Where AI Supports Physical Therapy Practices and Patient Outcomes with Suzanne Cogan WebPT

Suzanne Cogan, President and Chief Customer Officer at WebPT, addresses critical challenges the physical therapy and rehabiliation industry face and the opportunities to use AI to automate administrative tasks and enhance their patients' experiences. Solutions include patient activity tracking, scheduling, billing, insurance claims management ,and monitoring prior authorizations and renewals. The innovations aim to improve patient outcomes, reduce administrative burden, improve financial managment and provide real-time compliance to ensure claims meet payer requirements before submision. Suzanne explains, "WebPT has supported physical therapy, but also occupational therapy, speech-language pathology, and chiropractic, so in combination rehab therapy. We've supported that industry since 2008 in a variety of ways. So essentially, the software that they need to run the business, from scheduling to documenting visits with patients to billing patients and the insurance companies, collecting on those claims, and marketing the practice, to reactivating former patients."   "More and more, we are getting into the realm of leveraging AI to provide more automation and even autonomous action to further improve efficiencies at the PT practice and realize our mission, which has always been empowering rehab therapy professionals to achieve greatness in practice."   "The reimbursement rates have always been on the low side compared to other healthcare professionals. They're not exactly increasing, as really anyone in healthcare can attest, in the last few years. The friction caused by increasing denials and prior auth challenges, and health insurance companies adjudicating claims with AI, continues to be a problem." #WebPT #PhysicalTherapy #RehabTherapy #HealthcareAI #OccupationalTherapy #HealthcareInnovation #PriorAuthorization #PatientCare #HealthTech webpt.com Listen to the podcast here

Suzanne Cogan, President and Chief Customer Officer at WebPT, addresses critical challenges the physical therapy and rehabiliation industry face and the opportunities to use AI to automate administrative tasks and enhance their patients' experiences. Solutions include patient activity tracking, scheduling, billing, insurance claims management ,and monitoring prior authorizations and renewals. The innovations aim to improve patient outcomes, reduce administrative burden, improve financial managment and provide real-time compliance to ensure claims meet payer requirements before submision. Suzanne explains, "WebPT has supported physical therapy, but also occupational therapy, speech-language pathology, and chiropractic, so in combination rehab therapy. We've supported that industry since 2008 in a variety of ways. So essentially, the software that they need to run the business, from scheduling to documenting visits with patients to billing patients and the insurance companies, collecting on those claims, and marketing the practice, to reactivating former patients."   "More and more, we are getting into the realm of leveraging AI to provide more automation and even autonomous action to further improve efficiencies at the PT practice and realize our mission, which has always been empowering rehab therapy professionals to achieve greatness in practice."   "The reimbursement rates have always been on the low side compared to other healthcare professionals. They're not exactly increasing, as really anyone in healthcare can attest, in the last few years. The friction caused by increasing denials and prior auth challenges, and health insurance companies adjudicating claims with AI, continues to be a problem." #WebPT #PhysicalTherapy #RehabTherapy #HealthcareAI #OccupationalTherapy #HealthcareInnovation #PriorAuthorization #PatientCare #HealthTech webpt.com Download the transcript here

Eileen Heffernan, CEO and Co-Founder of Celltaxis, highlights that lymphedema is the most common lymphatic disorder and is a progressive chronic condition characterized by inflammation, fat deposition, and infections.  Currently there are no disease-modifying treatments available, requiring patients to rely on compression garments and manual therapy.  Celltaxis is developing a therapy that targets immune modulation rather than broad immunosuppression and enables lymphatic vessel repair, a potential paradigm shift from symptom management to disease modification. Eileen explains, "The lymphatic system touches every system in the human body and drains extra fluid filled with waste and signs of infection and so forth, drains all of that and brings it back to the vascular system. We at Celtaxis are treating lymphedema, which is the most common lymphatic disorder. It's a life-altering, progressive, chronic disorder initiated by lymphatic vessel failure and causes fluid stasis, inflammation, fat deposition, skin thickening, and infections. In later stages, quite a lot of fibrosis. This results in significant changes to limb volumes and restriction of motion and activities. And there are approximately 10 million people in the United States with lymphedema and no therapies available." "Well, there's been a lack of understanding about how important the lymphatic system is. As recently as 2010 is really when the mindset about how important the lymphatic system is changed, and that's not all that long ago. Previously, we all learned in grade school and so forth that the heart pumped, arteries distributed, and the veins returned. And that's how fluid moved throughout your body. Well, now we know that the veins really don't return much of the fluid. It is the lymphatics that really return all of the fluid. So in this way, the lymphatic system is really a central part of the circulatory system. And when you think of all the lymph nodes all along the lymphatic system that act as sentries looking at the fluid as it passes through the lymph nodes on its way back to the vascular system, the lymph nodes are filtering that lymphatic fluid, looking for signs of infection and really act as the sentries and notify the immune system to mount a response." #Celltaxis #LymphaticDisorders #Lymphatics #Lipedema #Cancer #Obesity #Lymphedema #RareDiseases #ClinicalTrials #Oncology #BreastCancerSurvivors #Immunology #HealthcareInnovation #MedicalResearch celltaxis.com Listen to the podcast here

Eileen Heffernan, CEO and Co-Founder of Celltaxis, highlights that lymphedema is the most common lymphatic disorder and is a progressive chronic condition characterized by inflammation, fat deposition, and infections.  Currently there are no disease-modifying treatments available, requiring patients to rely on compression garments and manual therapy.  Celltaxis is developing a therapy that targets immune modulation rather than broad immunosuppression and enables lymphatic vessel repair, a potential paradigm shift from symptom management to disease modification. Eileen explains, "The lymphatic system touches every system in the human body and drains extra fluid filled with waste and signs of infection and so forth, drains all of that and brings it back to the vascular system. We at Celtaxis are treating lymphedema, which is the most common lymphatic disorder. It's a life-altering, progressive, chronic disorder initiated by lymphatic vessel failure and causes fluid stasis, inflammation, fat deposition, skin thickening, and infections. In later stages, quite a lot of fibrosis. This results in significant changes to limb volumes and restriction of motion and activities. And there are approximately 10 million people in the United States with lymphedema and no therapies available." "Well, there's been a lack of understanding about how important the lymphatic system is. As recently as 2010 is really when the mindset about how important the lymphatic system is changed, and that's not all that long ago. Previously, we all learned in grade school and so forth that the heart pumped, arteries distributed, and the veins returned. And that's how fluid moved throughout your body. Well, now we know that the veins really don't return much of the fluid. It is the lymphatics that really return all of the fluid. So in this way, the lymphatic system is really a central part of the circulatory system. And when you think of all the lymph nodes all along the lymphatic system that act as sentries looking at the fluid as it passes through the lymph nodes on its way back to the vascular system, the lymph nodes are filtering that lymphatic fluid, looking for signs of infection and really act as the sentries and notify the immune system to mount a response." #Celltaxis #LymphaticDisorders #Lymphatics #Lipedema #Cancer #Obesity #Lymphedema #RareDiseases #ClinicalTrials #Oncology #BreastCancerSurvivors #Immunology #HealthcareInnovation #MedicalResearch celltaxis.com Download the transcript here

Samuel Reich, Chief Executive Officer at SAB Bio, is developing a fully human antibody therapy designed to transform type 1 diabetes treatment by preserving patients' beta cells and their ability to produce insulin, rather than just managing symptoms with insulin and glucose monitoring. The drug is produced using the company's bovine platform which uses genetically modified cows to generate human immunoglobulins offering a safer more scalable alternative to rabbit-derived therapies. If successful, this approach could represent a functional cure, potentially transforming type 1 diabetes from a disease requiring daily insulin management to one requiring only periodic infusions. Samuel explains, "Our mission at SAB Bio is to transform what it means to get a type 1 diabetes diagnosis by changing the course of the disease, and not just treating the symptoms, with our new medicine, which is called SAB-142. Why type 1 diabetes? It's a major global unmet medical need that has largely been underserved in research until recently."  "Insulin and glucose monitoring are the standard of care, but they don't treat the disease. They don't treat the patient's illness. They just manage the symptoms and allow the patient to survive. So, they're essential, but they're not helping the patient be healthier or manage the disease process. Our mission is to treat the disease causing type 1 diabetes by saving the patient's beta cells and saving the patient's ability to make their own insulin. And exogenous insulin is no substitute for the patient's own ability to make insulin." "So we have a platform at SAB called the TcBovine, which is a transchromosomal bovine. And these are cows that are healthy and happy cows that look like normal dairy cows, but the cows make human IgG, or human antibodies, instead of cow IgG. And we vaccinate our cows with human thymocytes and purify the IgG from the cow plasma. And our drug is a fully human immunoglobulin, which targets human thymocytes. So, it does what the rabbit drug does, thymoglobulin, but it's human and can be given more safely without making the patient sick, and can be given for the life of the patient to continue to preserve their beta cells for the long term." #SABBio #Type1Diabetes #TD1 #JDRF#Immunology #ClinicalResearch #Endocrinology #AutoimmuneDisease #MedicalInnovation #BetaCells #T1D #HealthcareInnovation #ClinicalTrials sab.bio  Listen to the podcast here

Samuel Reich, Chief Executive Officer at SAB Bio, is developing a fully human antibody therapy designed to transform type 1 diabetes treatment by preserving patients' beta cells and their ability to produce insulin, rather than just managing symptoms with insulin and glucose monitoring. The drug is produced using the company's bovine platform which uses genetically modified cows to generate human immunoglobulins offering a safer more scalable alternative to rabbit-derived therapies. If successful, this approach could represent a functional cure, potentially transforming type 1 diabetes from a disease requiring daily insulin management to one requiring only periodic infusions. Samuel explains, "Our mission at SAB Bio is to transform what it means to get a type 1 diabetes diagnosis by changing the course of the disease, and not just treating the symptoms, with our new medicine, which is called SAB-142. Why type 1 diabetes? It's a major global unmet medical need that has largely been underserved in research until recently."  "Insulin and glucose monitoring are the standard of care, but they don't treat the disease. They don't treat the patient's illness. They just manage the symptoms and allow the patient to survive. So, they're essential, but they're not helping the patient be healthier or manage the disease process. Our mission is to treat the disease causing type 1 diabetes by saving the patient's beta cells and saving the patient's ability to make their own insulin. And exogenous insulin is no substitute for the patient's own ability to make insulin." "So we have a platform at SAB called the TcBovine, which is a transchromosomal bovine. And these are cows that are healthy and happy cows that look like normal dairy cows, but the cows make human IgG, or human antibodies, instead of cow IgG. And we vaccinate our cows with human thymocytes and purify the IgG from the cow plasma. And our drug is a fully human immunoglobulin, which targets human thymocytes. So, it does what the rabbit drug does, thymoglobulin, but it's human and can be given more safely without making the patient sick, and can be given for the life of the patient to continue to preserve their beta cells for the long term." #SABBio #Type1Diabetes #TD1 #JDRF#Immunology #ClinicalResearch #Endocrinology #AutoimmuneDisease #MedicalInnovation #BetaCells #T1D #HealthcareInnovation #ClinicalTrials sab.bio Download the transcript here

Marcus Ionker, Product Line Manager and Messaging Evangelist at Retarus, which is a cloud-based transactional electronic messaging service provider offering fax, SMS, email, and logistics services to regulated industries like healthcare. By moving fax to the cloud, Retarus helps providers and payers reduce administrative costs, improve patient services, and comply with privacy regulations. The company is addressing the critical challenge of providing reliable, secure, and fast messaging to replace outdated physical fax machines and to eliminate paper-based processes in favor of digital workflows.  Marcus explains, "So Retarus is a cloud service provider of what I like to call transactional electronic messaging. So we are talking about fax services, SMS services, email services, as well as even further logistics services. And we do this in many countries, especially in the United States. And a number of those messaging services really play an important role in regulated industries, especially in the healthcare industry, for example." "Email is just not accepted in many of these industries, and that's why fax is still there. And if I may take this opportunity, I think if you do faxing right and if you do it digitally, it makes no difference. It can be an enabler of automated processes, rather than a hindrance." "The paper that we use in the office is when people print emails, not faxes. So no, definitely not. I mean, also, let's keep in mind, a lot of these customers that we offer our service for, they're sending millions and millions of pages every month, and there's no way that you could do that in paper form. So it's coming from an application in a digital form, and quite often on the recipient side is consumed as a digital document, as a PDF or a TIF image, and maybe fed into an AI IDP process immediately. So no, paper often doesn't play a part in this at all." #Retarus #Digitaltransformation #HealthcareCommunications #HealthcareIT #DigitalHealth #CloudFax #HealthcareLeadership #HealthcareInnovation #AdminEfficiency #HealthcareOperations retarus.com  Listen to the podcast here

Marcus Ionker, Product Line Manager and Messaging Evangelist at Retarus, which is a cloud-based transactional electronic messaging service provider offering fax, SMS, email, and logistics services to regulated industries like healthcare. By moving fax to the cloud, Retarus helps providers and payers reduce administrative costs, improve patient services, and comply with privacy regulations. The company is addressing the critical challenge of providing reliable, secure, and fast messaging to replace outdated physical fax machines and to eliminate paper-based processes in favor of digital workflows.  Marcus explains, "So Retarus is a cloud service provider of what I like to call transactional electronic messaging. So we are talking about fax services, SMS services, email services, as well as even further logistics services. And we do this in many countries, especially in the United States. And a number of those messaging services really play an important role in regulated industries, especially in the healthcare industry, for example." "Email is just not accepted in many of these industries, and that's why fax is still there. And if I may take this opportunity, I think if you do faxing right and if you do it digitally, it makes no difference. It can be an enabler of automated processes, rather than a hindrance." "The paper that we use in the office is when people print emails, not faxes. So no, definitely not. I mean, also, let's keep in mind, a lot of these customers that we offer our service for, they're sending millions and millions of pages every month, and there's no way that you could do that in paper form. So it's coming from an application in a digital form, and quite often on the recipient side is consumed as a digital document, as a PDF or a TIF image, and maybe fed into an AI IDP process immediately. So no, paper often doesn't play a part in this at all." #Retarus #Digitaltransformation #HealthcareCommunications #HealthcareIT #DigitalHealth #CloudFax #HealthcareLeadership #HealthcareInnovation #AdminEfficiency #HealthcareOperations retarus.com Download the transcript here

Andrew Hall, CEO of Consano Bio, is developing an allogeneic approach to treat chronic sciatica by activating healing in damaged spinal nerves, emulating the natural healing properties of human platelets.  This condition currently has no approved treatments and is managed through symptomatic approaches like opioids, muscle relaxers, or surgery. Consano Bio's lead candidate represents the first potential disease-modifying therapy for pain management and can be manufactured at scale to treat the estimated 10 million Americans affected by this condition. Andrew explains, "We are developing a potentially disease-modifying treatment that would be given locally for orthopedic painful conditions. The concept is that human platelets are wonderful at eliciting healing in a normal physiological setting. Why can't we create a biologic product that, when given locally, emulates that same functionality where the imbalance has gone bad?"   "I'd call this version one of the first generation of platelet- and plasma-derived biologic therapy. So it runs in the same path. It goes to the same regulators, but it's not so much an evolution as it is a parallel path."   "So chronic sciatica, or when you get fancy with medical terminology, chronic lumbosacral radiculopathy, is basically, and we'll try to keep this PG. I'm a bit Australian and tend to get a little fruity with my language. When you do something silly- wake up, twist, lift the weight badly, bend over- you can pretty easily piss off your spinal nerves, which are the small nerves that come out of your spine and then innervate your extremities."  #ConsanoBIo #Sciatica #BackPain #ChronicPaint #PainTreatment #NonOpioids #LumbosacralRadiculopathy #LSR  #ChronicPain #Biotech #ClinicalTrials #PainManagement #Orthobiologics #DrugDevelopment #HealthcareInnovation #Neurology #MedicalResearch consanobio.com Listen to the podcast here

Andrew Hall, CEO of Consano Bio, is developing an allogeneic approach to treat chronic sciatica by activating healing in damaged spinal nerves, emulating the natural healing properties of human platelets.  This condition currently has no approved treatments and is managed through symptomatic approaches like opioids, muscle relaxers, or surgery. Consano Bio's lead candidate represents the first potential disease-modifying therapy for pain management and can be manufactured at scale to treat the estimated 10 million Americans affected by this condition. Andrew explains, "We are developing a potentially disease-modifying treatment that would be given locally for orthopedic painful conditions. The concept is that human platelets are wonderful at eliciting healing in a normal physiological setting. Why can't we create a biologic product that, when given locally, emulates that same functionality where the imbalance has gone bad?"   "I'd call this version one of the first generation of platelet- and plasma-derived biologic therapy. So it runs in the same path. It goes to the same regulators, but it's not so much an evolution as it is a parallel path."   "So chronic sciatica, or when you get fancy with medical terminology, chronic lumbosacral radiculopathy, is basically, and we'll try to keep this PG. I'm a bit Australian and tend to get a little fruity with my language. When you do something silly- wake up, twist, lift the weight badly, bend over- you can pretty easily piss off your spinal nerves, which are the small nerves that come out of your spine and then innervate your extremities."  #ConsanoBIo #Sciatica #BackPain #ChronicPaint #PainTreatment #NonOpioids #LumbosacralRadiculopathy #LSR  #ChronicPain #Biotech #ClinicalTrials #PainManagement #Orthobiologics #DrugDevelopment #HealthcareInnovation #Neurology #MedicalResearch consanobio.com Download the transcript here