Episode 27 – Kenny Kinley with Edafio Technology Partners

Jordan Smith  

Hey everybody, welcome to the iProv Made podcast where we help you become a more profitable practice. As always, I’m Jordan Smith. Today’s a solo cast. So no RJ today, but we’ve got a very, very special guest. Kenny Kinley with Adolfo technology partners, you know, so many of our listeners that we’ve heard from, talk about a profitable practice not only being directly tied to patient numbers or you know, income or, or providing the right type of services, but tons of different things. And one of those things is technology and, and Kenny and Edafio Technology partners, they specialize in health care, and making sure that technology works as a advantage to your organization, right and not something that that you just have to use to get through. So I’m excited to bring this perspective to everybody. You guys will be familiar with Edafio for longtime listeners of bog because we had somebody else from the organization on a few episodes ago. But today I’m excited to bring you Kenny Kenley with Adolfo technology partners. Hey, everybody, welcome to the AI problem made podcast where we help you become a better, more profitable practice. I’m Jordan Smith, RJ is out today. So you guys get the luxury of just hearing my voice. In addition, one other than I’ll introduce here in just a second, which is Kenny Kinley, the President and CEO of Edafio Technology Partners. Hey, Kenny.

Kenny Kinley  

Hey, Jordan, how are you?

Jordan Smith  

Good. For listeners of the podcast, the name of his company will sound familiar. Because we actually if you reference back to Episode 14, we actually had Valerie morning on, she did such a great job that she said you need to talk to my boss, the President and CEO of Edafio Technology Partners, there’s lots of knowledge that he can share with your audience. So Kenny, we appreciate you being on. Glad to be here. So Kenny, before we get started, I always like to share kind of our thought process on how we view the most successful practices, right. So a lot of the times whenever there’s a there’s an issue within a practice, the very first thing that you recognize, as an owner, as a practice manager, whatever the case may be, are those symptoms, right? And just like listeners out there, you know that symptoms are underlying, you know, there’s an underlying issue that’s causing those symptoms that you have to dig into and kind of do some root cause analysis. But the point is, typically, the symptom is an issue of something larger that’s going on in your practice. That’s the next step is we always say, The bad news is, it’s probably all your fault, listener. The good news is, it’s probably all your fault. So guess who the one best equipped to fix it is right? So from there, it’s about taking accountability for the issue at large and not just the symptom of the problem. From there, we always talk about, it’s important to take a step back and figure out what the vision of the organization is, right? Not only where you want to go this year, but where does the practice want to go 2-3-4 years down the road, what is the overarching vision, right vision, does everything from help lay up the direction for the entire organization, but we always say it also creates guardrails for your employees and people within the practice, so that you don’t have to be involved in every decision. And that’s what the vision does. The next thing we always talk about is from the vision now you can start to create specific strategies, whether it’s that one specific issue, or you’re looking at the practice as a whole, develop certain strategies that then you can assign tactics to, as business owners, a lot of the times, we hire, we plan, we do everything from a tactical perspective. So we really work backwards, to say you got to start up top of the vision, then develop a strategy strategies are kind of the outcomes. That’s the plan. The tactics are the steps in which you need to take in order to accomplish that plan. And the last part is alignment and making sure that you’re empowering your team and getting everybody rowing in the same direction. All that being said, That’s why we’re excited to have Kenny on the podcast today. Because I know I’ve heard I’ve heard him speak. I’ve been in numerous kind of business consulting courses and in different educational things where he’s got a lot of input and value on all the things that we talked about. So Kenny, let’s just start off with giving us a quick introduction of not only yourself, but also Edafio Technology Partners. Right.

Kenny Kinley  

Right, glad to do it. Yeah, a doppio technology partners. We have been around over 20 years now. And we’re a technology services company. That Does all different types of technology support for clients predominantly in Arkansas, but also in Tennessee and Oklahoma? We we think of our offerings kind of in five different pillars. The first is around just IT consulting. So we can come alongside IT departments and help them with projects and anything they need from just a staff augmentation or just additional expertise. So that’s one piece of our business. The second piece is managed IT services. So for a lot of clients, they say, Hey, guys, we just want you to take care of it for us. So we do full managed IT services. Those two parts Jordan, we’ve been doing for over 20 years, that’s kind of the core of our business, been doing it a long time. The other three pillars are fairly new things really, we’ve added over the last five years. The first is around cloud, we all know that the cloud is a big topic for for all companies right now. So we’ve got a cloud practice that can help you determine Do you need public cloud? Do you need a private cloud offering? Do you need to stay on prem with your software, so we have a cloud team that handles that. The fourth is cybersecurity is just like cloud cybersecurity is a big topic for all businesses in all sizes. So we’ve got a dedicated cyber team that does risk assessments, all types of cyber remediation work and training and things like that. And then the fifth pillar is healthcare consulting. You alluded to Valerie speaking on a previous podcast, she leaves that group for us. We added that practice or pillar about five years ago, about two thirds of our business is healthcare. And what we found was that some of these clinics needed help with things like compliance programs and training and chart reviews and EMR support and question. So we formed that healthcare consulting group, so all five of those pillars together, we feel like make us unique in the market, because we can do a lot of different things and really try to be that one stop shop for for clinics and hospitals.

Jordan Smith  

I love that. I know. I know, just speaking for a lot of listeners out there, there’s probably two groups. One when you started mentioned, technology and technology consulting, and, you know, the different pillars. You know, some of them probably said, Oh, cool, yeah, this is exciting. The other half probably said, Oh, it’s the thing that’s most stressful in my office is the technology, right? So both groups, whatever group you’re in, if you’re listening to this, I think this is going to be super valuable. I’ll tell you that second group, you know, I know a lot of things that that Kenny and his group does, you know, using technology as a leveraging it in a way which helps, which actually is a competitive advantage for your practice, you know, and not something that holds you back, which I know talking to a lot of clients we consult with on the healthcare side, and even some listeners, this podcast, typically, it’s a- it’s a, you know, their technology is a hurdle, not an advantage, right?

Kenny Kinley  

Absolutely.

Jordan Smith  

So tell us kind of about your most successful clients, you know, who do you for listeners out there, um, you know, just just talk about your methodology, types of folks, you like to work with that type of stuff?

Kenny Kinley  

Absolutely. I think the the best types of clients for us are ones that, as you just said, Jordan can appreciate the need for technology and how they can leverage that as a differentiator in their business. So we work with a lot of clinic systems and hospitals as well, that that understand that it is a critical part of their business. And it’s not a necessary evil, as you described in that first group. So those are the clients that we typically work with the best that the key part for us, when we call ourselves Edafio Technology Partners, that partner piece is really important because one of our core values is committed to client success. And we see ourselves as an extension of our clients team. So you know, we, we will be on site with that client, we know their business, you’ll see us walking the halls and a lot of our clients, you know, we have, you know, their email address, or we’ve got a badge, you know, we’re- we’re there so much, it’s such an extension of their team so we can be there be visible, be a part of their business, be a partner and not just a vendor. Those are definitely the best types of clients, for us and where we’re, we’re more successful for sure. Yeah, we we typically start those with some type of assessment kind of similar to the framework you talked about at the beginning. In most situations, a client calls or a prospect calls and they’ve got an issue, right. It’s a- it’s a network issue, or it’s a question about HIPAA, or it’s, you know, something around there or an EMR question. And so our typical engagement is we’ll start with some kind of a set around that pain point. And then as a part of that we can help paint a picture for a roadmap, is it okay, as you said, here’s a symptom, right? Maybe a network issue. But here’s really the start of more of a roadmap for your technology needs. So, you know, I think about when I started nine years ago, you know, EMRs, were still fairly new and people were trying to figure out, you know, how do we get around this? And what’s the what, what’s the least amount of stuff I need to put in that just to be compliant? And, you know, here we are nine years later, and it’s an integral part of your systems. And so we find that, you know, if we’re able to get in there and help them see, technology is an enabler to their business. That seems to work better.

Jordan Smith  

That’s great. And, you know, I know we talked about this all the time that, you know, so many, so many practices, so many doctors, so many offices are busy, but it doesn’t quite hash out whenever you look at the bottom line. Another another way to say that is they’re busy, but they’re not profitable, right? And sometimes you look at it and say, Well, how do we be profitable when we need more patients? Well, we can’t do more patients, everybody’s as busy as they could be. So when a situation like that, kind of what’s what’s advice that you would give if there’s a listener out there, and that’s what they’re dealing with, which is, Kenny, I hear all that sounds great, I’m busy, but we’re just not profitable. what’s the what’s the kind of first step that you would have him take.

Kenny Kinley  

And that’s exactly the reason we started this healthcare consulting practice five years ago, was to help some of our existing clients who were having those pain points. So, you know, they were just trying to get through the day and see the patients and do the documentation they had to do. And just like you said, just barely get through. And so, you know, we built this team to come alongside them for, you know, relatively small number of hours and financial commitment to say, let’s look at maximizing these compliance programs, that what I see, what we see is a lot of our clients, a lot of these practices, they leave money on the table, because they don’t have time to focus on maximizing these Medicare or other payer programs. And so, and also just doing basic things, like chart reviews, right, it’s so easy to code something up, you know, a two when it should be a three or three when it should be a four. And so we really built this practice, to have our team be able to come alongside and help maximize that. So you know, these days, even a pointer to a margin is a huge impact to your business. So, you know, one level in a compliance program or, you know, 10% of your chart reviews, moving up and up a level can have really big returns, also around EMR consulting on how to best use those systems. So we’ve got some expertise. So we hear a lot from physicians, and nurses as well is, you know, we can’t see as many patients because the EMR Well, you know, these systems have come a long way in the last, you know, nine years that I’ve seen him at least. And so if you’re able to come alongside, and well, let’s build some workflows, let’s build some templates. You know, so I think Jordan, those are the key things is how do you be more efficiency and patience? And then how do you maximize the programs that are out there to make sure you’re getting paid for what you did?

Jordan Smith  

Hmm, no, I love that, especially the point about the about the EMR. You know, the purpose of that thing is to make your office more efficient, not to slow things down, right?

Kenny Kinley  

I remember vividly, so I was fortunate enough to work on site with one of our clients for a number of years, in their in their technology department. So I get to interface with a lot of physicians. And it was hugely valuable for me to understand those pain points. And, you know, I would have them tell me, I can see 20% less patients now, because of this system. And, you know, we were able to go back to the vendor and say, okay, this is not right, you know, you’re supposed to see 20% more patients. And so, you know, it’s a journey. I mean, it’s not an overnight fix, but being able to partner. Another interesting thing is what we find, especially in these smaller practices is they don’t have time to call that EMR vendor, right into plate and on their help desk or to request a consultant. And so that’s something else that we’re able to do is we’ll say, okay, we’ll be your frontline support. Let us call, you know, e-clinical, pick your example, MD, whoever, and we’ll deal with him for you. And we’ll help you build those workflows or build those templates. So, like you said, a lot of it’s just time so that’s where we like to try to, you know, help help make those things more efficient.

Jordan Smith  

Now, I love that. I mean, you know, time is the most valuable resource in any organization, from a healthcare perspective, even more so. And every everybody’s time, you know, for the practice administrator, the front desk person, you know, how, how often are they and even something as simple as your internet provider? How often are they up front on hold with Comcast or, you know, the your printing vendor or you know, something like that. So talk a little bit about kind of time utilization for those practices out there that don’t know where to start, or they’re not keeping track of it, or they know that they’re people are spending a lot of time doing stuff that’s not their job. Especially from a technology standpoint, because I feel like that’s where a lot of issues are that talk about kind of what your your mindset is around that.

Kenny Kinley  

Yeah, I think it’s all about picking what one or two of those pain points are, whether it’s internet service provider, or my EMR is too slow, or the they’re not responsive, but picking a few of those pain points, and getting help, right, whether that’s a company like a Edafio, or a different company, there’s lots of good IT companies in around Arkansas, but just finding someone to come in and give you some help give you at least a perspective on it. Because so many advances have been made in systems and things like Internet service providers, right, those costs and things change all the time, EMR companies are coming out with updates and new features. And so I just don’t know how to practice and stay on top of that without getting some outside help. So that would be my advice is pick a couple of those pain points. use that as a starting point, bring in some help. And then and then just chip away at it. Because it takes time. It really does. It takes time to focus on those things.

Jordan Smith  

And we’re big believers in consultants. And we all know the best consultants are just the ones that don’t come in with a whole bunch of solutions. But they come in with a bunch of questions.

Kenny Kinley  

Yep, exactly. Yeah, Valerie talked about that quite Quality Strategy Assessment or Quality Strategy Document. And that’s, that’s really all that is, is a laundry list of questions. You know, who are your payers? What’s the mix? You know, what programs you’re part of, because your eyes, then you can figure out how to show him. And so I think that consultant word has really gotten a bad rap over the years. But I agree with you, it is helpful, right? A consultant is supposed to be someone who comes alongside and helps make you more efficient, and more profitable. And so I know I challenge our team all the time, if we can’t show our client the value of what we do or the value of that hour we spent on them- for them, we’ve done something wrong. And so I think that’s the key part is making sure whoever you pick for a partner, that when you see them, you don’t see it into the call center, you see them as hey, here’s somebody who’s going to help make us more efficient and make us more money, you know, help us see more patients. That’s That’s what a good consultant does.

Jordan Smith  

Yep. Yeah. And from there kind of, you know, develop out which is, which is nice. I like y’all’s- y’all’s five pillars, because that covers a lot of different areas, depending on on where the need is in the practice. And one of those needs that we haven’t touched on yet, but I know is a big deal. And, unfortunately, more often than not, is something that a lot of practices Don’t think about until it’s too late, which is that security aspect of it? Right? 

Kenny Kinley  

Absolutely. I- I think that’s probably my biggest fear for, for all companies, US included, is a cybersecurity risks. I mean, there is so much going on in this space right now. And healthcare in particular is under attack, because they know that some of these clinics and practices and hospitals aren’t spending the money on cyber that maybe they should, and they’re going after physicians and clinical staff, targeting them with the cyber attacks through just basic things like phishing emails and text messages and things. But also through more sophisticated attacks, we’re just seeing more and more of that. So, you know, two years ago, those were targeted at the bigger systems, right? They were going after these big healthcare systems. Well, now the the bad guys have figured out that they can go after the small clinics as well. And it may not be a big payday, but they are finding it’s easier to go do and so they’ve come a long way from just asking you to send 100 gift cards, you know, which was the thing a few years ago, you know, I mean, we see this, they’re going after the finance department with a very targeted email to that billing person that looks very much like it came from the physician and saying, hey, I need you to wire money here. I mean, this, the precision of it right now is just very scary. So we’re encouraging our clients to to do a more robust security risk assessment. You know, when all this Meaningful Use that came out, you know, they required an annual security risk assessment. Well, what we see is most clinics do the path of least resistance, right? what’s the what’s the cheapest way I could check this box? Right? And so it was a checklist. I mean, I saw it, I saw it when I, you know, was was on site with a client and it’s a checklist and it’s, you know, $1,000. Well, it really doesn’t protect you, you may get to check the box. But one of the things we really challenged ourselves is to what can we do in an affordable way for an annual security risk assessment that adds about how can we scan their network and make sure there’s nothing bad out there? How can we do walkthroughs? And make sure that people don’t have their passwords written on sticky notes? Which you’d be surprised how much that happens. You know, what are the policy review? So we’ve gone from a time Jordan, where it’s not if I’m going to be hit, if I’m going to be attacked, the question is when and in what protocols do you put in place to protect yourselves and if you do have an issue, and you’ve got some reportable offence that OCR is going to come in, and look, you can say, okay, we took every precaution we did a robust security risk assessment, here’s all the things we did not, we have an issue, and we have to go report to 500 patients, which is everybody’s worst nightmare. OCR comes in and says, Well, you didn’t do anything, you know, you didn’t try to prevent this. So that’s, that’s my biggest fear for for clinic- clinics across the country right now is, is making sure they’re as protected as they can be.

Jordan Smith  

Hmm, that’s a that’s a great point, I want to hit on something that that you said to which I want to make sure that we don’t gloss over, which is these things aren’t just happening to giant healthcare networks. Right? Yeah, the tacks are more specific. And they’re getting more intricate every day. But, but they’re also not specific as far as who they target. Right. And, and, you know, I’ve heard that a lot from, you know, Valerie, and, and some other people that I’ve talked to the organization. So, you know, talk talk about that concept to kind of kind of how that works, and, and even some specific examples for listeners on kind of what they should look out for?

Kenny Kinley  

Absolutely, it is, they are targeting physicians, I’ll just tell you this specific thing. And let me let me take a quick sidebar. So I don’t forget. And this has nothing to do with Edafio, or any technology company, but everybody needs to make sure they’ve got cyber insurance. Okay, that may be the most important thing I say, here on this podcast. And it’s not a commercial, we don’t do that. Talk to your insurance agent. But we’re to a day now where every clinic, regardless of size needs some type of cyber insurance policy, because like I said, it’s a matter of when. And so if there’s an attack, and you’ve got to disclose, I mean, those are those are door closing events, if you don’t have the proper insurance to help you. So let me, sorry for the sidebar there. But I wanted to get that grade is critical that you have a cyber insurance policy and whatever you think you need, just triple it. Because it’s it’s it’s pretty affordable right now. It’s getting better ask a lot of questions. But I just sorry, I want to have a little bit of a sidebar there. Because I think that’s really, really important.

Jordan Smith  

Yeah, no, it absolutely is, again, going back to, you know, if, if if you get to the point where this happens to you, it’s, yeah, it’s terrible. And more often than not, most of the measures that you can take at that point are too late. And it’s just a lot of it’s left up to chance, so.

Kenny Kinley  

It is I think the scariest part of it is the biggest risk is what we call the human firewall, right? I mean, that’s, it’s that individual that gets that email, and they’re at work on a computer. And they’re checking either their work email, or even their personal Gmail account, and they get a phishing attack, and they click the link or they download the document. And then that machine’s infected, and then it spreads into the network. And you’ve got, you know, patient data at risk, right, you’ve got patient data all over the place. And so that that human firewall is the biggest risk to your practice. And, and everybody’s, everybody’s guilty of it, it’s, it’s hard, right, we all get those on a daily basis now. And so I think that’s probably the biggest risk, regardless of size, the interesting thing we’re seeing is more and more targeting, specifically to physicians. So they will go after these physicians, because they know they’re busy. They’re already getting bombarded with, you know, 100 emails an hour. And so trying to slip stuff through, because if they can get into those systems, you know, they, you know, they can get into the whole thing. And so I think that’s something we’re seeing now is a very targeted attempt at physicians, and also office managers as well. So I think things like security training, I mean, that’s probably one of the things we’re where we say the most of his clients asking us for security awareness training. So there’s so much good stuff out there to train your users. And it not only protects your organization, but it also protects the individuals in your practice, right? Because it’s they’re not just trying to get to the clinics, financials, right in the clinic systems. They’re trying to get that individuals passwords and bank account numbers and you know, passwords as well. So things like security awareness training, are just becoming mandatory. Now. You know, just we’re moving into a time, I don’t think we’re too far away Jordan, where we probably won’t do business with a client that won’t agree to do some kind of security awareness training, because it’s so important to protect their business. And then the second thing is multi factor authentication, you know, on your personal accounts. Now, your bank accounts and your accounts, it’s asking for that second level of authorization, right? It’s sending you a text message to enter code into that website. You’re seeing that on all your banks and credit cards and insurance and 401k programs. And that’s becoming the default, well, you need to have that for your set your clinic systems as well. So again, like security, awareness, training, multi factors, it won’t solve everything. But at least it’s an another layer of security, that we’re seeing more and more of our clients adopting. And just like security awareness, we’re moving to a day where we might not do business with a client if they’re not willing to do multi factor authentication, because it protects them and us as well. So those would be the two big things were seeing. And I just think what used to be security awareness training and multi factor authentication used to be nice to haves. It’s- that’s over now, it’s required. I mean, it just needs to be required to protect your business.

Jordan Smith  

Well, again, for all the listeners out there, again, imagine this scenario, if this does happen, you know, imagine your office having to reach out to every single patient that you have, and telling them that your information has been compromised, because somebody hacked us, attacked us, you know, and for whatever reason, it got the worse. I mean, that is a nightmare scenario, you know?

Kenny Kinley  

And I think we can have things in, you know, going back to the insurance, and you can help cover the cost of that. But the real the, I guess the unquantifiable issue is what that does to your patient population, right, do they? Do you lose patience over it? And they go to another provider? So it’s not only just a financial impact, that you’re- how you’re viewed to the market as well. So it’s a really, really big deal.

Jordan Smith  

Oh, absolutely. I mean, you know, same reason, health insurance is important. It’s, you know, same thing with your the health of your business. And this is, this is an integral part of that. So I know you guys have the five pillars, you know, we we’ve talked about a couple of them specifically. And I know it probably depends on on where the practice is. But talk to me a little bit about, you know, we talked about taking accountability, right? And taking accountability, not only for the symptom, but the underlying issue. Tell me typically, whenever you guys partner with an organization, or if there’s a doctor out there provider that’s listening. How involved are the most successful doctors that you guys partner with, you know? Are they are they in every single meeting is that a handoff is and I know, again, it depends on the service that you guys are offering them, but typically talk a little bit about how involved these these providers and the owners are in, in the processes that we’re talking about?

Kenny Kinley  

Yeah, no, that’s a great question. So we have an a- we believe in meeting cadence being in front of our clients pocket him about what’s going on, whether it’s healthcare, consulting, or cyber, at a minimum, we’re doing some type of quarterly review, where we’re reviewing where we are, here’s what happened last quarter, here’s what happened, Here’s what’s coming up on the docket for this quarter. So at a minimum, a quarterly business review with the owners of the business, the physicians is the minimum, what we see in our best cases, would be more like a monthly tape, where you’re willing to give a company like us an hour to say, Okay, here’s where we are against these compliance programs, we moved you up to this level, or we moved your reimbursement up to this, here’s what we saw on the chart with this. Here’s some security training. So you know, an hour a month, which is a lot of time for a physician to understand, but the best, the best clients we say are ones that see the value. And they want to sit down with us and ask questions about cyber. And what’s interesting is those those questions then turn into more personal questions, right? So what about my, my home accounts and my personal and then we ended up talking about password protected, you know, protection tools, and things. So, you know, what we find is, if they’re willing to give us that time, we can not only add value to the practice, but you know, we’ve been known to go outside and help somebody get their home internet a little more secure, and you know, things like that. So yeah, the more obviously, the more visibility, the better. But the best ones are at least given us an hour a month just to see what we’re doing and what’s coming up.

Jordan Smith  

Yeah, and I would say if you’re listener out there, and you know, whether you you’re already working with a group that you love, great. If you’re, if you’re looking for something like like, like Kenny’s talking about too. That’s got to be one of the questions on your list. If you’re vetting organizations to partner with, you know, ask them how much if you’re if your provider on a how much- how much do I need to be involved? That’s one of the important questions on the front end. And I would agree with you, you know, part of that accountability and part of it’s an hour a month, but yeah, it’s an hour a month, you know? 

Kenny Kinley  

And I think we can make a difference. I know, Valerie talked a little bit about this to Jordan. But, you know, our kind of minimum, regardless of clinic size is four hours a month of this healthcare consulting to look at the compliance program the chart using, and that may not seem like a lot, but this team can get a lot done in a small amount of time. And yeah, once you get on that cadence, if it’s an hour a week, or maybe it’s a half day, a month, you can you can get a lot of progress done. So those are those are the kinds of things like you said, time is the most valuable asset. So we try to minimize that we try to take care of things as much as possible. But you’re right, the owners, the physician’s office managers, who will give us that time to meet are definitely the best clients for us.

Jordan Smith  

Sure. I mean, because because the strategies and the implementation that you guys are talking about in that hour, you know, it’s probably not unreasonable to talk about the 10s of hours that that will save the practice, you know, that same month with just you, you guys figuring out what the what the best tactics are to help alleviate either some time or some pain or whatever the case may be, right?

Kenny Kinley  

I agree. 

Jordan Smith  

So you know, aren’t? Well, let’s talk about kind of specifically, if there’s some listeners out there, you know, what, what are some of the key things that you look forward to say, you know, what, I think we can make a difference in this practice? Is it? Is it size of the practice? Is it the type of the type of specialty that they have? Is it the type of technology type of EMRs? You know, what, what, what are some specific things that you look for. And so you know, what i think i think this is a good fit, we can make a difference here?

Kenny Kinley  

I think it really Bay is based on the pillars that are needed, right. So if it’s healthcare consulting, we can deal with any size practice, right? For that, for that minimum of four hours a month, we can make an impact, to say, you know, to help them maximize those programs and things, so really any size of clinic on the healthcare consulting side, and the same for cyber, right, so you need to have an annual security risk assessment, you need to have some just basic security, awareness, training and things. So really far cyber in our healthcare practices, any size makes sense. Now, as you talk about things like cloud, you know, that’s typically where clinics need to be a little bit larger, you know, if they’re interested in moving to more of a cloud based model, if they’re, if they’re using an on prem server for an EMR, and they want to say, Okay, I want to go to the cloud, I really want to get out of having this server in this closet, or my whole EMR system under the office managers desk, you know, I want to consider the cloud. Those are typically a little bit larger practices, we see a lot of clinics, moving to their EMRs companies have, you know, cloud solution, that seems to be a trend. And if you’re happy with your EMR, and you think, Hey, I’m not planning to change this in the next three to five years, that’s a fine decision. I mean, those guys do a good job supporting that. The caution would be if you’re not happy with it, or you think, Hey, I may want to switch or my practice is going to grow into other, you know, clinical practice areas, and I need a more robust EMR, you know, I would caution you against going into those EMR cloud solutions, because it’s really hard to get it back. But you’re there, they design it that way, which is that’s part of their business. So the cloud pace is typically a little bit larger. You’re ready to we host several clinic EMR systems in our cloud. So we have several clients who said, Hey, I want to get out of this on prem, I know this is not secure, I know my office could get flooded or, you know, whatever. But I’m not ready to go to the public cloud, you know, I’m not ready to go to Azure, you know, or AWS, do I have a middle ground option? So the Edafio Cloud, we host cmds eclinicalworks. Seems like there’s another we host a variety of EMRs in our private cloud, so it’s local, it’s in a local data center. If we need to get the data out for something we can if you want to transition to a new EMR, we can do that. So those the cloud clients typically are a little bit larger but we’re seeing even the smaller clients are more interested in that. And then definitely the IT consulting in the managed services are typically larger, right? They need a team they know you know, they’ve outgrown their one IT person or, or this smaller managed service company where they have their one person they deal with, we typically say lose those people. Larger clinic systems, multiple locations, you know, sometimes multiple EMRs, right, depending on. So, for those two pillars around it consulting and managed service, those are typically larger clinic systems and even small to medium sized hospitals.

Jordan Smith  

Gotcha. You know, you mentioned some very specific things that people should look out for whenever they’re looking at a cloud provider. Right? What are some other kind of? And let’s be specific, because I like that train of thought, what are what are some questions for some listeners out there? If they’re thinking about whether it’s a managed IT company, or just, you know, somebody that’s looking for cyber security? What are some questions that you could say, hey, make sure on that, on that vetting process, make sure you ask these three or four questions, because these things are important. Because at the end of the day, there’s some listeners out there saying, that’s great. I love all that. I don’t know how to hire an ID or a cybersecurity adopter. I don’t, I don’t, you know, I don’t know how to hire an IT manager or a. So what are some questions that you would say? Sure, there’s hundreds of them, right. But if there’s only kind of, you know, a top five list of questions, what what could you arm some practices with to say make sure this is on your list? Whenever you’re talking to companies, like Adolfo technology partners?

Kenny Kinley  

Absolutely. A couple things come to mind. One is to check references, I think that’s really important that you find a clinic that is your size, or larger, or that may be on your EMR, right? If you’re an AMD shop, you know, find someone else that supports those similar systems. So I think reference checks, that seems to be a lost art Jordan, people don’t check references. I just think that’s crazy, I think find some references, and yes, they’re going to give you their best clients. But we live in a small community. And you know, people, everybody knows everybody, you know, and so, you know, in your community, wherever you are, you know, find some people who know about that company. So I think reference checks is a really big deal. The other part is making sure that you understand what’s in these agreements, or what’s in these proposals. if if if managed companies, and I have this conversation with our guys a lot. If we talk in techno speak, if we talk in our own acronyms and things that only we understand, the client’s not going to understand that. So ask questions until you’re comfortable, you know, and make sure that the wording in the contract is business terms. That are things that you understand. And don’t just gloss over it, we see a lot of our clients say, Hey, I don’t understand technology. I trust you guys to handle it. Well, if you’ve had a relationship with a company like us for 10 years, that’s fine. But if you’re looking for a new company, you know, check references, make sure the words in the agreement that you signed makes sense to you. And so those would be two things that I would, I would recommend. And I think also just having having a bench. We see this a lot where, you know, clients have somebody, they go work with an IT company, and they have a person. But ask those questions like, okay, so if this is my person, what happens when they go on vacation, you know, or what happens when I have these different needs. So I think understanding the breadth of services from your, from your IT company up front, it’s really important too.

Jordan Smith  

No, I love that I think those are I think those are great tips. And, and a group like you guys where you’ve got that healthcare consulting pillar. There’s nothing that says that they can’t start with y’all, right? call you and say, here’s what I’m looking for, like we talked with Valerie, the first conversation is always free, it doesn’t hurt to reach out and just talk to us. And we’ll give you a checklist will tell you what to ask what not to ask what to look out for. But you know that that is important. So I think those are great tips. I would add, I would add one more to it. We talked about it all the time. Mission and core values, you know, picking an organization that they don’t have to have the exact same ones as you but you know, if if they’re similar. And Kenny, I know I’ve heard you mentioned this too, is is you know, find partners that think the way that you think that value, what you value. And even if the way they do things procedurally is a little bit different than the way you’ve done it in the past or not quite the way that he would do it. More likely you’re going to be successful because you guys are talking about the same kind of long term vision. Right?

Kenny Kinley  

Exactly. Yeah. Trust is so important when you’re talking about your your IT company and who you work with. And again, we stress that word partner, you know, we want to be an extension of that team. If they if they groan every time they see us come in the door, go oh, there’s the IT guys, we’re not doing the right job or that’s not the right client for us. I mean, we want to be an extension of their team. So trust pace is really important. Yeah,

Jordan Smith  

I love that. So you mentioned something that I want to I want to circle back around to which I think is very important. And hopefully the listeners think it as to which is, is tracking that progress. And I know you talked about those monthly meetings, we talk about KPIs all the time, key performance indicators. You know, in the IT world, sometimes that’s a little bit fuzzy or a little bit gray. You know, so what are what are kind of some key performance? How do you track progress and outcomes? You know, I know that’s a part of part of the framework, what would you tell listeners out there to look out for for, from, you know, how their current whether it’s security or cloud or just their IT infrastructure in general? What are some what are some outcomes or some or some KPIs that you’d have them pay attention to?

Kenny Kinley  

I think the big thing around the technology space, so on the healthcare consulting side, right, compliance, that’s easier to measure, right? Am I increasing my scores? Am I- are my average chart levels going up? You know, I think the KPIs or are we improving? Right? Are we increasing the reimbursement or the compliance program? So those things are a little more black and white? I think on things like cyber or even just managed IT services, it’s, you know, what are the road? What is the roadmap right? Here is the one to three year plan, and then every quarter, or ideally, every month, are we making progress towards notes, you know, if we said we’re going to accomplish, and that’s just basic stuff, Jordan, but it’s amazing how many times we can’t get clients to even meet with us to talk about it, you know, we said, we’re going to accomplish these three things. We’re going to finish this network upgrade, we’re going to patch these servers, and we’re going to upgrade these workstations, and let’s meet next month and see how we’re going to do and then clients say, well, we trusted you guys just go do that. So my advice would be? Well, we appreciate the trust, you know, my challenge to our team. And what I would encourage people listening to do is just like you hold, you know, your staff accountable. You know, hold your partners and vendors accountable to things that they’re going to get done, get in that cadence and say, Okay, here’s the three things we said we’re going to get done. When we sit down next month, you know, okay, these two are done. Okay, this one, we hit a little bit of a snag, we’re gonna fix this one, it’ll be done next month. I mean, it doesn’t have to be perfect. But I think going back to cadence and just making sure that you’re clear is the is the physician or the owner or the office manager? Are we moving in the right direction? Are we making progress? Because there’s no pain out there that you can fix overnight, right? He have these pains that you identify are the symptoms, as you said at the beginning, they take time, you know, it could take months to resolve some of these. But to me, the most important thing is are you making progress? Do you feel like you’re making progress to getting those things resolved?

Jordan Smith  

Hmm, no, I love that, you know, so many practices out there. I know, we’re listening this and saying, Oh, that’s a good point. Because you know, what I think about my IT company, a call him when something’s broken, they come out and they fix it. Alright, Job well done. But you know, take that to another step. Because whether it’s, again, whether it’s Kenny and his group, or the the current group that you’re working with, and you know, your golfing buddy that you love that helps you out, sit down and figure out what some KPIs are, you know? I guarantee that most people are not leveraging their technology partner like they should be.

Kenny Kinley  

Yeah, I agree completely.

Jordan Smith  

So let’s say another scenario, real quick before we get into the final round. And we’re asking a couple specific questions about your path and your success. Because I know all the listeners out there, you know, it’s important to hear your story to or tidbits of it, at least, you know, I know, we’ve got an audience out there practice managers and CFOs, and CEOs and that are listening to this and saying, Kenny speak in my language, at newzeas. I’ve got five doctors that I’ve got to convince to talk about, like, how, how to get buy in from the rest of your team. And I used that example, as a doctor but from the top down to, you know, I know a lot of the times you, you bring in a new group like this, and you guys almost you have to retrain the staff and even the person at the front desk on how they answer the phone or how they do something procedurally. So just talk in general kind of one, we know that you’ve got to get buy in from the entire chamber, but what are some things that you would tell folks out there? What are some tips to say, you know, here’s, if you’re listening this and you think there’s something that resonates with you, you know, here’s here’s how to start to get buy in from from the team. You need things like cybersecurity, or you need to really investigate what your cloud solution is.

Kenny Kinley  

Yeah, great, great question. I think the key is to is to bring people to those decision makers, what we see is a lot of office managers are different people. They don’t want to bring a company like us to their physician meeting, or to their board meeting because they feel like it makes them seem like they’re not doing their job. And what I would encourage them to do is think about that a little bit differently. This is a very complex field. Cyber, IT services, even these compliance programs. Don’t know how people do it, I don’t know how you could possibly stay on top of all that. So, um, you know, I guess nicely put maybe, you know, maybe suppress the ego a little bit and and let let people like us help, right let us have that conversation because when we’re able to get in front of those physicians are Board of Directors, we can speak that language with that credibility that it’s just really hard for other, you know, for people to do. So, that would be my, my recommendation is let us help you know, or let another IT Company do that. Now, the caveat to that is, you know, you’ve got to make sure you don’t go in there and speak a bunch of techno language that those guys don’t understand. So, you know, but hopefully, if you pick the right company, those things will work. But that would be my one encouragement is bring the experts to those decision makers. Don’t try to be a buffer.

Jordan Smith  

Now, I love that it’s a if you believe in what we’re saying, Don’t- Don’t, don’t sell us, let let us sell us. You know, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t send a surrogate to somebody’s parents that I wanted to give an engagement ring to I would sit with those parents. And it’s the same in business, you know, it’s just basic relationship stuff. So I love that tip. All right, Kenny, I’m going to turn the spotlight on you now. So this is what we call our final round, I’m gonna ask you two or three specific questions. Just about you and, and, and kind of your path. You know, we, we always talk about, we all want a silver bullet, but there are no silver bullets, just just lots of lead ones, you know. So typically, organization that successful is built off one where, you know, they’re systematic, predictable, repeatable processes in place that have got an organization to where they are. So this part, I just want to kind of ask you about, really briefly, your kind of recipe for success, what what are the ingredients that you practice within your own organization, and maybe even yourself personally, to make sure that adelphia technology partners is moving in the direction that you want to move them?

Kenny Kinley  

Sure. Yeah, I think on the personal note, I’ve been fortunate enough to get to speak to groups over the years and, you know, always go back, if I had to just pick one thing, if I look back at my career, is to build a network of mentors. I just can’t begin to tell you, Jordan, how important that’s been for me in my, in my work life, you know, starting in my early 20s, to late 40s. Now that I’ve always been blessed to have a great group of people around me that know more than I do about specific topics. And so I would tell you that be- be humble enough to go sit down in front of somebody who’s a little ahead of you, and say, Tell me how you handled this and tell me what you did. You’d be shocked at how many times I do that in a given month, right? Whether it’s parenting tips, or how to be a better husband, or how to be a CEO. You know, I think that would be the thing that and I just don’t think many people do that. And so if you’re, you know, if you’re an office manager of a five dot clinic, go find an office manager of a 20 dot clinic, that you know, and trust and respect that you’ve heard good things about, and go say, you know, tell me how you do this. And so that would be my, if I had to pick one on a personal note. And I look back and say, what’s really been the most impactful for me, it’s those mentors. And what’s interesting now is I’m in my late 40s. Now I’m getting to do that more and more, right. So I know I get to be that mentor. And there’s mentees coming to me and asking me though, so it’s really neat to kind of be at this phase, where I’m doing both, you know, I’m going and seeking advice a lot from people. But now I’m also in a position where I’m giving it so that’s been kind of cool.

Jordan Smith  

No, I love that, you know, it’s the, it’s the whatever situation you’re dealing with in your business, I guarantee there’s 100 other people out there with within reach, that have dealt with that same problem and found a solution, whether it’s implementing their solution, or just talking it out with somebody. You know, we a lot of kind of providers, and even office managers, you know, you kind of think that you’re on an island, especially if you’re an entrepreneur, it just seems like I’m the only one who’s doing this. I got to create my own path. No, be vulnerable, open yourself up. Oh, all it takes is an ask, you know, you’d be surprised what type of input you’ll get by just opening yourself up picking up the phone, shoot an email connecting on LinkedIn, whatever. Just asking someone for help, right?

Kenny Kinley  

I think on the work front, if I had to pick one, we’ve adopted this. I moved into the CEO role in January, and what are the this year and so what I know about myself is I’m not the most disciplined person I you know, I’m all about whatever the issue is of the day. And let’s go talk about that. So I recognize that about myself. And so we adopted this methodology called Traction. It’s a book from Gino Whickman called Traction, it’s EOS, the entrepreneur operating system. And I can’t begin to tell you how impactful that’s been for our business and for me personally to, to have quarterly rocks, and to have a what they call a level 10 meeting cadence and the set annual goals and five years ago, and so we’ve really adopted that to be the adopter to operating system. And it’s been very valuable. So I would recommend, especially if you’re in that entrepreneurial class that you described, grab that book, there’s several in the series, but we’re, we’re big fans of the EOS stuff here, you can get a EOS consultant to come in and help you which is what we did to start. But that’s been really big for us this year, especially with all the craziness in our world, to help keep us on track, keep us focused. So from a business perspective, I would highly recommend you check that out.

Jordan Smith  

We’re big believers. So iProv as a company, I agree with you, we were about four or five years ago, we read that book as a leadership team, and then then decided to have a company-wide book club, we went through it and started implementing those. So yeah, I mean, there’s so many organizations out there don’t have a, a operation system for you know, for the organization, you know, the same way you’ve got to kind of operational systems for collections and billing and that type of stuff. You also need to have one for, you know, your leadership team as far as how the, how the organization operates. So I would I would second bet tractions a great book, I’d go out and buy it yesterday, you know? And I think I always know if, if and with this question, whenever people ask me, which is if there’s a magic reset button, what would you go back and do earlier than you did? I know, that’s one thing that I always say I would do? I think you would probably say the same thing, implement something like that sooner. But anything else if there’s, there’s listeners out there, you know, who are either starting their own organization, or they’re thinking about are in there? What are what’s one of the things that you would say in your career, he could go back and kind of hit a reset button and change one thing, what would that be?

Kenny Kinley  

Oh, I would for me, it would definitely be to figure out this work life balance sooner in life. I waited too late to figure that out. And so I’m in a good place now with it and have been for several years. But I think that, you know, figuring out what those boundaries are, what you’re willing to give what’s your will, you know, what, what you need that makes, and it’s different for people, right? Some people are perfectly good to work 60 hours a week, and they’re still great husbands and fathers. So it’s not a one size fits all, you know, I need to be home by 5:30. Every day. That’s That’s not it, because we’re all wired different. But I would say I was late to the game Jordan on figuring out what what my mix was, what my wife’s tolerance level for that was. So you know, it took me too long to figure that out. And so I would say figure that out early, you know, what is your balance, have that conversation with your spouse and with your kids for that matter. And and figure out what that is, and then live that. So that would be my miss that I was a little too late to the game on. But I’m in a good place right now.

Jordan Smith  

Well, Kenny, I think that’s a great tip. And I that’s one that we haven’t heard on the podcast before. But I think it’s, I think it’s important is just being honest with yourself and other people in your life about, we talk all the time about what success looks like for the business. But what does it look like for you personally, you know? And what’s it mean for you and your family? You know? And maybe it’s more three day weekends instead of those 60 hour work. And that’s fine, too. It’s just about finding that balance. So I would agree with you 100%. Kenny, I think that’s a great kind of closing tip that we can leave for all the listeners out there. So well, wrapping up. Let’s do this. How if people listen this and they’re interested in Edafio Technology Partners or even more about you, what are what are some ways they could get more information? How could they reach out to you personally, if they’ve got additional questions? Talk to that. And we’ll also include all these links in the show notes as well, but tell them how they can get in touch with you and your company, Kenny.

Kenny Kinley  

you bet best way to get to us as a company is our newly renovated website by our awesome Marketing Director, Melissa. So that’s edafio.com, e-d-a-f-i-o.com. So that’s that’s the easiest way to get to us. You can follow us on all the social media platforms as well. She does a great job with all that. And probably best way for me personally is my LinkedIn profile. I don’t do any other social media. Jordan so Linkedin is all I have. So if you want to get me that’s probably the best way. 

Jordan Smith  

Smart man.

Kenny Kinley  

Yeah, that’s part of that family work life balance. Or you can you can send me an email too to k-k-i-n-l-e-y@edafio.com.

Jordan Smith  

Wow. No, that’s that’s generous giving out that email. We’ll, we’ll include all those links down there too. And I’ll tell you guys, Adolfo technology partners, if, if you’ve got a group that you like, and that you’re working with, that’s great, I would still reach out to them. You know, they’ve talked about a lot of different stuff. I know. No one personally, some other people not only in the organization, but some folks who have worked with you. We talked about references, always have great things to say. And there’s always additional value that that Edafio Technology Partners can can bring the table, even if it’s just a you know, a 30 minute conversation just to just to pick their brain and, and ask him some questions and make sure that you and your guys are on the right path. So Kenny Kinley, I appreciate it so much. I know we’re listeners do too. I look forward to talking to you more on a personal note. Thank you. 

Kenny Kinley  

Nice, enjoyed it. Thanks for the invite.

Jordan Smith  

Alright, everybody, Kenny Kenley with adelphia technology partner. So again, you know, I teased it in the beginning a lot about what makes the best type of practice or organization profitable isn’t just new business, but the things behind the scenes that help support the business. And that’s why I was excited to have Kenny on and, and for him to talk a little bit about his perspective, and how they make sure that they deliver those type of promises for all of their clients. So again, if you got any questions, if you just want to learn more about Kenny’s story, or you’re listening, you say man, I’d really love to bring in a group like Edafio Technology Partners to just check out. Give give my practice a health check. I would encourage you to reach out to him. If you have any questions. Let us know if you’ve got topic ideas or different types of people from different industries that you’d like to hear their perspective on. Let us know as well. We got in touch with Edafio way back because a listener reached out and said hey, you guys should should really talk a talk to this aspect of running a practice because it’s one of the more important ones, especially these days, so drop us a like, comment, share this with a friend. iProv Made podcast as always, I’m Jordan Smith. Looking forward to talking to you guys soon. See ya’ll.