SamaCare is joined by WeInfuse founders Reece Norris and Bryan Johnson to discuss the rapidly evolving landscape of infusion care. From managing, to owning, to building software for infusion centers and infusion suites, Reece and Bryan share their experience helping infusion providers get patients from prescription to chair with minimal friction.
You’ll hear:
[00:00:00] Kip Theno: Welcome to the Road to Care podcast hosted by SamaCare, where we will talk with key opinion leaders, physicians, administrators, manufacturers, venture capitalists, and legislators to get their insights on the state of health care today and where we see it evolving.SamaCare's prior authorization platform is free to clinics, ensuring patients get on the right therapy at the right time.
[00:00:20] Together, we can simply make things right.
[00:00:27] Hey everybody.Thanks again for joining the Road to Care podcast, hosted by SamaCare, and today our special guests are Bryan Johnson and Reece Norris of WeInfuse.Bryan's a co-founder, product manager, and CEO of WeInfuse and has 25 years of experience in the healthcare industry, including being CEO of RxToolkit, and served in management positions at Paragon Healthcare and Innovative Infusions.
[00:00:49] Before co-foundingWeInfuse, he served as co-founder and lead innovator, and Chief Problem Solver of Innovative Infusions, LLC, which is a multi-site infusion center company based in Texas. Bryan is also a founding member and board member of NICA. Reece is the co-founder and chief operating officer of WeInfuse and began his career in corporate law, and eventually entered the provider-based infusion center market where he went on to create a first of its kind infusion delivery business model.
[00:01:14] Before co-foundingWeInfuse, Reece served as president of Innovative Infusions, LLC, a multi-site infusion center company based in Texas from 2008 to 2012. And Reece is also a founding member of NICA. Hey fellas, thanks for joining, how are ya?
[00:01:28] Reece Norris: I'm doing well. Thanks for having us grateful for our SamaCare partnership and I'm grateful to be here on the podcast today.
[00:01:35] Kip Theno: Yeah, awesome. Well, I want to hear how did the train get started with WeInfuse? Let's talk about your origin story. Why'd you guys found it?
[00:01:42] Reece Norris: Yeah, sure. Kip, this is Reece again. I'm going to take the lead on this one. Well, our story begins in college. Bryan and I were college friends, and at the time my dad was starting a company called Innovative Infusions, which you referenced in our bios.
[00:01:55] Uh, and that was a management company where my dad and his small team, who was a startup, were managing infusion suites for physicians. So a physician office that wanted to have an infusion suite or center or had an infusion suite or center, would be run by the management company, Innovative Infusions.
[00:02:14] Bryan was looking todo something entrepreneurial out of college. So I connected him with my dad even before we graduated. And Bryan really started to help build out at the time, some very novel things for businesses, a website, email domain, ways to share documents for the company online, things like that.
[00:02:31] So he got started early on, as an intern, if you want to call it that, and then came on full time after college. I went to law school, but was so, was very intrigued, right? A good friend of mine's working with my dad, they're building this business.
[00:02:44] I was constantly communicating with Bryan about the growth. I ended up graduating law school and ultimately in 2008, I was working at a law firm and there was some partnership transitions and it opened up an opportunity for me to join the business. And at that time, my dad really handed the keys to me and Bryan.
[00:03:04] And so me and Bryan inherited the business Innovative Infusions, which at the time was just a management company, and we quickly did a few things. One, Bryan started building a proprietary software solution for our own sites. And two, we transitioned from being just a manager of infusion centers to owning infusion centers.
[00:03:22] So we started to wind down the management business and actually open our own infusion centers.We also launched during that same time frame, the National Infusion CenterAssociation. So, NICA and our legacy software solution really helped propel us, as our journey kept moving forward and we launched WeInfuse.
[00:03:42] So, we had these infusion centers that we now owned because we had transitioned out of the management model. And then that was around 2010 and we ran those for about two years and we're approached by Paragon Healthcare, which was another home infusion pharmacy player in Texas. And they thought it would be a good strategic acquisition.
[00:04:02] So we ended upselling our infusion centers to Paragon. It was a really amicable business transition and M&A opportunity. Bryan and I actually stayed on with Paragon for almost four years post-acquisition, so from 2012 to 2016. And then we launched WeInfuse after we left Paragon in 2016, but it took us about a year to get, you know, a meaningful, minimal viable product.
[00:04:30] We were building and raising funds through 2016, but really didn't go live with our first client, which was a neurology practice that accepted external referrals. So it was really a multi-specialty infusion center. We didn't go live until December of2017. And then from there, we really just hit the ground running building on a sales team, had some meaningful wins in 2017 and really our growth took off in2018 until today. So we're, we're grateful for all of our clients and our investors and our partners like SamaCare that trusted us along the way today, we're now in a thousand infusion centers. Our software's live in over a thousand infusion centers today and grateful, for all the clients that trust WeInfuse.
[00:05:10] We've also did an acquisition. WeInfuse and RX Toolkit are now under the same parent company. So grateful to have RX Toolkit alongside WeInfuse as well.
[00:05:20] Kip Theno: Thanks. That's a, that's a great story. And we love the partnership too. I mean, it's a match made in heaven.
[00:05:24] And before I get to the next question for Bryan, Reece, do you still practice law? And can I get you on retainer or what's the deal there?
[00:05:31] Reece Norris: I mean, I'm still a licensed attorney, still get my license active and effectively do most of the legal work, and quarterback a lot of the legal work within WeInfuse.
[00:05:38] So, um, whether I like it or not, I'm still, still practicing law.
[00:05:43] Kip Theno: That's awesome . On to the next question for Bryan, we've seen I mean, just over the past few years, this mass migration from hospital systems, that's where you would go to get an infusion to these AICs or ambulatory infusion centers. And it's a booming market.According to one report, by Coherent Market Insights, global ambulatory infusion centers is actually grown to $47 billion in 2024 with a CAGR of 10.6%.That could be literally the fastest growth healthcare segment in the industry today. What are the factors that are driving that growth?
[00:06:15] Bryan Johnson: Yeah, Kip, this is Bryan. I think Reece and I have seen that as well.
[00:06:18] I think that was part of our, when we started, WeInfuse, why we thought, a software technology play would be important here in the industry. I think we just kind of, we knew this was coming. We foresaw it in the drug development. We were seeing the FDA was cruising around, you know, 75 percent of the drug applications were for biologic medications and specialty drugs and just our knowledge of those knowing that a lot of those would have to be intravenous or injected under providers care.
[00:06:43] We were like, wow, we're going to need, there's going to be a need for a lot more infusion centers around the country. They're just there weren't. I mean, there were a lot of hospital-based infusion facilities. There were management companies. Of course, there were physicians doing infusions in their own office.
[00:06:56] Our prediction was that there were gonna be a lot more sites of care. And of course, there was going to need to be technology to enable that. The foresight we had turned out to be true. It doesn't always work that way. We won't tell all those stories today, but not all of our, not all of our ideas work.
[00:07:08] But that number, which I think still hovering around 75-80 percent of drug applications, neutralized from the FDA being on that large molecule side, or just, you know, the routes of delivery involve a needle. Um, and so I think that's what's really driving a lot of that growth. And then, you know, with that the site of care not being there. I mean, if you look around the country, there's still pockets all over the place where people are driving an hour plus even over to another state to go get, you know, get their medications. And these are chronic medications that patients need weekly, monthly, you know, by monthly, every six months, whatever.
[00:07:42] So there's still a big need for site of care. And this business specifically, it requires a nurse or being really close proximity to the patient. So you can't build a big warehouse and ship these drugs out all over the place because they need to be delivered in a one on one healthcare setting.
[00:07:58] So you got your neuro drugs, rheumatology drugs, everybody knows about these for diseases. But we're getting biologics in other forms of therapy, like in behavioral health, with Alzheimer's coming out with some of the new drugs, like Kisunla™ and Leqembi®, you're just seeing more and more specialties, get involved where they didn't traditionally do that. So it's just really the medication boom is driving the need for sites of care. So that's why you're seeing the growth.
[00:08:22] And then the last one being site of care optimization. We've traditionally had these medications given in a hospital or institutional setting, it's, of course, the highest cost of care that there is, and insurance companies, payers paying attention to that are really driving patients out of the hospital.
[00:08:38] They want them in lower cost sites of care, more convenient geographically to the patients' homes and where they work.
[00:08:44] So I think if you add up all those three, the rise in drug applications and drug approvals with the need for more sites of care that are optimized near the patient, that's what's going to drive it for a while until that site of care need is met.
[00:08:58] Kip Theno: Yeah, well, I mean, you said the statistic, the 80 percent of new FDA drugs are specialty drugs. And back in the90s, there was only 30, right? And that's, that seems like a long time ago, right? But it's not, it's, it's a heartbeat.
[00:09:09] And, you know, in the last podcast, we had Christine Mann on, who I know is a friend of yours as well, from DENT and NeuroNet and NICA and she had just been up to Capitol Hill two times and we had discussed like do they get it do the legislators get it.
[00:09:20] What are they getting? Right? What are they getting wrong? And one of the things she said is, they're very in tune, they're really interested in this segment They really want to understand it for the patients, but where they got hung up is they thought You know, really all infusions were just oncology. And Bryan, you mentioned it like I think part of this is awareness too. Now you've got behavioral health, you've got cardiology, which just a couple years ago got into the infusion space for the first time in their history, and rheumatology and neurology as examples. And I would assume that creates challenges and opportunities, not only for you guys, but the clinics maybe talk about whatWeInfuse is solving on the challenges side for these clinics.
[00:09:58] And then what other what opportunities are out there in the future that you see?
[00:10:01] Reece Norris: Yeah, Kip this is Reece. When we were owning and operating our own infusion centers, there was nota tech stack or a EHR, if you will, dedicated to infusion therapy. And so before we built our own system, we were hacking multiple disparate systems to run our own. Infusion centers.
[00:10:18] I think that was really a light bulb moment for us. There's so many unique aspects to the infusion workflow that are just different than treating a patient in an exam room or, seeing a patient at the bedside of a hospital that it does warrant, we believe, and I think the market has said yes to as well, WeInfuse as a software application was needed and a specific technology for infusion centers is needed.
[00:10:43] When we launchedWeInfuse the core functionality was benefits investigation management. These very expensive drugs, have to get approved by the payer. And there's a whole workflow where you do an investigation around the patient's insurance benefits.So, whether that's tracking prior authorization expiration dates, recording certain meaningful conversations you've had with the payer, making sure asking the right questions with the payer and logging all that into a system. That's been communicating to the schedule, and the schedule, is making sure you don't see a patient past a prior auth expiration date. So we're trying to build in a lot of guardrails so, no one's left holding the bag, so to speak, if someone's insurance has expired or termed or the patient's authorization has expired or termed.
[00:11:26] In addition to prior auth management, which now we integrate with SamaCare, which is great, we have electronic eligibility. And then again, I mentioned patient scheduling. We had a chair based purpose-built scheduling. We have clinical documentation that's actually driven by the infusion medication. So clinical documentation specific to certain infusion medications.
[00:11:46] We have inventory management, even within an infusion center, the inventory management is very complex. It comes from a distributor where you own the inventory or another way to get to house inventory and infusion centers through specialty pharmacy shipping patient specific medication to your infusion center .
[00:12:04] WeInfuse has two separate inventory systems one for the inventory, which is buy and bill inventory, and then another inventory system for specialty pharmacy patients or patients receiving the drug from a third party and it's drug they don't own because it's in the patient's name so we account for that separately. And then from there we have a robust reporting analytics engine.
[00:12:24] We've done multiple feature expansions, including patient engagement, billing and claims capabilities, data analytics capabilities and now we're moving into a home infusion specialty pharmacy as well. But that's a lot of information. I'll pause there just to get sum it up, WeInfuse solves a lot of the unique workflow challenges that infusion centers face every day.
[00:12:45] Kip Theno: Yeah, I know it does. And this is a little bit different animal on the ambulatory infusion center side where you're getting all of these referrals from multiple specialties coming in to this hub of the spokes, of the AICs and your solution creates efficiencies for those folks.
[00:12:59] But still the AMA came out with data and said the 46% of patients that require an injection or an infusion, the part D or the J codes, you're buy-and-bill medications, simply don't get on them or miss their data service. And these are oncology patients, these are rare disease patients. So how does WeInfuse really help get those patients to the right infusion centers?
[00:13:20] Bryan Johnson: I'll speak to the patient sidereal quick. I think Reece talked through a lot of the tools that help get patients on therapy. There's the patient challenge and the provider challenge provider being. Yeah, you're a neurology practice trying to get your patient on a drug in your own infusion suite or you're trying to get them out to an ambulatory infusion center, standalone infusion center. I think your challenges on both sides, but I think majority of the challenges are on the provider side at the moment and again, I think Reece walked through the layers and layers of tools in WeInfuse that would be needed for any successful operation, to go from, we say to go from order to chair, right?
[00:13:51] To go from prescription to chair. If you want to use that term. And I think the payers are layering all of this, we call it the pretreatment workflow, but it's really like, in payer terms, it's utilizationmanagement, right? That's the word they like to use where they're putting really their are barriers, right? I mean, that's what they are. They're, hey,you have to have an authorization. This has to meet some sort of clinical protocol. There's a step therapy in place. You have to try and fail these two drugs before you get this drug. There has to be a lab done and you have to have that available.
[00:14:17] So there's just a lot of things in order to get the patient actually in the chair treated and of course, have the claim paid. You got to check all those boxes. And because the chronic nature of this business, and these drugs and these disease processes, you're doing this every 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 6 weeks,6 months, really for the rest of the patient's lives until there's a cure.
[00:14:37] And they are having to navigate their job changes, their geographic changes, their drug dosing, weight based changes, and of course, insurance is changing all the time as they're getting married, getting divorced and change the job. So you have to keep all these balls juggling in the air because every 4 weeks that patient's coming in your door and they need their drug.
[00:14:55] And so I think that's the challenge on the provider side. You need tools to do that. It's just, it's not human capable anymore. I think on the patient side, Kip, I think similar challenges that patients not nearly going to be educated enough to kind of know about all these background challenges, especially they've never been ona biological or specialty medication.
[00:15:14] I think dealing with the workflow, there's a little less on the patient there because they're going to rely on their provider or on their infusion suite, infusion center to handle a lot of that for them. But I think finding that right site of care for themselves, finding a place they need to go that is a challenge.
[00:15:29] I think majority of patients still to this day, they're very trusting of their physicians. I think it's an older generation. I feel like my parents are that way, no matter what I tell them, they're going to go where their doctor tells them to go and I do feel like that's still mostly how patients are finding their first infusion center infusion suite is through their ordering physician saying, Hey, I'm sending you to, you know, name, one of the hundreds of logos, right that are out there infusion center company. But I do think I'm seeing that change a little bit, especially as patients pick up and move and patients who have been on therapy for a long time. I think they're more knowledgeable about which infusion companies offer the resources, the services, the opening times that they need.
[00:16:09] The buzzwords like consumerization of healthcare, right? Where patients, especially in the younger crowd, are getting more educated and, hey, I'm the patient. I have options. I know that I can go where I want to go. So they're going to use something like the NICA, the National Infusion Center Association, has a great infusion center locator that is up and published.
[00:16:26] So that helps them at least find the locations near them, look at the amenities they offer. All of these companies have great websites for the most part. Talk about, you know, free Wi Fi comfortable chairs are open on Saturdays. They're open early. They're open late. So I think there's there are more resources today than ever for patients to find.
[00:16:45] So, I feel like that is getting better on the patient side of things.
[00:16:48] Kip Theno: So, Bryan and Reece, you mentioned technology and I think we knew very early at SamaCare when we were going intothe infusion market with our cloud based prior authorization platform, that wewere going to need a technology partner.
[00:17:02] And thankfully we found you guys, definitely makes us even more efficient and effective within the ambulatory infusion setting. And you've heard me say this a million times, right? There is no silver bullet. There's a lot of lead bullets to solve these problems.What other technology partners do you work with?
[00:17:16] What are the next phases for WeInfuse to continue to build on the foundation that you guys have created?
[00:17:21] Reece Norris: Well, I'll certainly let Bryan weigh in here after I give you my two cents, but yeah, from additional partners, I mean, SamaCare automating the prior auth process for our clients has been great.
[00:17:32] Additionally, we're partnered with Annexus Health for copay assistance and cost share assistance. And basically any kind of financial assistance outside a traditional insurance landscape Annexus helps manage that process. We signed recently a partnership with Tennr for some AI technology around getting discrete data out of documents and building a learning module around that. So where the software's learning which data points go where and WeInfuse and dialing that in. So we're excited about bringing AI into WeInfuse. We had a partnership that ultimately purchased RX Toolkit. We are still real bullish onRX Toolkit. It's a medication safety platform.
[00:18:13] Um, one thing we probably should have mentioned when we were describing all the features thatWeInfuse is we integrate with every distributor or all the major distributors, McKesson, Cardinal, Cencora, and Curascript, and we're grateful for those distributors who have made this WeInfuse, so consider those partners as well.
[00:18:35] Any others I missed in terms of partnerships?
[00:18:38] Bryan Johnson: I think Kip and Reece is good to just talk about like how we look at partnerships. Our dream for WeInfuse wasn't that WeInfuse can do everything . I think that takes a long time as complex as the industry is. So, I think when we look at something like authorization management, we look at co pay assistance, hub integration, distribution of drugs or whatnot, when we're looking for partners, we're looking for ways they can plug into our platform.
[00:19:00] You know, we really want to be the platform. It's kind of a negative connotation for some folks. We kind of want to be the epic for infusion or medication delivery, but we just don't want the negativity that comes with that. We like the idea of being that we want to be close to the patient, close to the provider.
[00:19:15] Very close to of course, nurses and MPs and PAs that are working in the software and be able to pull in and integrate with those folks, the industry that are, they're going really deep on a specific problem. SamaCare is a great example. We know how hard it is to connect with payers and do forms and do the kind of things you need to do if you're really going to try to automate the prior auth process, on the technology side. And SamaCare had already gone so deep there and it's the I want to say it's a hundred percent of the focus Kip, but I think it's most of the focus, right? And so when we're looking for partners, we're looking for solutions that are in the market, typically that our clients are coming to us with going, Hey, you guys need to integrate with these guys.
[00:19:52] They're solving a real problem for me.They're doing a really great job of it. And SamaCare is a great example. We're just getting inundated with client requests. And if the cultures align and we both agree that, the two of us is better than one of us trying to do it on our own then we jump into that. And that's generally how we look at all the technology partnerships that Reece mentioned, but trying to plug in as many of those as possible. It's a very complicated industry as we move into the pharmacy side of things. There are logistics challenges, other things, clinical challenges there as well that we may not be solving on our own today.
[00:20:22] So we're always looking for technology partners to plug in and kind of help coordinate quarterback all that traffic. I think there's a lot of those on the future list. I don't think we have time to go over them all today, but if it's a challenge today that we feel like technology can solve, either we're going to try to solve it or we're going to look for a partner to plug in and do that.
[00:20:40] Kip Theno: Yeah. Thanks, Bryan and Reece. And it's, it's like making a diamond, right? It's pressure and time and these things don't happen overnight. And that's kind of how we at SamaCare vet our partners as well and, and so grateful we found, WeInfuse and I would just, everybody out there, if you're doing infusions or you have an infusion center, you're an a IC, got to get a hold of WeInfuse. Talk to Bryan and Reece. It's a class a outfit. And, with these tech partnerships, we're really rounding theedges to patient care. And, and so Bryan Reece, before I get to my last question, how do folks contact you out there?
[00:21:09] Reece Norris: And just visit our website, WeInfuse.com or rxtoolkit.com. Email us at sales@weinfuse.com or info@weinfuse.com.
[00:21:16] You can always just email Bryan directly. It's just our first and last name, first.last name@weInfuse.com. We'd love to talk with you and we're passionate about infusion, if you can't tell.
[00:21:26] Kip Theno: Yeah, we'll make sure and have that all up on the podcast.
[00:21:28] And last question, so you, so you fellas know, I lived in Texas for a while. Um, we do go down there for meetings and. There's still a great debate here at SamaCare and ourCEO wanted me to ask you this... What is the best barbecue in Texas? Hands down.
[00:21:45] Bryan Johnson: Oh man, you said this was going to be a controversial podcast, Kip.
[00:21:48] So you're kind of stepping in it there. It's all pretty good, right? I think I've had them all.I've still not gone to Snows BBQ,Kip. I'm trying hard to get out to Snows.
[00:21:58] It's hard to go stand in line for six hours on a Saturday morning, but I hear it's worth it.But I have had Franklin's. It's pretty amazing. I'm a Black's BBQ fan. I'm a Black's barbecue fan here inAustin because you can actually get in and eat it. And so some of my favorite stuff there.
[00:22:11] I don't know about you Reece
[00:22:12] Reece Norris: You nearly have blacks.Franklin's Cooper's is great. But yeah, some of these places that are have gained fame take hours to eat out. So I stick with my knowns: Coopers, Franklins, Blacks, those are great.
[00:22:26] Bryan Johnson: Yeah, I'm hungrier than I am wanting to sometimes just eat the fineness of the food.
[00:22:31] So, yeah, I think it's an experience to go do that. And unfortunately, we're too busy buildingInfusion software kits. We don't have time to go stand in line.
[00:22:39] Kip Theno: Well, I guess what I heard, there's an invitation to Snows next time I'm out in your neck of the woods. Is that what I heard? When you go stand in line
[00:22:45] Bryan Johnson: and bring us some, I think that would be really great.
[00:22:47] We'll see if we can work that out.
[00:22:48] Kip Theno: We will do it. It's, it's a date.Well, hey, thank you so much. And again, thank you for the partnership with SamaCare folks out there. Please get ahold of WeInfuse and thank you for joining everybody. We'll see you next time.
[00:22:59] Bryan Johnson: Thank you, Kip.
[00:23:01] Kip Theno: Thank you for joining the Road toCare podcast hosted by SamaCare, the leader in prior authorization technology and services. We're through a script to therapy operating system. We enable connectivity with clinics, payers, and manufacturers focused on optimizing patient care. Tune in next time as together we can make things right.
[00:23:19] Enjoy the music written, produced and recorded by Jamestown.
Together, we can make healthcare right. Here are some of the outstanding
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this episode:
SamaCare is joined by WeInfuse founders Reece Norris and Bryan Johnson to discuss the rapidly evolving landscape of infusion care. From managing, to owning, to building software for infusion centers and infusion suites, Reece and Bryan share their experience helping infusion providers get patients from prescription to chair with minimal friction.
You’ll hear:
[00:00:00] Kip Theno: Welcome to the Road to Care podcast hosted by SamaCare, where we will talk with key opinion leaders, physicians, administrators, manufacturers, venture capitalists, and legislators to get their insights on the state of health care today and where we see it evolving.SamaCare's prior authorization platform is free to clinics, ensuring patients get on the right therapy at the right time.
[00:00:20] Together, we can simply make things right.
[00:00:27] Hey everybody.Thanks again for joining the Road to Care podcast, hosted by SamaCare, and today our special guests are Bryan Johnson and Reece Norris of WeInfuse.Bryan's a co-founder, product manager, and CEO of WeInfuse and has 25 years of experience in the healthcare industry, including being CEO of RxToolkit, and served in management positions at Paragon Healthcare and Innovative Infusions.
[00:00:49] Before co-foundingWeInfuse, he served as co-founder and lead innovator, and Chief Problem Solver of Innovative Infusions, LLC, which is a multi-site infusion center company based in Texas. Bryan is also a founding member and board member of NICA. Reece is the co-founder and chief operating officer of WeInfuse and began his career in corporate law, and eventually entered the provider-based infusion center market where he went on to create a first of its kind infusion delivery business model.
[00:01:14] Before co-foundingWeInfuse, Reece served as president of Innovative Infusions, LLC, a multi-site infusion center company based in Texas from 2008 to 2012. And Reece is also a founding member of NICA. Hey fellas, thanks for joining, how are ya?
[00:01:28] Reece Norris: I'm doing well. Thanks for having us grateful for our SamaCare partnership and I'm grateful to be here on the podcast today.
[00:01:35] Kip Theno: Yeah, awesome. Well, I want to hear how did the train get started with WeInfuse? Let's talk about your origin story. Why'd you guys found it?
[00:01:42] Reece Norris: Yeah, sure. Kip, this is Reece again. I'm going to take the lead on this one. Well, our story begins in college. Bryan and I were college friends, and at the time my dad was starting a company called Innovative Infusions, which you referenced in our bios.
[00:01:55] Uh, and that was a management company where my dad and his small team, who was a startup, were managing infusion suites for physicians. So a physician office that wanted to have an infusion suite or center or had an infusion suite or center, would be run by the management company, Innovative Infusions.
[00:02:14] Bryan was looking todo something entrepreneurial out of college. So I connected him with my dad even before we graduated. And Bryan really started to help build out at the time, some very novel things for businesses, a website, email domain, ways to share documents for the company online, things like that.
[00:02:31] So he got started early on, as an intern, if you want to call it that, and then came on full time after college. I went to law school, but was so, was very intrigued, right? A good friend of mine's working with my dad, they're building this business.
[00:02:44] I was constantly communicating with Bryan about the growth. I ended up graduating law school and ultimately in 2008, I was working at a law firm and there was some partnership transitions and it opened up an opportunity for me to join the business. And at that time, my dad really handed the keys to me and Bryan.
[00:03:04] And so me and Bryan inherited the business Innovative Infusions, which at the time was just a management company, and we quickly did a few things. One, Bryan started building a proprietary software solution for our own sites. And two, we transitioned from being just a manager of infusion centers to owning infusion centers.
[00:03:22] So we started to wind down the management business and actually open our own infusion centers.We also launched during that same time frame, the National Infusion CenterAssociation. So, NICA and our legacy software solution really helped propel us, as our journey kept moving forward and we launched WeInfuse.
[00:03:42] So, we had these infusion centers that we now owned because we had transitioned out of the management model. And then that was around 2010 and we ran those for about two years and we're approached by Paragon Healthcare, which was another home infusion pharmacy player in Texas. And they thought it would be a good strategic acquisition.
[00:04:02] So we ended upselling our infusion centers to Paragon. It was a really amicable business transition and M&A opportunity. Bryan and I actually stayed on with Paragon for almost four years post-acquisition, so from 2012 to 2016. And then we launched WeInfuse after we left Paragon in 2016, but it took us about a year to get, you know, a meaningful, minimal viable product.
[00:04:30] We were building and raising funds through 2016, but really didn't go live with our first client, which was a neurology practice that accepted external referrals. So it was really a multi-specialty infusion center. We didn't go live until December of2017. And then from there, we really just hit the ground running building on a sales team, had some meaningful wins in 2017 and really our growth took off in2018 until today. So we're, we're grateful for all of our clients and our investors and our partners like SamaCare that trusted us along the way today, we're now in a thousand infusion centers. Our software's live in over a thousand infusion centers today and grateful, for all the clients that trust WeInfuse.
[00:05:10] We've also did an acquisition. WeInfuse and RX Toolkit are now under the same parent company. So grateful to have RX Toolkit alongside WeInfuse as well.
[00:05:20] Kip Theno: Thanks. That's a, that's a great story. And we love the partnership too. I mean, it's a match made in heaven.
[00:05:24] And before I get to the next question for Bryan, Reece, do you still practice law? And can I get you on retainer or what's the deal there?
[00:05:31] Reece Norris: I mean, I'm still a licensed attorney, still get my license active and effectively do most of the legal work, and quarterback a lot of the legal work within WeInfuse.
[00:05:38] So, um, whether I like it or not, I'm still, still practicing law.
[00:05:43] Kip Theno: That's awesome . On to the next question for Bryan, we've seen I mean, just over the past few years, this mass migration from hospital systems, that's where you would go to get an infusion to these AICs or ambulatory infusion centers. And it's a booming market.According to one report, by Coherent Market Insights, global ambulatory infusion centers is actually grown to $47 billion in 2024 with a CAGR of 10.6%.That could be literally the fastest growth healthcare segment in the industry today. What are the factors that are driving that growth?
[00:06:15] Bryan Johnson: Yeah, Kip, this is Bryan. I think Reece and I have seen that as well.
[00:06:18] I think that was part of our, when we started, WeInfuse, why we thought, a software technology play would be important here in the industry. I think we just kind of, we knew this was coming. We foresaw it in the drug development. We were seeing the FDA was cruising around, you know, 75 percent of the drug applications were for biologic medications and specialty drugs and just our knowledge of those knowing that a lot of those would have to be intravenous or injected under providers care.
[00:06:43] We were like, wow, we're going to need, there's going to be a need for a lot more infusion centers around the country. They're just there weren't. I mean, there were a lot of hospital-based infusion facilities. There were management companies. Of course, there were physicians doing infusions in their own office.
[00:06:56] Our prediction was that there were gonna be a lot more sites of care. And of course, there was going to need to be technology to enable that. The foresight we had turned out to be true. It doesn't always work that way. We won't tell all those stories today, but not all of our, not all of our ideas work.
[00:07:08] But that number, which I think still hovering around 75-80 percent of drug applications, neutralized from the FDA being on that large molecule side, or just, you know, the routes of delivery involve a needle. Um, and so I think that's what's really driving a lot of that growth. And then, you know, with that the site of care not being there. I mean, if you look around the country, there's still pockets all over the place where people are driving an hour plus even over to another state to go get, you know, get their medications. And these are chronic medications that patients need weekly, monthly, you know, by monthly, every six months, whatever.
[00:07:42] So there's still a big need for site of care. And this business specifically, it requires a nurse or being really close proximity to the patient. So you can't build a big warehouse and ship these drugs out all over the place because they need to be delivered in a one on one healthcare setting.
[00:07:58] So you got your neuro drugs, rheumatology drugs, everybody knows about these for diseases. But we're getting biologics in other forms of therapy, like in behavioral health, with Alzheimer's coming out with some of the new drugs, like Kisunla™ and Leqembi®, you're just seeing more and more specialties, get involved where they didn't traditionally do that. So it's just really the medication boom is driving the need for sites of care. So that's why you're seeing the growth.
[00:08:22] And then the last one being site of care optimization. We've traditionally had these medications given in a hospital or institutional setting, it's, of course, the highest cost of care that there is, and insurance companies, payers paying attention to that are really driving patients out of the hospital.
[00:08:38] They want them in lower cost sites of care, more convenient geographically to the patients' homes and where they work.
[00:08:44] So I think if you add up all those three, the rise in drug applications and drug approvals with the need for more sites of care that are optimized near the patient, that's what's going to drive it for a while until that site of care need is met.
[00:08:58] Kip Theno: Yeah, well, I mean, you said the statistic, the 80 percent of new FDA drugs are specialty drugs. And back in the90s, there was only 30, right? And that's, that seems like a long time ago, right? But it's not, it's, it's a heartbeat.
[00:09:09] And, you know, in the last podcast, we had Christine Mann on, who I know is a friend of yours as well, from DENT and NeuroNet and NICA and she had just been up to Capitol Hill two times and we had discussed like do they get it do the legislators get it.
[00:09:20] What are they getting? Right? What are they getting wrong? And one of the things she said is, they're very in tune, they're really interested in this segment They really want to understand it for the patients, but where they got hung up is they thought You know, really all infusions were just oncology. And Bryan, you mentioned it like I think part of this is awareness too. Now you've got behavioral health, you've got cardiology, which just a couple years ago got into the infusion space for the first time in their history, and rheumatology and neurology as examples. And I would assume that creates challenges and opportunities, not only for you guys, but the clinics maybe talk about whatWeInfuse is solving on the challenges side for these clinics.
[00:09:58] And then what other what opportunities are out there in the future that you see?
[00:10:01] Reece Norris: Yeah, Kip this is Reece. When we were owning and operating our own infusion centers, there was nota tech stack or a EHR, if you will, dedicated to infusion therapy. And so before we built our own system, we were hacking multiple disparate systems to run our own. Infusion centers.
[00:10:18] I think that was really a light bulb moment for us. There's so many unique aspects to the infusion workflow that are just different than treating a patient in an exam room or, seeing a patient at the bedside of a hospital that it does warrant, we believe, and I think the market has said yes to as well, WeInfuse as a software application was needed and a specific technology for infusion centers is needed.
[00:10:43] When we launchedWeInfuse the core functionality was benefits investigation management. These very expensive drugs, have to get approved by the payer. And there's a whole workflow where you do an investigation around the patient's insurance benefits.So, whether that's tracking prior authorization expiration dates, recording certain meaningful conversations you've had with the payer, making sure asking the right questions with the payer and logging all that into a system. That's been communicating to the schedule, and the schedule, is making sure you don't see a patient past a prior auth expiration date. So we're trying to build in a lot of guardrails so, no one's left holding the bag, so to speak, if someone's insurance has expired or termed or the patient's authorization has expired or termed.
[00:11:26] In addition to prior auth management, which now we integrate with SamaCare, which is great, we have electronic eligibility. And then again, I mentioned patient scheduling. We had a chair based purpose-built scheduling. We have clinical documentation that's actually driven by the infusion medication. So clinical documentation specific to certain infusion medications.
[00:11:46] We have inventory management, even within an infusion center, the inventory management is very complex. It comes from a distributor where you own the inventory or another way to get to house inventory and infusion centers through specialty pharmacy shipping patient specific medication to your infusion center .
[00:12:04] WeInfuse has two separate inventory systems one for the inventory, which is buy and bill inventory, and then another inventory system for specialty pharmacy patients or patients receiving the drug from a third party and it's drug they don't own because it's in the patient's name so we account for that separately. And then from there we have a robust reporting analytics engine.
[00:12:24] We've done multiple feature expansions, including patient engagement, billing and claims capabilities, data analytics capabilities and now we're moving into a home infusion specialty pharmacy as well. But that's a lot of information. I'll pause there just to get sum it up, WeInfuse solves a lot of the unique workflow challenges that infusion centers face every day.
[00:12:45] Kip Theno: Yeah, I know it does. And this is a little bit different animal on the ambulatory infusion center side where you're getting all of these referrals from multiple specialties coming in to this hub of the spokes, of the AICs and your solution creates efficiencies for those folks.
[00:12:59] But still the AMA came out with data and said the 46% of patients that require an injection or an infusion, the part D or the J codes, you're buy-and-bill medications, simply don't get on them or miss their data service. And these are oncology patients, these are rare disease patients. So how does WeInfuse really help get those patients to the right infusion centers?
[00:13:20] Bryan Johnson: I'll speak to the patient sidereal quick. I think Reece talked through a lot of the tools that help get patients on therapy. There's the patient challenge and the provider challenge provider being. Yeah, you're a neurology practice trying to get your patient on a drug in your own infusion suite or you're trying to get them out to an ambulatory infusion center, standalone infusion center. I think your challenges on both sides, but I think majority of the challenges are on the provider side at the moment and again, I think Reece walked through the layers and layers of tools in WeInfuse that would be needed for any successful operation, to go from, we say to go from order to chair, right?
[00:13:51] To go from prescription to chair. If you want to use that term. And I think the payers are layering all of this, we call it the pretreatment workflow, but it's really like, in payer terms, it's utilizationmanagement, right? That's the word they like to use where they're putting really their are barriers, right? I mean, that's what they are. They're, hey,you have to have an authorization. This has to meet some sort of clinical protocol. There's a step therapy in place. You have to try and fail these two drugs before you get this drug. There has to be a lab done and you have to have that available.
[00:14:17] So there's just a lot of things in order to get the patient actually in the chair treated and of course, have the claim paid. You got to check all those boxes. And because the chronic nature of this business, and these drugs and these disease processes, you're doing this every 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 6 weeks,6 months, really for the rest of the patient's lives until there's a cure.
[00:14:37] And they are having to navigate their job changes, their geographic changes, their drug dosing, weight based changes, and of course, insurance is changing all the time as they're getting married, getting divorced and change the job. So you have to keep all these balls juggling in the air because every 4 weeks that patient's coming in your door and they need their drug.
[00:14:55] And so I think that's the challenge on the provider side. You need tools to do that. It's just, it's not human capable anymore. I think on the patient side, Kip, I think similar challenges that patients not nearly going to be educated enough to kind of know about all these background challenges, especially they've never been ona biological or specialty medication.
[00:15:14] I think dealing with the workflow, there's a little less on the patient there because they're going to rely on their provider or on their infusion suite, infusion center to handle a lot of that for them. But I think finding that right site of care for themselves, finding a place they need to go that is a challenge.
[00:15:29] I think majority of patients still to this day, they're very trusting of their physicians. I think it's an older generation. I feel like my parents are that way, no matter what I tell them, they're going to go where their doctor tells them to go and I do feel like that's still mostly how patients are finding their first infusion center infusion suite is through their ordering physician saying, Hey, I'm sending you to, you know, name, one of the hundreds of logos, right that are out there infusion center company. But I do think I'm seeing that change a little bit, especially as patients pick up and move and patients who have been on therapy for a long time. I think they're more knowledgeable about which infusion companies offer the resources, the services, the opening times that they need.
[00:16:09] The buzzwords like consumerization of healthcare, right? Where patients, especially in the younger crowd, are getting more educated and, hey, I'm the patient. I have options. I know that I can go where I want to go. So they're going to use something like the NICA, the National Infusion Center Association, has a great infusion center locator that is up and published.
[00:16:26] So that helps them at least find the locations near them, look at the amenities they offer. All of these companies have great websites for the most part. Talk about, you know, free Wi Fi comfortable chairs are open on Saturdays. They're open early. They're open late. So I think there's there are more resources today than ever for patients to find.
[00:16:45] So, I feel like that is getting better on the patient side of things.
[00:16:48] Kip Theno: So, Bryan and Reece, you mentioned technology and I think we knew very early at SamaCare when we were going intothe infusion market with our cloud based prior authorization platform, that wewere going to need a technology partner.
[00:17:02] And thankfully we found you guys, definitely makes us even more efficient and effective within the ambulatory infusion setting. And you've heard me say this a million times, right? There is no silver bullet. There's a lot of lead bullets to solve these problems.What other technology partners do you work with?
[00:17:16] What are the next phases for WeInfuse to continue to build on the foundation that you guys have created?
[00:17:21] Reece Norris: Well, I'll certainly let Bryan weigh in here after I give you my two cents, but yeah, from additional partners, I mean, SamaCare automating the prior auth process for our clients has been great.
[00:17:32] Additionally, we're partnered with Annexus Health for copay assistance and cost share assistance. And basically any kind of financial assistance outside a traditional insurance landscape Annexus helps manage that process. We signed recently a partnership with Tennr for some AI technology around getting discrete data out of documents and building a learning module around that. So where the software's learning which data points go where and WeInfuse and dialing that in. So we're excited about bringing AI into WeInfuse. We had a partnership that ultimately purchased RX Toolkit. We are still real bullish onRX Toolkit. It's a medication safety platform.
[00:18:13] Um, one thing we probably should have mentioned when we were describing all the features thatWeInfuse is we integrate with every distributor or all the major distributors, McKesson, Cardinal, Cencora, and Curascript, and we're grateful for those distributors who have made this WeInfuse, so consider those partners as well.
[00:18:35] Any others I missed in terms of partnerships?
[00:18:38] Bryan Johnson: I think Kip and Reece is good to just talk about like how we look at partnerships. Our dream for WeInfuse wasn't that WeInfuse can do everything . I think that takes a long time as complex as the industry is. So, I think when we look at something like authorization management, we look at co pay assistance, hub integration, distribution of drugs or whatnot, when we're looking for partners, we're looking for ways they can plug into our platform.
[00:19:00] You know, we really want to be the platform. It's kind of a negative connotation for some folks. We kind of want to be the epic for infusion or medication delivery, but we just don't want the negativity that comes with that. We like the idea of being that we want to be close to the patient, close to the provider.
[00:19:15] Very close to of course, nurses and MPs and PAs that are working in the software and be able to pull in and integrate with those folks, the industry that are, they're going really deep on a specific problem. SamaCare is a great example. We know how hard it is to connect with payers and do forms and do the kind of things you need to do if you're really going to try to automate the prior auth process, on the technology side. And SamaCare had already gone so deep there and it's the I want to say it's a hundred percent of the focus Kip, but I think it's most of the focus, right? And so when we're looking for partners, we're looking for solutions that are in the market, typically that our clients are coming to us with going, Hey, you guys need to integrate with these guys.
[00:19:52] They're solving a real problem for me.They're doing a really great job of it. And SamaCare is a great example. We're just getting inundated with client requests. And if the cultures align and we both agree that, the two of us is better than one of us trying to do it on our own then we jump into that. And that's generally how we look at all the technology partnerships that Reece mentioned, but trying to plug in as many of those as possible. It's a very complicated industry as we move into the pharmacy side of things. There are logistics challenges, other things, clinical challenges there as well that we may not be solving on our own today.
[00:20:22] So we're always looking for technology partners to plug in and kind of help coordinate quarterback all that traffic. I think there's a lot of those on the future list. I don't think we have time to go over them all today, but if it's a challenge today that we feel like technology can solve, either we're going to try to solve it or we're going to look for a partner to plug in and do that.
[00:20:40] Kip Theno: Yeah. Thanks, Bryan and Reece. And it's, it's like making a diamond, right? It's pressure and time and these things don't happen overnight. And that's kind of how we at SamaCare vet our partners as well and, and so grateful we found, WeInfuse and I would just, everybody out there, if you're doing infusions or you have an infusion center, you're an a IC, got to get a hold of WeInfuse. Talk to Bryan and Reece. It's a class a outfit. And, with these tech partnerships, we're really rounding theedges to patient care. And, and so Bryan Reece, before I get to my last question, how do folks contact you out there?
[00:21:09] Reece Norris: And just visit our website, WeInfuse.com or rxtoolkit.com. Email us at sales@weinfuse.com or info@weinfuse.com.
[00:21:16] You can always just email Bryan directly. It's just our first and last name, first.last name@weInfuse.com. We'd love to talk with you and we're passionate about infusion, if you can't tell.
[00:21:26] Kip Theno: Yeah, we'll make sure and have that all up on the podcast.
[00:21:28] And last question, so you, so you fellas know, I lived in Texas for a while. Um, we do go down there for meetings and. There's still a great debate here at SamaCare and ourCEO wanted me to ask you this... What is the best barbecue in Texas? Hands down.
[00:21:45] Bryan Johnson: Oh man, you said this was going to be a controversial podcast, Kip.
[00:21:48] So you're kind of stepping in it there. It's all pretty good, right? I think I've had them all.I've still not gone to Snows BBQ,Kip. I'm trying hard to get out to Snows.
[00:21:58] It's hard to go stand in line for six hours on a Saturday morning, but I hear it's worth it.But I have had Franklin's. It's pretty amazing. I'm a Black's BBQ fan. I'm a Black's barbecue fan here inAustin because you can actually get in and eat it. And so some of my favorite stuff there.
[00:22:11] I don't know about you Reece
[00:22:12] Reece Norris: You nearly have blacks.Franklin's Cooper's is great. But yeah, some of these places that are have gained fame take hours to eat out. So I stick with my knowns: Coopers, Franklins, Blacks, those are great.
[00:22:26] Bryan Johnson: Yeah, I'm hungrier than I am wanting to sometimes just eat the fineness of the food.
[00:22:31] So, yeah, I think it's an experience to go do that. And unfortunately, we're too busy buildingInfusion software kits. We don't have time to go stand in line.
[00:22:39] Kip Theno: Well, I guess what I heard, there's an invitation to Snows next time I'm out in your neck of the woods. Is that what I heard? When you go stand in line
[00:22:45] Bryan Johnson: and bring us some, I think that would be really great.
[00:22:47] We'll see if we can work that out.
[00:22:48] Kip Theno: We will do it. It's, it's a date.Well, hey, thank you so much. And again, thank you for the partnership with SamaCare folks out there. Please get ahold of WeInfuse and thank you for joining everybody. We'll see you next time.
[00:22:59] Bryan Johnson: Thank you, Kip.
[00:23:01] Kip Theno: Thank you for joining the Road toCare podcast hosted by SamaCare, the leader in prior authorization technology and services. We're through a script to therapy operating system. We enable connectivity with clinics, payers, and manufacturers focused on optimizing patient care. Tune in next time as together we can make things right.
[00:23:19] Enjoy the music written, produced and recorded by Jamestown.
Together, we can make healthcare right. Here are some of the outstanding
healthcare organizations and associations championing patient health mentioned in
this episode:
SamaCare is joined by WeInfuse founders Reece Norris and Bryan Johnson to discuss the rapidly evolving landscape of infusion care. From managing, to owning, to building software for infusion centers and infusion suites, Reece and Bryan share their experience helping infusion providers get patients from prescription to chair with minimal friction.
You’ll hear:
[00:00:00] Kip Theno: Welcome to the Road to Care podcast hosted by SamaCare, where we will talk with key opinion leaders, physicians, administrators, manufacturers, venture capitalists, and legislators to get their insights on the state of health care today and where we see it evolving.SamaCare's prior authorization platform is free to clinics, ensuring patients get on the right therapy at the right time.
[00:00:20] Together, we can simply make things right.
[00:00:27] Hey everybody.Thanks again for joining the Road to Care podcast, hosted by SamaCare, and today our special guests are Bryan Johnson and Reece Norris of WeInfuse.Bryan's a co-founder, product manager, and CEO of WeInfuse and has 25 years of experience in the healthcare industry, including being CEO of RxToolkit, and served in management positions at Paragon Healthcare and Innovative Infusions.
[00:00:49] Before co-foundingWeInfuse, he served as co-founder and lead innovator, and Chief Problem Solver of Innovative Infusions, LLC, which is a multi-site infusion center company based in Texas. Bryan is also a founding member and board member of NICA. Reece is the co-founder and chief operating officer of WeInfuse and began his career in corporate law, and eventually entered the provider-based infusion center market where he went on to create a first of its kind infusion delivery business model.
[00:01:14] Before co-foundingWeInfuse, Reece served as president of Innovative Infusions, LLC, a multi-site infusion center company based in Texas from 2008 to 2012. And Reece is also a founding member of NICA. Hey fellas, thanks for joining, how are ya?
[00:01:28] Reece Norris: I'm doing well. Thanks for having us grateful for our SamaCare partnership and I'm grateful to be here on the podcast today.
[00:01:35] Kip Theno: Yeah, awesome. Well, I want to hear how did the train get started with WeInfuse? Let's talk about your origin story. Why'd you guys found it?
[00:01:42] Reece Norris: Yeah, sure. Kip, this is Reece again. I'm going to take the lead on this one. Well, our story begins in college. Bryan and I were college friends, and at the time my dad was starting a company called Innovative Infusions, which you referenced in our bios.
[00:01:55] Uh, and that was a management company where my dad and his small team, who was a startup, were managing infusion suites for physicians. So a physician office that wanted to have an infusion suite or center or had an infusion suite or center, would be run by the management company, Innovative Infusions.
[00:02:14] Bryan was looking todo something entrepreneurial out of college. So I connected him with my dad even before we graduated. And Bryan really started to help build out at the time, some very novel things for businesses, a website, email domain, ways to share documents for the company online, things like that.
[00:02:31] So he got started early on, as an intern, if you want to call it that, and then came on full time after college. I went to law school, but was so, was very intrigued, right? A good friend of mine's working with my dad, they're building this business.
[00:02:44] I was constantly communicating with Bryan about the growth. I ended up graduating law school and ultimately in 2008, I was working at a law firm and there was some partnership transitions and it opened up an opportunity for me to join the business. And at that time, my dad really handed the keys to me and Bryan.
[00:03:04] And so me and Bryan inherited the business Innovative Infusions, which at the time was just a management company, and we quickly did a few things. One, Bryan started building a proprietary software solution for our own sites. And two, we transitioned from being just a manager of infusion centers to owning infusion centers.
[00:03:22] So we started to wind down the management business and actually open our own infusion centers.We also launched during that same time frame, the National Infusion CenterAssociation. So, NICA and our legacy software solution really helped propel us, as our journey kept moving forward and we launched WeInfuse.
[00:03:42] So, we had these infusion centers that we now owned because we had transitioned out of the management model. And then that was around 2010 and we ran those for about two years and we're approached by Paragon Healthcare, which was another home infusion pharmacy player in Texas. And they thought it would be a good strategic acquisition.
[00:04:02] So we ended upselling our infusion centers to Paragon. It was a really amicable business transition and M&A opportunity. Bryan and I actually stayed on with Paragon for almost four years post-acquisition, so from 2012 to 2016. And then we launched WeInfuse after we left Paragon in 2016, but it took us about a year to get, you know, a meaningful, minimal viable product.
[00:04:30] We were building and raising funds through 2016, but really didn't go live with our first client, which was a neurology practice that accepted external referrals. So it was really a multi-specialty infusion center. We didn't go live until December of2017. And then from there, we really just hit the ground running building on a sales team, had some meaningful wins in 2017 and really our growth took off in2018 until today. So we're, we're grateful for all of our clients and our investors and our partners like SamaCare that trusted us along the way today, we're now in a thousand infusion centers. Our software's live in over a thousand infusion centers today and grateful, for all the clients that trust WeInfuse.
[00:05:10] We've also did an acquisition. WeInfuse and RX Toolkit are now under the same parent company. So grateful to have RX Toolkit alongside WeInfuse as well.
[00:05:20] Kip Theno: Thanks. That's a, that's a great story. And we love the partnership too. I mean, it's a match made in heaven.
[00:05:24] And before I get to the next question for Bryan, Reece, do you still practice law? And can I get you on retainer or what's the deal there?
[00:05:31] Reece Norris: I mean, I'm still a licensed attorney, still get my license active and effectively do most of the legal work, and quarterback a lot of the legal work within WeInfuse.
[00:05:38] So, um, whether I like it or not, I'm still, still practicing law.
[00:05:43] Kip Theno: That's awesome . On to the next question for Bryan, we've seen I mean, just over the past few years, this mass migration from hospital systems, that's where you would go to get an infusion to these AICs or ambulatory infusion centers. And it's a booming market.According to one report, by Coherent Market Insights, global ambulatory infusion centers is actually grown to $47 billion in 2024 with a CAGR of 10.6%.That could be literally the fastest growth healthcare segment in the industry today. What are the factors that are driving that growth?
[00:06:15] Bryan Johnson: Yeah, Kip, this is Bryan. I think Reece and I have seen that as well.
[00:06:18] I think that was part of our, when we started, WeInfuse, why we thought, a software technology play would be important here in the industry. I think we just kind of, we knew this was coming. We foresaw it in the drug development. We were seeing the FDA was cruising around, you know, 75 percent of the drug applications were for biologic medications and specialty drugs and just our knowledge of those knowing that a lot of those would have to be intravenous or injected under providers care.
[00:06:43] We were like, wow, we're going to need, there's going to be a need for a lot more infusion centers around the country. They're just there weren't. I mean, there were a lot of hospital-based infusion facilities. There were management companies. Of course, there were physicians doing infusions in their own office.
[00:06:56] Our prediction was that there were gonna be a lot more sites of care. And of course, there was going to need to be technology to enable that. The foresight we had turned out to be true. It doesn't always work that way. We won't tell all those stories today, but not all of our, not all of our ideas work.
[00:07:08] But that number, which I think still hovering around 75-80 percent of drug applications, neutralized from the FDA being on that large molecule side, or just, you know, the routes of delivery involve a needle. Um, and so I think that's what's really driving a lot of that growth. And then, you know, with that the site of care not being there. I mean, if you look around the country, there's still pockets all over the place where people are driving an hour plus even over to another state to go get, you know, get their medications. And these are chronic medications that patients need weekly, monthly, you know, by monthly, every six months, whatever.
[00:07:42] So there's still a big need for site of care. And this business specifically, it requires a nurse or being really close proximity to the patient. So you can't build a big warehouse and ship these drugs out all over the place because they need to be delivered in a one on one healthcare setting.
[00:07:58] So you got your neuro drugs, rheumatology drugs, everybody knows about these for diseases. But we're getting biologics in other forms of therapy, like in behavioral health, with Alzheimer's coming out with some of the new drugs, like Kisunla™ and Leqembi®, you're just seeing more and more specialties, get involved where they didn't traditionally do that. So it's just really the medication boom is driving the need for sites of care. So that's why you're seeing the growth.
[00:08:22] And then the last one being site of care optimization. We've traditionally had these medications given in a hospital or institutional setting, it's, of course, the highest cost of care that there is, and insurance companies, payers paying attention to that are really driving patients out of the hospital.
[00:08:38] They want them in lower cost sites of care, more convenient geographically to the patients' homes and where they work.
[00:08:44] So I think if you add up all those three, the rise in drug applications and drug approvals with the need for more sites of care that are optimized near the patient, that's what's going to drive it for a while until that site of care need is met.
[00:08:58] Kip Theno: Yeah, well, I mean, you said the statistic, the 80 percent of new FDA drugs are specialty drugs. And back in the90s, there was only 30, right? And that's, that seems like a long time ago, right? But it's not, it's, it's a heartbeat.
[00:09:09] And, you know, in the last podcast, we had Christine Mann on, who I know is a friend of yours as well, from DENT and NeuroNet and NICA and she had just been up to Capitol Hill two times and we had discussed like do they get it do the legislators get it.
[00:09:20] What are they getting? Right? What are they getting wrong? And one of the things she said is, they're very in tune, they're really interested in this segment They really want to understand it for the patients, but where they got hung up is they thought You know, really all infusions were just oncology. And Bryan, you mentioned it like I think part of this is awareness too. Now you've got behavioral health, you've got cardiology, which just a couple years ago got into the infusion space for the first time in their history, and rheumatology and neurology as examples. And I would assume that creates challenges and opportunities, not only for you guys, but the clinics maybe talk about whatWeInfuse is solving on the challenges side for these clinics.
[00:09:58] And then what other what opportunities are out there in the future that you see?
[00:10:01] Reece Norris: Yeah, Kip this is Reece. When we were owning and operating our own infusion centers, there was nota tech stack or a EHR, if you will, dedicated to infusion therapy. And so before we built our own system, we were hacking multiple disparate systems to run our own. Infusion centers.
[00:10:18] I think that was really a light bulb moment for us. There's so many unique aspects to the infusion workflow that are just different than treating a patient in an exam room or, seeing a patient at the bedside of a hospital that it does warrant, we believe, and I think the market has said yes to as well, WeInfuse as a software application was needed and a specific technology for infusion centers is needed.
[00:10:43] When we launchedWeInfuse the core functionality was benefits investigation management. These very expensive drugs, have to get approved by the payer. And there's a whole workflow where you do an investigation around the patient's insurance benefits.So, whether that's tracking prior authorization expiration dates, recording certain meaningful conversations you've had with the payer, making sure asking the right questions with the payer and logging all that into a system. That's been communicating to the schedule, and the schedule, is making sure you don't see a patient past a prior auth expiration date. So we're trying to build in a lot of guardrails so, no one's left holding the bag, so to speak, if someone's insurance has expired or termed or the patient's authorization has expired or termed.
[00:11:26] In addition to prior auth management, which now we integrate with SamaCare, which is great, we have electronic eligibility. And then again, I mentioned patient scheduling. We had a chair based purpose-built scheduling. We have clinical documentation that's actually driven by the infusion medication. So clinical documentation specific to certain infusion medications.
[00:11:46] We have inventory management, even within an infusion center, the inventory management is very complex. It comes from a distributor where you own the inventory or another way to get to house inventory and infusion centers through specialty pharmacy shipping patient specific medication to your infusion center .
[00:12:04] WeInfuse has two separate inventory systems one for the inventory, which is buy and bill inventory, and then another inventory system for specialty pharmacy patients or patients receiving the drug from a third party and it's drug they don't own because it's in the patient's name so we account for that separately. And then from there we have a robust reporting analytics engine.
[00:12:24] We've done multiple feature expansions, including patient engagement, billing and claims capabilities, data analytics capabilities and now we're moving into a home infusion specialty pharmacy as well. But that's a lot of information. I'll pause there just to get sum it up, WeInfuse solves a lot of the unique workflow challenges that infusion centers face every day.
[00:12:45] Kip Theno: Yeah, I know it does. And this is a little bit different animal on the ambulatory infusion center side where you're getting all of these referrals from multiple specialties coming in to this hub of the spokes, of the AICs and your solution creates efficiencies for those folks.
[00:12:59] But still the AMA came out with data and said the 46% of patients that require an injection or an infusion, the part D or the J codes, you're buy-and-bill medications, simply don't get on them or miss their data service. And these are oncology patients, these are rare disease patients. So how does WeInfuse really help get those patients to the right infusion centers?
[00:13:20] Bryan Johnson: I'll speak to the patient sidereal quick. I think Reece talked through a lot of the tools that help get patients on therapy. There's the patient challenge and the provider challenge provider being. Yeah, you're a neurology practice trying to get your patient on a drug in your own infusion suite or you're trying to get them out to an ambulatory infusion center, standalone infusion center. I think your challenges on both sides, but I think majority of the challenges are on the provider side at the moment and again, I think Reece walked through the layers and layers of tools in WeInfuse that would be needed for any successful operation, to go from, we say to go from order to chair, right?
[00:13:51] To go from prescription to chair. If you want to use that term. And I think the payers are layering all of this, we call it the pretreatment workflow, but it's really like, in payer terms, it's utilizationmanagement, right? That's the word they like to use where they're putting really their are barriers, right? I mean, that's what they are. They're, hey,you have to have an authorization. This has to meet some sort of clinical protocol. There's a step therapy in place. You have to try and fail these two drugs before you get this drug. There has to be a lab done and you have to have that available.
[00:14:17] So there's just a lot of things in order to get the patient actually in the chair treated and of course, have the claim paid. You got to check all those boxes. And because the chronic nature of this business, and these drugs and these disease processes, you're doing this every 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 6 weeks,6 months, really for the rest of the patient's lives until there's a cure.
[00:14:37] And they are having to navigate their job changes, their geographic changes, their drug dosing, weight based changes, and of course, insurance is changing all the time as they're getting married, getting divorced and change the job. So you have to keep all these balls juggling in the air because every 4 weeks that patient's coming in your door and they need their drug.
[00:14:55] And so I think that's the challenge on the provider side. You need tools to do that. It's just, it's not human capable anymore. I think on the patient side, Kip, I think similar challenges that patients not nearly going to be educated enough to kind of know about all these background challenges, especially they've never been ona biological or specialty medication.
[00:15:14] I think dealing with the workflow, there's a little less on the patient there because they're going to rely on their provider or on their infusion suite, infusion center to handle a lot of that for them. But I think finding that right site of care for themselves, finding a place they need to go that is a challenge.
[00:15:29] I think majority of patients still to this day, they're very trusting of their physicians. I think it's an older generation. I feel like my parents are that way, no matter what I tell them, they're going to go where their doctor tells them to go and I do feel like that's still mostly how patients are finding their first infusion center infusion suite is through their ordering physician saying, Hey, I'm sending you to, you know, name, one of the hundreds of logos, right that are out there infusion center company. But I do think I'm seeing that change a little bit, especially as patients pick up and move and patients who have been on therapy for a long time. I think they're more knowledgeable about which infusion companies offer the resources, the services, the opening times that they need.
[00:16:09] The buzzwords like consumerization of healthcare, right? Where patients, especially in the younger crowd, are getting more educated and, hey, I'm the patient. I have options. I know that I can go where I want to go. So they're going to use something like the NICA, the National Infusion Center Association, has a great infusion center locator that is up and published.
[00:16:26] So that helps them at least find the locations near them, look at the amenities they offer. All of these companies have great websites for the most part. Talk about, you know, free Wi Fi comfortable chairs are open on Saturdays. They're open early. They're open late. So I think there's there are more resources today than ever for patients to find.
[00:16:45] So, I feel like that is getting better on the patient side of things.
[00:16:48] Kip Theno: So, Bryan and Reece, you mentioned technology and I think we knew very early at SamaCare when we were going intothe infusion market with our cloud based prior authorization platform, that wewere going to need a technology partner.
[00:17:02] And thankfully we found you guys, definitely makes us even more efficient and effective within the ambulatory infusion setting. And you've heard me say this a million times, right? There is no silver bullet. There's a lot of lead bullets to solve these problems.What other technology partners do you work with?
[00:17:16] What are the next phases for WeInfuse to continue to build on the foundation that you guys have created?
[00:17:21] Reece Norris: Well, I'll certainly let Bryan weigh in here after I give you my two cents, but yeah, from additional partners, I mean, SamaCare automating the prior auth process for our clients has been great.
[00:17:32] Additionally, we're partnered with Annexus Health for copay assistance and cost share assistance. And basically any kind of financial assistance outside a traditional insurance landscape Annexus helps manage that process. We signed recently a partnership with Tennr for some AI technology around getting discrete data out of documents and building a learning module around that. So where the software's learning which data points go where and WeInfuse and dialing that in. So we're excited about bringing AI into WeInfuse. We had a partnership that ultimately purchased RX Toolkit. We are still real bullish onRX Toolkit. It's a medication safety platform.
[00:18:13] Um, one thing we probably should have mentioned when we were describing all the features thatWeInfuse is we integrate with every distributor or all the major distributors, McKesson, Cardinal, Cencora, and Curascript, and we're grateful for those distributors who have made this WeInfuse, so consider those partners as well.
[00:18:35] Any others I missed in terms of partnerships?
[00:18:38] Bryan Johnson: I think Kip and Reece is good to just talk about like how we look at partnerships. Our dream for WeInfuse wasn't that WeInfuse can do everything . I think that takes a long time as complex as the industry is. So, I think when we look at something like authorization management, we look at co pay assistance, hub integration, distribution of drugs or whatnot, when we're looking for partners, we're looking for ways they can plug into our platform.
[00:19:00] You know, we really want to be the platform. It's kind of a negative connotation for some folks. We kind of want to be the epic for infusion or medication delivery, but we just don't want the negativity that comes with that. We like the idea of being that we want to be close to the patient, close to the provider.
[00:19:15] Very close to of course, nurses and MPs and PAs that are working in the software and be able to pull in and integrate with those folks, the industry that are, they're going really deep on a specific problem. SamaCare is a great example. We know how hard it is to connect with payers and do forms and do the kind of things you need to do if you're really going to try to automate the prior auth process, on the technology side. And SamaCare had already gone so deep there and it's the I want to say it's a hundred percent of the focus Kip, but I think it's most of the focus, right? And so when we're looking for partners, we're looking for solutions that are in the market, typically that our clients are coming to us with going, Hey, you guys need to integrate with these guys.
[00:19:52] They're solving a real problem for me.They're doing a really great job of it. And SamaCare is a great example. We're just getting inundated with client requests. And if the cultures align and we both agree that, the two of us is better than one of us trying to do it on our own then we jump into that. And that's generally how we look at all the technology partnerships that Reece mentioned, but trying to plug in as many of those as possible. It's a very complicated industry as we move into the pharmacy side of things. There are logistics challenges, other things, clinical challenges there as well that we may not be solving on our own today.
[00:20:22] So we're always looking for technology partners to plug in and kind of help coordinate quarterback all that traffic. I think there's a lot of those on the future list. I don't think we have time to go over them all today, but if it's a challenge today that we feel like technology can solve, either we're going to try to solve it or we're going to look for a partner to plug in and do that.
[00:20:40] Kip Theno: Yeah. Thanks, Bryan and Reece. And it's, it's like making a diamond, right? It's pressure and time and these things don't happen overnight. And that's kind of how we at SamaCare vet our partners as well and, and so grateful we found, WeInfuse and I would just, everybody out there, if you're doing infusions or you have an infusion center, you're an a IC, got to get a hold of WeInfuse. Talk to Bryan and Reece. It's a class a outfit. And, with these tech partnerships, we're really rounding theedges to patient care. And, and so Bryan Reece, before I get to my last question, how do folks contact you out there?
[00:21:09] Reece Norris: And just visit our website, WeInfuse.com or rxtoolkit.com. Email us at sales@weinfuse.com or info@weinfuse.com.
[00:21:16] You can always just email Bryan directly. It's just our first and last name, first.last name@weInfuse.com. We'd love to talk with you and we're passionate about infusion, if you can't tell.
[00:21:26] Kip Theno: Yeah, we'll make sure and have that all up on the podcast.
[00:21:28] And last question, so you, so you fellas know, I lived in Texas for a while. Um, we do go down there for meetings and. There's still a great debate here at SamaCare and ourCEO wanted me to ask you this... What is the best barbecue in Texas? Hands down.
[00:21:45] Bryan Johnson: Oh man, you said this was going to be a controversial podcast, Kip.
[00:21:48] So you're kind of stepping in it there. It's all pretty good, right? I think I've had them all.I've still not gone to Snows BBQ,Kip. I'm trying hard to get out to Snows.
[00:21:58] It's hard to go stand in line for six hours on a Saturday morning, but I hear it's worth it.But I have had Franklin's. It's pretty amazing. I'm a Black's BBQ fan. I'm a Black's barbecue fan here inAustin because you can actually get in and eat it. And so some of my favorite stuff there.
[00:22:11] I don't know about you Reece
[00:22:12] Reece Norris: You nearly have blacks.Franklin's Cooper's is great. But yeah, some of these places that are have gained fame take hours to eat out. So I stick with my knowns: Coopers, Franklins, Blacks, those are great.
[00:22:26] Bryan Johnson: Yeah, I'm hungrier than I am wanting to sometimes just eat the fineness of the food.
[00:22:31] So, yeah, I think it's an experience to go do that. And unfortunately, we're too busy buildingInfusion software kits. We don't have time to go stand in line.
[00:22:39] Kip Theno: Well, I guess what I heard, there's an invitation to Snows next time I'm out in your neck of the woods. Is that what I heard? When you go stand in line
[00:22:45] Bryan Johnson: and bring us some, I think that would be really great.
[00:22:47] We'll see if we can work that out.
[00:22:48] Kip Theno: We will do it. It's, it's a date.Well, hey, thank you so much. And again, thank you for the partnership with SamaCare folks out there. Please get ahold of WeInfuse and thank you for joining everybody. We'll see you next time.
[00:22:59] Bryan Johnson: Thank you, Kip.
[00:23:01] Kip Theno: Thank you for joining the Road toCare podcast hosted by SamaCare, the leader in prior authorization technology and services. We're through a script to therapy operating system. We enable connectivity with clinics, payers, and manufacturers focused on optimizing patient care. Tune in next time as together we can make things right.
[00:23:19] Enjoy the music written, produced and recorded by Jamestown.
Together, we can make healthcare right. Here are some of the outstanding
healthcare organizations and associations championing patient health mentioned in
this episode:
SamaCare is joined by WeInfuse founders Reece Norris and Bryan Johnson to discuss the rapidly evolving landscape of infusion care. From managing, to owning, to building software for infusion centers and infusion suites, Reece and Bryan share their experience helping infusion providers get patients from prescription to chair with minimal friction.
You’ll hear:
[00:00:00] Kip Theno: Welcome to the Road to Care podcast hosted by SamaCare, where we will talk with key opinion leaders, physicians, administrators, manufacturers, venture capitalists, and legislators to get their insights on the state of health care today and where we see it evolving.SamaCare's prior authorization platform is free to clinics, ensuring patients get on the right therapy at the right time.
[00:00:20] Together, we can simply make things right.
[00:00:27] Hey everybody.Thanks again for joining the Road to Care podcast, hosted by SamaCare, and today our special guests are Bryan Johnson and Reece Norris of WeInfuse.Bryan's a co-founder, product manager, and CEO of WeInfuse and has 25 years of experience in the healthcare industry, including being CEO of RxToolkit, and served in management positions at Paragon Healthcare and Innovative Infusions.
[00:00:49] Before co-foundingWeInfuse, he served as co-founder and lead innovator, and Chief Problem Solver of Innovative Infusions, LLC, which is a multi-site infusion center company based in Texas. Bryan is also a founding member and board member of NICA. Reece is the co-founder and chief operating officer of WeInfuse and began his career in corporate law, and eventually entered the provider-based infusion center market where he went on to create a first of its kind infusion delivery business model.
[00:01:14] Before co-foundingWeInfuse, Reece served as president of Innovative Infusions, LLC, a multi-site infusion center company based in Texas from 2008 to 2012. And Reece is also a founding member of NICA. Hey fellas, thanks for joining, how are ya?
[00:01:28] Reece Norris: I'm doing well. Thanks for having us grateful for our SamaCare partnership and I'm grateful to be here on the podcast today.
[00:01:35] Kip Theno: Yeah, awesome. Well, I want to hear how did the train get started with WeInfuse? Let's talk about your origin story. Why'd you guys found it?
[00:01:42] Reece Norris: Yeah, sure. Kip, this is Reece again. I'm going to take the lead on this one. Well, our story begins in college. Bryan and I were college friends, and at the time my dad was starting a company called Innovative Infusions, which you referenced in our bios.
[00:01:55] Uh, and that was a management company where my dad and his small team, who was a startup, were managing infusion suites for physicians. So a physician office that wanted to have an infusion suite or center or had an infusion suite or center, would be run by the management company, Innovative Infusions.
[00:02:14] Bryan was looking todo something entrepreneurial out of college. So I connected him with my dad even before we graduated. And Bryan really started to help build out at the time, some very novel things for businesses, a website, email domain, ways to share documents for the company online, things like that.
[00:02:31] So he got started early on, as an intern, if you want to call it that, and then came on full time after college. I went to law school, but was so, was very intrigued, right? A good friend of mine's working with my dad, they're building this business.
[00:02:44] I was constantly communicating with Bryan about the growth. I ended up graduating law school and ultimately in 2008, I was working at a law firm and there was some partnership transitions and it opened up an opportunity for me to join the business. And at that time, my dad really handed the keys to me and Bryan.
[00:03:04] And so me and Bryan inherited the business Innovative Infusions, which at the time was just a management company, and we quickly did a few things. One, Bryan started building a proprietary software solution for our own sites. And two, we transitioned from being just a manager of infusion centers to owning infusion centers.
[00:03:22] So we started to wind down the management business and actually open our own infusion centers.We also launched during that same time frame, the National Infusion CenterAssociation. So, NICA and our legacy software solution really helped propel us, as our journey kept moving forward and we launched WeInfuse.
[00:03:42] So, we had these infusion centers that we now owned because we had transitioned out of the management model. And then that was around 2010 and we ran those for about two years and we're approached by Paragon Healthcare, which was another home infusion pharmacy player in Texas. And they thought it would be a good strategic acquisition.
[00:04:02] So we ended upselling our infusion centers to Paragon. It was a really amicable business transition and M&A opportunity. Bryan and I actually stayed on with Paragon for almost four years post-acquisition, so from 2012 to 2016. And then we launched WeInfuse after we left Paragon in 2016, but it took us about a year to get, you know, a meaningful, minimal viable product.
[00:04:30] We were building and raising funds through 2016, but really didn't go live with our first client, which was a neurology practice that accepted external referrals. So it was really a multi-specialty infusion center. We didn't go live until December of2017. And then from there, we really just hit the ground running building on a sales team, had some meaningful wins in 2017 and really our growth took off in2018 until today. So we're, we're grateful for all of our clients and our investors and our partners like SamaCare that trusted us along the way today, we're now in a thousand infusion centers. Our software's live in over a thousand infusion centers today and grateful, for all the clients that trust WeInfuse.
[00:05:10] We've also did an acquisition. WeInfuse and RX Toolkit are now under the same parent company. So grateful to have RX Toolkit alongside WeInfuse as well.
[00:05:20] Kip Theno: Thanks. That's a, that's a great story. And we love the partnership too. I mean, it's a match made in heaven.
[00:05:24] And before I get to the next question for Bryan, Reece, do you still practice law? And can I get you on retainer or what's the deal there?
[00:05:31] Reece Norris: I mean, I'm still a licensed attorney, still get my license active and effectively do most of the legal work, and quarterback a lot of the legal work within WeInfuse.
[00:05:38] So, um, whether I like it or not, I'm still, still practicing law.
[00:05:43] Kip Theno: That's awesome . On to the next question for Bryan, we've seen I mean, just over the past few years, this mass migration from hospital systems, that's where you would go to get an infusion to these AICs or ambulatory infusion centers. And it's a booming market.According to one report, by Coherent Market Insights, global ambulatory infusion centers is actually grown to $47 billion in 2024 with a CAGR of 10.6%.That could be literally the fastest growth healthcare segment in the industry today. What are the factors that are driving that growth?
[00:06:15] Bryan Johnson: Yeah, Kip, this is Bryan. I think Reece and I have seen that as well.
[00:06:18] I think that was part of our, when we started, WeInfuse, why we thought, a software technology play would be important here in the industry. I think we just kind of, we knew this was coming. We foresaw it in the drug development. We were seeing the FDA was cruising around, you know, 75 percent of the drug applications were for biologic medications and specialty drugs and just our knowledge of those knowing that a lot of those would have to be intravenous or injected under providers care.
[00:06:43] We were like, wow, we're going to need, there's going to be a need for a lot more infusion centers around the country. They're just there weren't. I mean, there were a lot of hospital-based infusion facilities. There were management companies. Of course, there were physicians doing infusions in their own office.
[00:06:56] Our prediction was that there were gonna be a lot more sites of care. And of course, there was going to need to be technology to enable that. The foresight we had turned out to be true. It doesn't always work that way. We won't tell all those stories today, but not all of our, not all of our ideas work.
[00:07:08] But that number, which I think still hovering around 75-80 percent of drug applications, neutralized from the FDA being on that large molecule side, or just, you know, the routes of delivery involve a needle. Um, and so I think that's what's really driving a lot of that growth. And then, you know, with that the site of care not being there. I mean, if you look around the country, there's still pockets all over the place where people are driving an hour plus even over to another state to go get, you know, get their medications. And these are chronic medications that patients need weekly, monthly, you know, by monthly, every six months, whatever.
[00:07:42] So there's still a big need for site of care. And this business specifically, it requires a nurse or being really close proximity to the patient. So you can't build a big warehouse and ship these drugs out all over the place because they need to be delivered in a one on one healthcare setting.
[00:07:58] So you got your neuro drugs, rheumatology drugs, everybody knows about these for diseases. But we're getting biologics in other forms of therapy, like in behavioral health, with Alzheimer's coming out with some of the new drugs, like Kisunla™ and Leqembi®, you're just seeing more and more specialties, get involved where they didn't traditionally do that. So it's just really the medication boom is driving the need for sites of care. So that's why you're seeing the growth.
[00:08:22] And then the last one being site of care optimization. We've traditionally had these medications given in a hospital or institutional setting, it's, of course, the highest cost of care that there is, and insurance companies, payers paying attention to that are really driving patients out of the hospital.
[00:08:38] They want them in lower cost sites of care, more convenient geographically to the patients' homes and where they work.
[00:08:44] So I think if you add up all those three, the rise in drug applications and drug approvals with the need for more sites of care that are optimized near the patient, that's what's going to drive it for a while until that site of care need is met.
[00:08:58] Kip Theno: Yeah, well, I mean, you said the statistic, the 80 percent of new FDA drugs are specialty drugs. And back in the90s, there was only 30, right? And that's, that seems like a long time ago, right? But it's not, it's, it's a heartbeat.
[00:09:09] And, you know, in the last podcast, we had Christine Mann on, who I know is a friend of yours as well, from DENT and NeuroNet and NICA and she had just been up to Capitol Hill two times and we had discussed like do they get it do the legislators get it.
[00:09:20] What are they getting? Right? What are they getting wrong? And one of the things she said is, they're very in tune, they're really interested in this segment They really want to understand it for the patients, but where they got hung up is they thought You know, really all infusions were just oncology. And Bryan, you mentioned it like I think part of this is awareness too. Now you've got behavioral health, you've got cardiology, which just a couple years ago got into the infusion space for the first time in their history, and rheumatology and neurology as examples. And I would assume that creates challenges and opportunities, not only for you guys, but the clinics maybe talk about whatWeInfuse is solving on the challenges side for these clinics.
[00:09:58] And then what other what opportunities are out there in the future that you see?
[00:10:01] Reece Norris: Yeah, Kip this is Reece. When we were owning and operating our own infusion centers, there was nota tech stack or a EHR, if you will, dedicated to infusion therapy. And so before we built our own system, we were hacking multiple disparate systems to run our own. Infusion centers.
[00:10:18] I think that was really a light bulb moment for us. There's so many unique aspects to the infusion workflow that are just different than treating a patient in an exam room or, seeing a patient at the bedside of a hospital that it does warrant, we believe, and I think the market has said yes to as well, WeInfuse as a software application was needed and a specific technology for infusion centers is needed.
[00:10:43] When we launchedWeInfuse the core functionality was benefits investigation management. These very expensive drugs, have to get approved by the payer. And there's a whole workflow where you do an investigation around the patient's insurance benefits.So, whether that's tracking prior authorization expiration dates, recording certain meaningful conversations you've had with the payer, making sure asking the right questions with the payer and logging all that into a system. That's been communicating to the schedule, and the schedule, is making sure you don't see a patient past a prior auth expiration date. So we're trying to build in a lot of guardrails so, no one's left holding the bag, so to speak, if someone's insurance has expired or termed or the patient's authorization has expired or termed.
[00:11:26] In addition to prior auth management, which now we integrate with SamaCare, which is great, we have electronic eligibility. And then again, I mentioned patient scheduling. We had a chair based purpose-built scheduling. We have clinical documentation that's actually driven by the infusion medication. So clinical documentation specific to certain infusion medications.
[00:11:46] We have inventory management, even within an infusion center, the inventory management is very complex. It comes from a distributor where you own the inventory or another way to get to house inventory and infusion centers through specialty pharmacy shipping patient specific medication to your infusion center .
[00:12:04] WeInfuse has two separate inventory systems one for the inventory, which is buy and bill inventory, and then another inventory system for specialty pharmacy patients or patients receiving the drug from a third party and it's drug they don't own because it's in the patient's name so we account for that separately. And then from there we have a robust reporting analytics engine.
[00:12:24] We've done multiple feature expansions, including patient engagement, billing and claims capabilities, data analytics capabilities and now we're moving into a home infusion specialty pharmacy as well. But that's a lot of information. I'll pause there just to get sum it up, WeInfuse solves a lot of the unique workflow challenges that infusion centers face every day.
[00:12:45] Kip Theno: Yeah, I know it does. And this is a little bit different animal on the ambulatory infusion center side where you're getting all of these referrals from multiple specialties coming in to this hub of the spokes, of the AICs and your solution creates efficiencies for those folks.
[00:12:59] But still the AMA came out with data and said the 46% of patients that require an injection or an infusion, the part D or the J codes, you're buy-and-bill medications, simply don't get on them or miss their data service. And these are oncology patients, these are rare disease patients. So how does WeInfuse really help get those patients to the right infusion centers?
[00:13:20] Bryan Johnson: I'll speak to the patient sidereal quick. I think Reece talked through a lot of the tools that help get patients on therapy. There's the patient challenge and the provider challenge provider being. Yeah, you're a neurology practice trying to get your patient on a drug in your own infusion suite or you're trying to get them out to an ambulatory infusion center, standalone infusion center. I think your challenges on both sides, but I think majority of the challenges are on the provider side at the moment and again, I think Reece walked through the layers and layers of tools in WeInfuse that would be needed for any successful operation, to go from, we say to go from order to chair, right?
[00:13:51] To go from prescription to chair. If you want to use that term. And I think the payers are layering all of this, we call it the pretreatment workflow, but it's really like, in payer terms, it's utilizationmanagement, right? That's the word they like to use where they're putting really their are barriers, right? I mean, that's what they are. They're, hey,you have to have an authorization. This has to meet some sort of clinical protocol. There's a step therapy in place. You have to try and fail these two drugs before you get this drug. There has to be a lab done and you have to have that available.
[00:14:17] So there's just a lot of things in order to get the patient actually in the chair treated and of course, have the claim paid. You got to check all those boxes. And because the chronic nature of this business, and these drugs and these disease processes, you're doing this every 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 6 weeks,6 months, really for the rest of the patient's lives until there's a cure.
[00:14:37] And they are having to navigate their job changes, their geographic changes, their drug dosing, weight based changes, and of course, insurance is changing all the time as they're getting married, getting divorced and change the job. So you have to keep all these balls juggling in the air because every 4 weeks that patient's coming in your door and they need their drug.
[00:14:55] And so I think that's the challenge on the provider side. You need tools to do that. It's just, it's not human capable anymore. I think on the patient side, Kip, I think similar challenges that patients not nearly going to be educated enough to kind of know about all these background challenges, especially they've never been ona biological or specialty medication.
[00:15:14] I think dealing with the workflow, there's a little less on the patient there because they're going to rely on their provider or on their infusion suite, infusion center to handle a lot of that for them. But I think finding that right site of care for themselves, finding a place they need to go that is a challenge.
[00:15:29] I think majority of patients still to this day, they're very trusting of their physicians. I think it's an older generation. I feel like my parents are that way, no matter what I tell them, they're going to go where their doctor tells them to go and I do feel like that's still mostly how patients are finding their first infusion center infusion suite is through their ordering physician saying, Hey, I'm sending you to, you know, name, one of the hundreds of logos, right that are out there infusion center company. But I do think I'm seeing that change a little bit, especially as patients pick up and move and patients who have been on therapy for a long time. I think they're more knowledgeable about which infusion companies offer the resources, the services, the opening times that they need.
[00:16:09] The buzzwords like consumerization of healthcare, right? Where patients, especially in the younger crowd, are getting more educated and, hey, I'm the patient. I have options. I know that I can go where I want to go. So they're going to use something like the NICA, the National Infusion Center Association, has a great infusion center locator that is up and published.
[00:16:26] So that helps them at least find the locations near them, look at the amenities they offer. All of these companies have great websites for the most part. Talk about, you know, free Wi Fi comfortable chairs are open on Saturdays. They're open early. They're open late. So I think there's there are more resources today than ever for patients to find.
[00:16:45] So, I feel like that is getting better on the patient side of things.
[00:16:48] Kip Theno: So, Bryan and Reece, you mentioned technology and I think we knew very early at SamaCare when we were going intothe infusion market with our cloud based prior authorization platform, that wewere going to need a technology partner.
[00:17:02] And thankfully we found you guys, definitely makes us even more efficient and effective within the ambulatory infusion setting. And you've heard me say this a million times, right? There is no silver bullet. There's a lot of lead bullets to solve these problems.What other technology partners do you work with?
[00:17:16] What are the next phases for WeInfuse to continue to build on the foundation that you guys have created?
[00:17:21] Reece Norris: Well, I'll certainly let Bryan weigh in here after I give you my two cents, but yeah, from additional partners, I mean, SamaCare automating the prior auth process for our clients has been great.
[00:17:32] Additionally, we're partnered with Annexus Health for copay assistance and cost share assistance. And basically any kind of financial assistance outside a traditional insurance landscape Annexus helps manage that process. We signed recently a partnership with Tennr for some AI technology around getting discrete data out of documents and building a learning module around that. So where the software's learning which data points go where and WeInfuse and dialing that in. So we're excited about bringing AI into WeInfuse. We had a partnership that ultimately purchased RX Toolkit. We are still real bullish onRX Toolkit. It's a medication safety platform.
[00:18:13] Um, one thing we probably should have mentioned when we were describing all the features thatWeInfuse is we integrate with every distributor or all the major distributors, McKesson, Cardinal, Cencora, and Curascript, and we're grateful for those distributors who have made this WeInfuse, so consider those partners as well.
[00:18:35] Any others I missed in terms of partnerships?
[00:18:38] Bryan Johnson: I think Kip and Reece is good to just talk about like how we look at partnerships. Our dream for WeInfuse wasn't that WeInfuse can do everything . I think that takes a long time as complex as the industry is. So, I think when we look at something like authorization management, we look at co pay assistance, hub integration, distribution of drugs or whatnot, when we're looking for partners, we're looking for ways they can plug into our platform.
[00:19:00] You know, we really want to be the platform. It's kind of a negative connotation for some folks. We kind of want to be the epic for infusion or medication delivery, but we just don't want the negativity that comes with that. We like the idea of being that we want to be close to the patient, close to the provider.
[00:19:15] Very close to of course, nurses and MPs and PAs that are working in the software and be able to pull in and integrate with those folks, the industry that are, they're going really deep on a specific problem. SamaCare is a great example. We know how hard it is to connect with payers and do forms and do the kind of things you need to do if you're really going to try to automate the prior auth process, on the technology side. And SamaCare had already gone so deep there and it's the I want to say it's a hundred percent of the focus Kip, but I think it's most of the focus, right? And so when we're looking for partners, we're looking for solutions that are in the market, typically that our clients are coming to us with going, Hey, you guys need to integrate with these guys.
[00:19:52] They're solving a real problem for me.They're doing a really great job of it. And SamaCare is a great example. We're just getting inundated with client requests. And if the cultures align and we both agree that, the two of us is better than one of us trying to do it on our own then we jump into that. And that's generally how we look at all the technology partnerships that Reece mentioned, but trying to plug in as many of those as possible. It's a very complicated industry as we move into the pharmacy side of things. There are logistics challenges, other things, clinical challenges there as well that we may not be solving on our own today.
[00:20:22] So we're always looking for technology partners to plug in and kind of help coordinate quarterback all that traffic. I think there's a lot of those on the future list. I don't think we have time to go over them all today, but if it's a challenge today that we feel like technology can solve, either we're going to try to solve it or we're going to look for a partner to plug in and do that.
[00:20:40] Kip Theno: Yeah. Thanks, Bryan and Reece. And it's, it's like making a diamond, right? It's pressure and time and these things don't happen overnight. And that's kind of how we at SamaCare vet our partners as well and, and so grateful we found, WeInfuse and I would just, everybody out there, if you're doing infusions or you have an infusion center, you're an a IC, got to get a hold of WeInfuse. Talk to Bryan and Reece. It's a class a outfit. And, with these tech partnerships, we're really rounding theedges to patient care. And, and so Bryan Reece, before I get to my last question, how do folks contact you out there?
[00:21:09] Reece Norris: And just visit our website, WeInfuse.com or rxtoolkit.com. Email us at sales@weinfuse.com or info@weinfuse.com.
[00:21:16] You can always just email Bryan directly. It's just our first and last name, first.last name@weInfuse.com. We'd love to talk with you and we're passionate about infusion, if you can't tell.
[00:21:26] Kip Theno: Yeah, we'll make sure and have that all up on the podcast.
[00:21:28] And last question, so you, so you fellas know, I lived in Texas for a while. Um, we do go down there for meetings and. There's still a great debate here at SamaCare and ourCEO wanted me to ask you this... What is the best barbecue in Texas? Hands down.
[00:21:45] Bryan Johnson: Oh man, you said this was going to be a controversial podcast, Kip.
[00:21:48] So you're kind of stepping in it there. It's all pretty good, right? I think I've had them all.I've still not gone to Snows BBQ,Kip. I'm trying hard to get out to Snows.
[00:21:58] It's hard to go stand in line for six hours on a Saturday morning, but I hear it's worth it.But I have had Franklin's. It's pretty amazing. I'm a Black's BBQ fan. I'm a Black's barbecue fan here inAustin because you can actually get in and eat it. And so some of my favorite stuff there.
[00:22:11] I don't know about you Reece
[00:22:12] Reece Norris: You nearly have blacks.Franklin's Cooper's is great. But yeah, some of these places that are have gained fame take hours to eat out. So I stick with my knowns: Coopers, Franklins, Blacks, those are great.
[00:22:26] Bryan Johnson: Yeah, I'm hungrier than I am wanting to sometimes just eat the fineness of the food.
[00:22:31] So, yeah, I think it's an experience to go do that. And unfortunately, we're too busy buildingInfusion software kits. We don't have time to go stand in line.
[00:22:39] Kip Theno: Well, I guess what I heard, there's an invitation to Snows next time I'm out in your neck of the woods. Is that what I heard? When you go stand in line
[00:22:45] Bryan Johnson: and bring us some, I think that would be really great.
[00:22:47] We'll see if we can work that out.
[00:22:48] Kip Theno: We will do it. It's, it's a date.Well, hey, thank you so much. And again, thank you for the partnership with SamaCare folks out there. Please get ahold of WeInfuse and thank you for joining everybody. We'll see you next time.
[00:22:59] Bryan Johnson: Thank you, Kip.
[00:23:01] Kip Theno: Thank you for joining the Road toCare podcast hosted by SamaCare, the leader in prior authorization technology and services. We're through a script to therapy operating system. We enable connectivity with clinics, payers, and manufacturers focused on optimizing patient care. Tune in next time as together we can make things right.
[00:23:19] Enjoy the music written, produced and recorded by Jamestown.
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