quite a bit, right?Imagine you can take your, you
know, put in your four zero oneks, take your kids on, you know,
summer camp, Acacia, whatever itis, right?
Save for your family or yourstaff or whatever it is. So
that's, you know, a significantamount, right? So say if you
have 10 doctors, that's $500,000and a lot of that's just wasted
time that you can take thosepeople, your staff members, put
(13:08):
them patient facing whatever youwant, right? So I think we can
bring that $50,000 we alreadyare, that $50,000 per doctor
down to about 5 or 6,000.
Daniel Williams (13:19):
Okay.
Dr. Rihan Javid (13:19):
So all of a sudden you're seeing, you know,
5% to about 0.5, 0.6%. They'reseeing about an 88% savings on
your billing costs overnight.Wow. It's pretty substantial.
Someone came to my hospital andthey're like, man we can save
you tens of thousands perdoctor.
That's amazing.
Daniel Williams (13:38):
Really is. It really is. So I want to ask you,
just shift a little bit in someof our final questions here, and
ask you about this is what Ifound so fascinating in your
webinar, where you were talkingabout preserving empathy and
trust in patient care. There aresurveys and studies out there
(13:59):
where there is some distrust ofthe health care system. It might
not be the individualpractitioner or clinician, but
it's that system.
So you want to preserve thatempathy. How do you do that
while also introducing so muchof the AI and the technology out
there?
Dr. Rihan Javid (14:17):
Yeah, no, I agree with that. So I'm a
psychiatrist and a firm believerthat without the empathy,
without that doctor patientrelationship, it's just not
going to work. I think there'scountless studies out there that
show, you know, that power, thekindness that doctors and nurses
and the staff show is probablythe most important part in the
healthcare system. If you don'thave that, it doesn't matter
(14:38):
what medications you give,people just aren't going to
trust it. They're not going tobelieve in it.
They're not going to take it orthey're not going to have that
mind body, I think, connectionthat we really need to heal. And
so if you don't have that, ifyou just have, whether it's just
like a machine, an AI, an agent,a bot, whatever you want to call
it, That's all you have. Andthere's no two ways. There's,
there's no listening. I think tothe patron, there's no
(14:59):
understanding or there's no eyecontact.
There's no touching. Even justshaking someone's hand makes a
big difference. I think if youdon't have that, it's just not
going to work. You really need,you know, you need that human
touch, you need that connection,because we are social animals
and you do have to do that. Ifyou don't, it's just not going
to work.
Daniel Williams (15:15):
Right.
Dr. Rihan Javid (15:15):
And I think, you know, so AI can help back
end, you know, really great,brought in talking to your
patients, treating yourpatients, you know, maybe like,
you know, one day, but I thinknot future. We're social
animals, we need thatconnection.
Daniel Williams (15:28):
Yeah. Final question then, I'll give you a
blank slate here. Is thereanything I didn't ask about AI
and that human connection here,that balance there, that you'd
want to share with our audiencethat maybe I didn't bring up?
Dr. Rihan Javid (15:43):
No, think we talked about a lot of it. I
think it's ongoing, it'schanging dramatically. I think
it's, you know, it's a pendulum.I think what's really important
for most practices, trying tokeep your core, kind of keep
your essence of who you are andbring in, you know, little bits
here, like whether it's the AIagent to help with billing or
this or that, but don't let AIor computers or anything change
(16:04):
who you are. Don't let it changeyour practice and don't let it
change your connection with yourpatients.
But at the same time, use it,maximize it to increase your,
you know, your staffsatisfaction, your patient
satisfaction, and ultimatelyyour bottom line. That's what's
going to help your staff, treatyour patients, make sure they're
not overworked and use this tominimize that stuff. I think,
(16:24):
you you'll probably succeed andyou'll do pretty well.
Daniel Williams (16:27):
All right. Well, Doctor. Javed, I want to
thank you so much for joining uson the MGMA podcast. Great
seeing you again.
Dr. Rihan Javid (16:35):
Yeah, no, great. Thank you. Are you going
to be at Orlando?
Daniel Williams (16:40):
I sure am. Are you going to be there?
Dr. Rihan Javid (16:42):
Yeah. I'll be there. Yeah. Alright. You guys
there.
You know, if anyone's, you know,on the fence, it's yeah. We've
been, I think, three years in arow. It's a great event.
Daniel Williams (16:49):
Right. I'm looking forward to getting to
shake your hand in person there,so that's gonna be fun.
Dr. Rihan Javid (16:54):
Yeah.
Daniel Williams (16:55):
Well, everyone, I have mentioned the webinar on
several occasions. It's ondemand. So what I'm going to do
is provide a direct link tothat. I'm also going to provide
some other resources, as Doctor.Javed was showing me earlier
today, a short demo on YouTubeof what this AI agent can do.
(17:17):
And it's pretty impressive ofhow quickly it can analyze all
the information out there, agreat time saver. So I'm going
to provide those resources aswell. So until then, I want to
thank everybody for being MGMApodcast listeners.
Well, hi, everyone, and welcome to the
MGMA Business Solutions Podcast.I'm Daniel Williams, senior
editor at MGMA and host of theMGMA Podcast Network. Today,
we're talking about a topic onevery practice leader's mind,
how to balance AI and humantalent so you can run a smarter,
(00:23):
more trusted operation andpractice. Today we have a guest
that I had an opportunity towork with on a recent webinar,
and we're going to link to thatwebinar so you can capture that
own demand as well. But we haveDoctor.
Rihan Javid today. He'spresident of EDGE and CEO of
Renova AI. So Doctor. Javid,first, good to see you again.
Dr. Rihan Javid (00:49):
You too, Daniel. Thanks for having us on.
It's a pleasure, as always. Iknow we've been working with
MGMA for a couple of years. It'salways great events.
Daniel Williams (00:57):
It really is. So a couple of questions just
for clarification, because Ikeep going back and calling you
guys Edge Health, Renova AI.Help us understand a little bit
about the organization thatyou're the founder of and bring
us up to speed of what you guysdo and how those two different
(01:18):
titles sort of mesh togetherthere.
Dr. Rihan Javid (01:22):
Yeah, definitely. So, you know, a few
years ago we started EdgeHealth, which is, it's kind of
an employer of record where wehave people in multiple
different countries. SoPakistan, Peru, Costa Rica, and
a couple other smaller countriesthroughout the world. And what
we do is we provide remotetalent for medical offices,
(01:44):
dental offices, and insurancecompanies. So we've been doing
that for a few years.
We have about three fiftyhealthcare customers And you
know, we have everything fromsolo practices to the largest
physician owned hospital in thecountry. And for those groups,
you know, do everything frombillings, we do billing, we do
(02:04):
staffing, we do front office,back office, so pretty much
everything across the board. Andso one of the things we heard
from our customers is that, youknow, this is going really
great, but where's AI? Where's,you know, how are you guys gonna
do this? You know, we're stillwanna grow, but it's still hard
to find billers.
It's still hard to find peoplewho are able to do all of this.
So how are you gonna do that?And our CTO from Edge, he's
(02:28):
actually a PhD in AI machinelearning. You know, we sat down
and was like, know, look,billing, a lot of it's
repetitive, lot of it's reallyeasy stuff and AI is able to fix
a lot of it, right? So when wefirst started, we with Renova,
we were trying to offer maybelike a full solution where we
take over your whole billing,but obviously these companies
and healthcare practices,they've been doing it for years
(02:49):
and they're like, man, that'sjust too much of an ask, right?
Because if you mess it up for amonth or two months, you can't
pay your staff, right? It's justnot going to happen. And so, we
worked with them and we used ourexisting solution and we really
enhanced into something calledan AI agent. And so with the
agents, it's just a softwarethat does, you know, maybe
ninety, ninety five percent ofyour billing, but you still have
(03:10):
your human team that supervisesit. So your workflow stays the
same, but you just have the AIthat does most of it.
Daniel Williams (03:16):
Okay. You were walking me through some sort of
a demo on YouTube. You had somevideos up there that were
fascinating. I'm hoping we canget into those in just a second.
But first, you do have thatdoctor in front of your name.
So tell us a little bit aboutyour healthcare background.
Dr. Rihan Javid (03:36):
Yeah, so I was actually a lawyer beforehand. I
went to law school and did somehealthcare litigation stuff. But
I really want to go to medschool. I think even when I was
in law school, was like, man, Ishould have, should have done
that. But at the same time, youknow, I was in there.
So, you know, I went to medschool, I'm a psychiatrist and
(03:56):
worked on administrative sidefor the past three or four
years, chief medical officer atone of the hospitals here in
California, and you know, sameproblems, lot of billing, a lot
of compliance issues, underbilling, over billing,
miscoding, And so we've beenable to work with the hospitals,
the different stuff, use myexperience from this, and really
(04:18):
apply it to the differentaspects of both Edge Health and
Renova.
Daniel Williams (04:22):
Okay. Now you have been talking about those
challenges with billing. Youwere talking a lot about it to
me offline. Just looking at it,because you have really studied
this topic, why are there somany issues with billing? Then
it provides an opportunity fororganizations like you to come
(04:42):
in and fill those gaps.
What's going on with billingthat seems so problematic in
healthcare?
Dr. Rihan Javid (04:48):
I think there's a few different things. The The
insurance companies, that'sprobably one big part of it,
right? They don't wanna pay whatthe contracted rate is, right?
They're really making it hard onpractices. I think that's one
thing.
The other thing is it's hard tofind a good billing and coding
team. If you have someone, youpay them, you know, some places
$25 an hour, they stay with youfor six months, they learn your
(05:10):
systems and they go across thestreet to, you UC San Diego
Scripps where they're paying $35an hour pension, all this stuff.
And so it's really hard tocompete. It's really hard to
keep a talented team together.So I think, you know, those are
two parts of it.
The other thing is billing andcoding, it's such a large
expense for most medicalpractices. Anywhere between four
(05:33):
to 8% we've seen. And so, youknow, if you have 10 doctors,
maybe your annual revenue is10,000,000, out of that you're
paying $500,000 for billing andcoding and it might not even be
right. And so we just thinkthat's too much, It's just
putting too much of a burden onyour team and on your practice
to pay that much. And so reallyour goal is to bring that down
(05:55):
from 5% to less than 1%.
Daniel Williams (05:57):
Thank you for that. Now, one of the things
that was so interesting in thewebinar recently and what we're
going to talk about here, isreally peeling away the layers
of understanding the AI humanbalance. We all hear about AI
now, and then some people go,Well, does this mean I have a
job anymore? And you've got somereally interesting take on here.
(06:19):
So what are some of thoseoperational tasks out of
practice where AI is excelling,but then where do we still need
those human beings to be part ofthat production cycle as well?
Dr. Rihan Javid (06:32):
Yeah, great. So I think there's a few things on
there. I think the main areawhere AI really excels is in
repetitive tasks, simple stuff,right? Just copying, pasting,
like coding, like, you know,coding a note, right? So it's an
algorithm, right?
It's just like step one, steptwo, step three. Do you have
these criteria to send it over?Also, you know, when you're when
you code the note, then yougotta submit it. A lot of times
(06:53):
you're copying and pasting datafrom one software to another and
then you got the payment or thecheck and then you gotta pay to,
you know, go back and pastethat, right? So it's very simple
stuff, but you know, do youreally wanna pay someone $35 an
hour or $20 an hour?
And do they really wanna dothat? You know, think a lot of
times, no. Sometimes you know,people love it and you know,
that's great, but I think thosethings are really easy and
(07:14):
easily, you know, helped with AIAnd some of the stuff that's not
is, you know, I know there'slike agents or chatbots that
will answer the phone call. Imean, I have Verizon and man,
even like calling my doctor'spractice and they're like, oh
man, press 1 and we'll send youa text and you can communicate
with that. Oh, it's hard.
Daniel Williams (07:33):
Yeah.
Dr. Rihan Javid (07:34):
Right? You just want to get on there, you want
to talk to someone and yeah, Iknow like my parents, my, you
know, like in laws, everyone,right? They're sixties,
seventies years old and theydon't want deal with that, they
just want to just talk tosomeone really quickly. And what
this does is it really helps youtransfer people from these
repetitive tasks back officewhere they're not seeing anyone
to really your patients andreally giving your patients the
(07:56):
attention that they need.
Daniel Williams (07:58):
Okay, thanks for that. Now one thing that you
were walking me through beforewe went live here is an AI
agent. You showed me a littlebit of a demo on YouTube and
hopefully you can let me know ifwe can share that link with our
audience. I don't know if that'sproprietary. Definitely.
Okay. Oh, good. Good. So let'stalk about that and define it.
(08:19):
What is an AI agent?
Dr. Rihan Javid (08:22):
Good. So let me get the exact definition. Sure.
An AI agent, it's basically asoftware that acts as a human
and does whatever a human cando, right? So it's usually a
combination, so I know, youknow, pretty much everyone's
probably heard of ChatGPT atthis point, ChatGPT will be the
brains of the agent and thenthere's a memory and then
(08:44):
there's tasks, right?
So the tasks can be, you know,logging into the EHR, pulling up
the schedule for the day,finding the first patient's
note, coding that note andsubmitting it. So the agent will
be trained on those things. Soit can do all of those things as
well as payment reconciliation,whatever you want. And so the
agent is basically a computerprogram that asks acts as a
(09:05):
human to do all of thosedifferent tasks. And so it could
be something as simple as justlogging into the software to,
you know, running your wholerevenue cycle.
And instead of taking ten orfifteen minutes per patient, it
can do it in twenty seconds.
Daniel Williams (09:19):
Wow. Wow. And you walked me through it and I
saw it live and we'll share thatlink with everybody. So what we
keep hearing about AI is it israpidly evolving, rapidly
changing. So what are the rolesof agents in the future of AI as
that continues to grow andevolve?
Dr. Rihan Javid (09:37):
Yeah, think we spoke about a month ago
Daniel Williams (09:39):
maybe, know,
Dr. Rihan Javid (09:41):
agent was like very early, right? We didn't
even mention it, I think in thewebinar, since then when you
came to market, we've gottenlike multiple different agents
that we've applied to differentparts of it. So yeah, I think
the roles of the agent at verybeginning, probably revenue
cycle management's really easyto do. AI scribing, I think is
hit or miss. You know, thinksome of the better ones can get
(10:03):
maybe 95%.
So you still have to go through,so spending time on that. I
think those are probably, youknow, maybe the two easiest to
do. And then obviously there'slike phone agents and stuff like
that, which I think, you know,we already discussed. I think it
seems like both of us agreethat's a challenge, right? If
you've got a call, you can't getahold of them.
Right. I think that's achallenge. So I think that's
(10:24):
maybe further down the road, butdefinitely, you know, the
billing, the priorauthorizations, the eligibility,
where you just log into acomputer, figure the stuff out
and then post it. So I thinkthose are, that's probably the
feature, the media feature,maybe like one to three years.
AI scribing is kind the samething.
It's, you know, it's alreadyhere, but maybe not quite where
it needs to be. And then I thinkthe answering services that are
(10:45):
AI, I think those are, I don'tknow if they're ever gonna be
like 100%. I don't think they'reever gonna be 100% because I
just wanna talk to someone.Right?
Daniel Williams (10:52):
Right.
Dr. Rihan Javid (10:52):
And I like run into a machine and then go back
and forth. Think yeah. I liketalking to people and I think
that'll be limited.
Daniel Williams (10:59):
So I'm asking you a question. You have that
legal side of your backgroundthat may not be muscles you're
exercising all the time thesedays, but this is a general
question. If you know it, pleaseshare with us. But when we as a
consumer are talking orinteracting with someone in a
chat room, do we know, or is itlegally bound to tell us that
(11:24):
it's an AI, or is it fine thatwe don't know? We could be
talking to a chatbot.
We could be talking to a humanbeing, but we don't really know.
Is that something that you haveknowledge of?
Dr. Rihan Javid (11:35):
You know, I'm not sure. There's no, I don't
think there's any federalguidelines. Think even states,
like, I live in California, Ihaven't seen anything in
Daniel Williams (11:42):
California. Okay.
Dr. Rihan Javid (11:43):
And, you whenever I call, like, insurance
companies or, you know, Verizon,T Mobile, whatever, I've never
heard anyone say this is achatbot, so I don't think
there's anything on that.Unfortunately, I think it would
be better if there was, butunfortunately not there.
Daniel Williams (11:58):
Yeah, I was just curious about that. Let's
go a little bit deeper then whenwe're really talking about the
benefits of bringing togetherboth the AI and that human
element. When you're using thoseAI agents, you've talked to me
previously and in that webinarabout reducing cost. Talk about
(12:19):
that. Where are those costscoming down and how low can the
cost go for a practice?
Dr. Rihan Javid (12:25):
Yeah, that's a great question. I think it
really depends on the practice.So we use an average primary
care practice where the doctorbills about a million dollars a
year, about $80,000 a month,plus or minus, know, some places
higher, some places lower. Andso right now, if they're paying
about four to 5%, maybe 6%,that's about $50,000 a year,
(12:46):
which is quite a bit, right?Imagine you can take your, you
know, put in your four zero oneks, take your kids on, you know,
summer camp, Acacia, whatever itis, right?
Save for your family or yourstaff or whatever it is. So
that's, you know, a significantamount, right? So say if you
have 10 doctors, that's $500,000and a lot of that's just wasted
time that you can take thosepeople, your staff members, put
(13:08):
them patient facing whatever youwant, right? So I think we can
bring that $50,000 we alreadyare, that $50,000 per doctor
down to about 5 or 6,000.
Daniel Williams (13:19):
Okay.
Dr. Rihan Javid (13:19):
So all of a sudden you're seeing, you know,
5% to about 0.5, 0.6%. They'reseeing about an 88% savings on
your billing costs overnight.Wow. It's pretty substantial.
Someone came to my hospital andthey're like, man we can save
you tens of thousands perdoctor.
That's amazing.
Daniel Williams (13:38):
Really is. It really is. So I want to ask you,
just shift a little bit in someof our final questions here, and
ask you about this is what Ifound so fascinating in your
webinar, where you were talkingabout preserving empathy and
trust in patient care. There aresurveys and studies out there
(13:59):
where there is some distrust ofthe health care system. It might
not be the individualpractitioner or clinician, but
it's that system.
So you want to preserve thatempathy. How do you do that
while also introducing so muchof the AI and the technology out
there?
Dr. Rihan Javid (14:17):
Yeah, no, I agree with that. So I'm a
psychiatrist and a firm believerthat without the empathy,
without that doctor patientrelationship, it's just not
going to work. I think there'scountless studies out there that
show, you know, that power, thekindness that doctors and nurses
and the staff show is probablythe most important part in the
healthcare system. If you don'thave that, it doesn't matter
(14:38):
what medications you give,people just aren't going to
trust it. They're not going tobelieve in it.
They're not going to take it orthey're not going to have that
mind body, I think, connectionthat we really need to heal. And
so if you don't have that, ifyou just have, whether it's just
like a machine, an AI, an agent,a bot, whatever you want to call
it, That's all you have. Andthere's no two ways. There's,
there's no listening. I think tothe patron, there's no
(14:59):
understanding or there's no eyecontact.
There's no touching. Even justshaking someone's hand makes a
big difference. I think if youdon't have that, it's just not
going to work. You really need,you know, you need that human
touch, you need that connection,because we are social animals
and you do have to do that. Ifyou don't, it's just not going
to work.
Daniel Williams (15:15):
Right.
Dr. Rihan Javid (15:15):
And I think, you know, so AI can help back
end, you know, really great,brought in talking to your
patients, treating yourpatients, you know, maybe like,
you know, one day, but I thinknot future. We're social
animals, we need thatconnection.
Daniel Williams (15:28):
Yeah. Final question then, I'll give you a
blank slate here. Is thereanything I didn't ask about AI
and that human connection here,that balance there, that you'd
want to share with our audiencethat maybe I didn't bring up?
Dr. Rihan Javid (15:43):
No, think we talked about a lot of it. I
think it's ongoing, it'schanging dramatically. I think
it's, you know, it's a pendulum.I think what's really important
for most practices, trying tokeep your core, kind of keep
your essence of who you are andbring in, you know, little bits
here, like whether it's the AIagent to help with billing or
this or that, but don't let AIor computers or anything change
(16:04):
who you are. Don't let it changeyour practice and don't let it
change your connection with yourpatients.
But at the same time, use it,maximize it to increase your,
you know, your staffsatisfaction, your patient
satisfaction, and ultimatelyyour bottom line. That's what's
going to help your staff, treatyour patients, make sure they're
not overworked and use this tominimize that stuff. I think,
(16:24):
you you'll probably succeed andyou'll do pretty well.
Daniel Williams (16:27):
All right. Well, Doctor. Javed, I want to
thank you so much for joining uson the MGMA podcast. Great
seeing you again.
Dr. Rihan Javid (16:35):
Yeah, no, great. Thank you. Are you going
to be at Orlando?
Daniel Williams (16:40):
I sure am. Are you going to be there?
Dr. Rihan Javid (16:42):
Yeah. I'll be there. Yeah. Alright. You guys
there.
You know, if anyone's, you know,on the fence, it's yeah. We've
been, I think, three years in arow. It's a great event.
Daniel Williams (16:49):
Right. I'm looking forward to getting to
shake your hand in person there,so that's gonna be fun.
Dr. Rihan Javid (16:54):
Yeah.
Daniel Williams (16:55):
Well, everyone, I have mentioned the webinar on
several occasions. It's ondemand. So what I'm going to do
is provide a direct link tothat. I'm also going to provide
some other resources, as Doctor.Javed was showing me earlier
today, a short demo on YouTubeof what this AI agent can do.
(17:17):
And it's pretty impressive ofhow quickly it can analyze all
the information out there, agreat time saver. So I'm going
to provide those resources aswell. So until then, I want to
thank everybody for being MGMApodcast listeners.
Popular Podcasts
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com