Over the past 10 years, andros has stayed true to its commitment to deliver the highest quality of healthcare provider network management to its clients, and that has undoubtedly resulted to favorable outcomes for their end customers. Now, as the company continues to grow and scale, it has become imperative to bring in new leadership talent to bring its products and solutions to hundreds more customers. In this episode, andros founder, Mike Simmons, welcomes incoming andros CEO, Jeff Fritz. Jeff shares a bit of his impressive background in healthcare supply chain leadership and how he intends to use that experience to make andros an even better company than it is today. Stay tuned and learn what that means for all stakeholders!

—

Watch the episode here

Listen to the podcast here

Introducing Jeff Fritz, New andros CEO Leading The Next Chapter Of Healthcare Innovation

I’m Jeff Fritz. I’m the incoming CEO of andros. I’m excited to take on this opportunity to help andros enter the next chapter of its life and our relationship as we get to know each other better. I want to encourage communication. That’s how we are going to learn what your business is doing and how we are going to adjust our business to meet those needs. It’s a team effort. We have some great connections that you know about within our organization, and I encourage you to pick up the phone, send an email, or just keep the communication open. I’m excited about this next chapter together, and the opportunity to partner with you. Thank you.

I’m excited to introduce you to Jeff Fritz, who is coming on as the new CEO of andros. Welcome, Jeff.

Mike, thanks. I’m excited to be here. andros is a unique opportunity for me, and it’s been a pleasure getting to know you as we have worked through how to make this next chapter of andros a wild success.

It’s an exciting time for andros because we are growing as a company. We want to bring our solutions, products, and services to hundreds more customers. There’s a lot of hard work involved in scaling a business. That’s why I’m particularly excited to welcome Jeff as CEO of the company because he’s got a lot of experience doing that.

I’m excited to partner with Mike. It’s a rare opportunity when there’s a window that opens a new chapter of a company, and you have a founder of a business welcoming in and coordinating with a CEO to help take the company into that next chapter. We will be on the board and working together on making andros a great company for the foreseeable future.

[bctt tweet=”It’s a rare opportunity when there’s a window that opens a new chapter of a company, and you have a founder of a business welcoming in and coordinating with a CEO to help take the company into that next chapter.” via=”no”]

Why don’t you share a little bit about your career up until now in healthcare and technology?

I have spent my whole career in healthcare. When I say my whole career, I have had the opportunity to work in different places in the healthcare supply chain. I feel like all of my experiences led up to this opportunity to work with andros. Early in my career, I was working on building a business around the employer-sponsored benefits area and self-funded medical. It gave me a lot of great context in healthcare.

I then moved into software platforms that support things like consumer-driven healthcare, which was a big new change and shift in healthcare. Also, I have been working a lot with the payer community or large insurance companies around government programs like Medicare and Medicaid. The shifts that are going on in Medicare and Medicaid have opened opportunities for entrepreneurial organizations to lead the way. That’s what’s got me excited about andros. A technology that’s supporting a new way, or a more innovative way of solving these solutions has gotten me excited.

That’s interesting because government programs are the fastest-growing part of the healthcare industry, and that’s certainly true in our business as well. What I think about working on this business for years, we have started to lay the foundation for a more modern pathway to better provider data, and better business transactions within the provider to pay our communities. We are laying the foundation for that and that’s what drives a lot of our business.

I have been thinking about the connection that payers and providers are starting to intersect more. The provider organizations are starting to take more risks. They are starting to be more interested in how they manage a broader spectrum of care. The payers are embracing that by getting tighter with it. That’s where andros lives. It’s connecting these payers and providers and that flexibility that it affords these organizations to move in the direction that the market is taking them. I think that’s special.

I think a lot about how the work that we do and the software that we are building, the data that we are learning more about how to manage is not only having an impact on our direct clients, which are payer and provider organizations but also the individuals that are going through the process. The individual practitioners, small business owners, or small practice owners are responsible for so much of their patients’ health, but also, the business aspects of running a practice, a small group, or a large group, an insurance plan, and all of those, they are balancing so many different competing needs for different stakeholders. Everything that we can do to make their lives better is a win, not only for them but also for their patients. It’s a win for us as we are building an awesome business.

[bctt tweet=”Everything that we can do to make small practice owners’ lives better is a win, not only for them, but also for their patients.” via=”no”]

I would expect that the providers, physicians, nurses, or anybody who’s a licensed practitioner in the supply chain doesn’t wake up every day and say, “I sure hope I can work on credentialing or being a member of a network for a plan.” They wake up and they want to deliver care. The pressures of all that flexibility in the marketplace have just got to be a huge distraction for them, and that’s a unique opportunity for andros.

It is to the extent that we can take that off their plate and make their lives better. They are dedicating that much more time to patient care, which is better access to high-quality patient care.

When I think about the provider ecosystem, and they are working with all these payers, there’s a lot that goes into supporting those organizations. The more there’s a federation where the different partnerships that a company like andros forms and supports, and how we come together to support the goals and objectives of the provider organizations or the whole healthcare ecosystem. That’s going to be the real opportunity over the next many years for health systems and for the healthcare ecosystem as a whole down to the patient is, “How do we come together as solutions and work better together to get better results for the end consumers?”

[bctt tweet=”The real opportunity for the whole healthcare ecosystem over the next 10 years is in how we can come together with solutions that get better results for the end consumers.” via=”no”]

That’s why it’s so important to the work that we are doing to consolidate data into one asset, understand it better, model it better, and make that data and those processes available to integrators through an API. All of that speaks to creating an ecosystem that’s federated, and that’s an exciting opportunity for andros.

What I found works well for me and has worked well for me in the past is already happening within andros. There’s a real effort to connect with the customer. The customers are these payer organizations as well as providers and provider organizations. I feel like it’s part of my philosophy to continue to expand on that.

The answers are within our customers. The answers are within what they are experiencing, the challenges they face, and how to make their lives better. If I were to have one message to our partners, all of our clients, and our staff let’s keep that going. Let’s make sure that there’s a spirit of partnership and listening that happens with our clients because that’s where the answers are. That’s where we get all of our feedback and what we are going to build.

That’s why we put number one in our operating principles is to make decisions with our customers’ best interests in mind. This has been great catching up, Jeff. Welcome to andros.

[bctt tweet=”Make decisions with our customer’s best interests in mind.” via=”no”]

Thank you.

I’m excited to have you on the team and to continue to support you and the business with contacts or context about the business. It’s an exciting chapter in our journey and I’m so glad to have you on board.

I’m honored to carry forward the legacy that you started as the founder of this great company and all the things that employees and customers have put into this business to make it what it is now. I’m excited to work with you as we take it into the future and make it an even better organization than it is now.

We have to thank our customers and our team. They are awesome. They are doing a great job serving our customers and our customers are doing a great job helping us to understand what’s needed in the market and have supported us along the way. It’s pretty exciting.

Thanks. I appreciate it.