Hard Problems, Smart Solutions: The Newfire Podcast

Brendan Iglehart: Welcome to Hard
Problems, Smart Solutions, the

Newfire Podcast, where we explore the
toughest challenges and the smartest

solutions with industry leaders.

I'm Brendan Iglehart, Staff Healthcare
Architect at Newfire Global Partners

and your host for this episode.

In each episode, we bring you
conversations with top innovators

and decision-makers tackling the
biggest issues across industries.

Whether you're looking for insights to
drive your own strategies or to learn

from the best, you're in the right place.

Let's get started.

Hello everyone, today we're discussing
the transformative power of accurate

provider directories with Ron
Urwongse, co-founder of Defacto Health.

Ron is a pioneer in healthcare data
interoperability and transparency,

with a career dedicated to optimizing
provider directories and creating scalable

solutions for the healthcare industry.

From leading the development of
innovative data tools at Defacto Health,

to his prior work with CAQH, Ron has
tackled some of the most critical

issues in provider data management.

If you're navigating the complexities of
healthcare interoperability and regulatory

compliance, this episode is for you.

Ron, welcome to the podcast.

Ron Urwongse: Hi Brendan,
it's great to be here.

Brendan Iglehart: Ron, getting started,
your career spans critical milestones

in healthcare data innovation.

Can you walk us through your journey,
particularly how your experiences

have shaped your approach to
solving interoperability challenges?

Ron Urwongse: Certainly, Brendan.

So I started off in the
early 2000s as a programmer.

I think it's important to call that
out because I've had my share of

experiences with not the best data,
sometimes inaccurate, sometimes always

messy data and well-documented APIs
and not as well-documented APIs.

So I have firsthand experience as a
developer having to interact with all

these developer tools and documentation.

I, uh, took the leap to go to business
school and study at M. I. T. Sloan,

started my career as a product manager
in a small healthtech company in

Boston called Vecna Technologies.

I had a chance to manage a variety
of different products there from

infection surveillance solutions
and patient check-in kiosk

for private hospitals, but also
government-run hospitals within

the Department of Veterans Affairs.

I made the leap to CAQH soon after
that, and I spent a good chunk

of time there managing shared
utilities on the payer side.

Pretty much every aspect of provider
data I had a chance to touch there:

credentialing, provider enrollment,

Provider Directory and I had the
opportunity to interact directly

with payers and providers on
both sides of the problem.

It was that at CAQH where I had
a chance to see some of the new

government rules coming out and see
how the payers were being required to

publish their Provider Directory data

via standards-based API.

And I looked at the data and it was
incredibly valuable and voluminous.

And I I thought, well, I've
got to do something about this.

So I needed to start Defacto Health
with my co-founder, Tarun Theogaraj.

And, uh, that's where we are today.

We've been working on integrating
with and querying these Payer-Provider

Directory APIs ever since.

Brendan Iglehart: That's really great.

So provider directories are
often called the backbone of

healthcare interoperability.

And as a patient and as many listeners
being patients, I think we can

all understand the importance of
accuracy with those directories.

So, from your perspective, why
are they so vital to operational

efficiency and patient care outcomes?

Ron Urwongse: Yeah, so we can
start with the easy stuff.

I mean, the use case that pretty
much all of us are familiar with,

which is looking up a provider
in a Payer- Provider Directory.

And, I think most people, when they're
searching for providers, they probably

start in a Google search googling
"cardiologist near me," or asking a friend

"Hey, do you know a good PCP in the
area? I just moved here." But the second

step after that is often, well, let
me look up this provider in my payers'

directory just to make sure that they're
in the network and they accept the plan.

Incredibly important for the
patient engagement and for

the provider search use case.

But if, if you take a step back and
look at how the Provider Directory is

the intersection between all sorts of
different parties within healthcare,

so there's the payer and the provider.

There's also the payer and regulators.

Regulators are responsible for overseeing
how robust or I guess what they say

adequate a provider of a payer's
network is within a certain geography.

Regulators do look at information
source from provider directories

to make that judgment call to see,
okay, for this particular geography,

you've got this many members.

Do you have the right number of
PCPs, cardiologists, et cetera,

to be able to service that type of
population within that geography?

Moving from there, especially within
this realm of interoperability, uh,

what we're seeing is that payers are
very interested in finding the most

efficient ways to integrate with
the providers within their network.

They need to collect clinical
information for all sorts of use cases

for quality, for risk adjustment, for
care coordination and value-based care.

And historically, it's
been manual chart chases.

In an intermediate stage, there's these
bespoke integrations with a particular

health system hospital which I know
you're quite familiar with, but in this

next phase payers are really looking
to integrate with providers FHIR APIs

because they're more standards-based,
they're more efficient and theoretically

they'll be able to get to the data a
lot faster and a lot more efficiently.

And so a big part of that is
knowing what providers are a network

and where their endpoints are.

You know, we've been thinking about
all this time provider directories

answering questions about who is a
provider, where are they located,

what kind of specialties do they have?

But on the other end of it, it's what
is their digital contact information?

What EHR are they using?

What's the URL for the
API that I need to ping?

So that's the other aspect of
provider directories that is kind

of up and coming and becoming more
important for the overall industry.

Brendan Iglehart: You mentioned
earlier the term adequacy or adequate

in the context of directories.

What does that specifically mean?

I have a hunch that there's there's
regulation and requirements around

how that's used, but I'm curious
to get your perspective on that.

Ron Urwongse: Yeah, I'm going to overly
simplify it and for those professionals

who are a little bit more involved
in the adequacy use case, they'll be

able to provide a ton more detail.

But in the most basic form, payers are
supposed to present a provider network

that can service their members' needs.

And at the very basic, you've got
some type of member population.

And you need to have a certain number
of providers to be able to service

that member of the population.

So a certain number of primary care
physicians, cardiologists, behavioral

health, pulmonologists, etc. And
depending on the line of business,

there's Medicare, Medicaid and Exchange.

They all have different rules, but

the regulator sets these types of ratios
to dictate, okay, for your particular

population within this geography,
you need to have this many providers.

So you can see how the directory plays a
role in there because the directory has

information about providers, what their
specialties are, and where they're located

from a geographic basis.

So you can certainly bump that data
up against member data and where

the members are to be able to make
some assessments on the adequacy

or the robustness of a network.

And what's interesting is
that payers are looking to go

beyond just regular adequacy.

They want to know, how does my
network compare relatively with other

payers' networks within the geography.

And so it's going beyond just compliance
with regulatory requirements, but

it's how competitive am I in a market?

And can I can I make some type of
claim that I've got the most robust

network for a particular type of member
population within this geography?

Brendan Iglehart: Got it.

The CMS interoperability rule that came
out, I believe last year put additional

focus on prioritizing Provider Directory
API, so I'm curious to get your

perspective on this regulation and others
and how they're shaping the industry's

focus on innovation in the space.

Ron Urwongse: Yeah, the original CMS
Final R ule on interoperability came out

in 2020 and was effective in, uh, 2021.

I remember these dates because I,
we timed the founding and the launch

of Defacto Health right around that
time when the APIs were gonna be

available and when payers were going
to be required to publish them.

So that, that was the first time the
Provider Directory requirement came

into play in these standard-based APIs.

The most recent requirement it
persists the the obligation for the

payers to publish their directory
data via API which is good.

It's a signal to the industry that,
hey, these APIs aren't going anywhere.

In fact, the the regulators are building
on top of previous requirements.

The previous requirements
don't go anywhere.

They remain.

And CMS is introducing new requirements
for new APIs, like a prior authorization

API, and a, um, I think they call it
a Provider Access API, where providers

can access information from payers on
patients that they're seeing as well.

So what's interesting is, is if you go
into the rule, they describe all sorts of

use cases where these APIs interact with
each other and interplay with each other.

Within the prior authorization use
case, a predecessor requirement is

knowing whether a provider is even
in network before they can provide

care that needs to be authorized by
a payer to, to a to a covered member.

You know, all that to say that the old
requirements aren't going anywhere.

The regulators are imagining use
new use cases and new APIs that

will be highly dependent on.

The older requirements.

And I guess most payers, all
payers need to really consider that

where if they're not meeting the
requirements from the previous rule,

they're they're playing catch up
with these new requirements as well.

Brendan Iglehart: Like many problems
in healthcare, there's a combination

here of kind of a technology problem
as well as a kind of rights to

data or access to data problem.

So how do you view the interplay of
those here, especially in light of,

again, some of those regulations
that have come out recently?

How is, how is that relationship
between the different parties

here evolved over time?

Ron Urwongse: It is an evolving mindset
where if you rewind the clock back, five

years, if you ask any payer, you know,
who owns the provider network information

and who should have access to it.

I think they would say I, as a payer on
this information and I give access to

it on specifically to members and to,

you know, folks who are, uh, who I have
business with, and so that they can

get the care that they need, or they
can do other jobs that are required.

You're getting to a point where,
regulators are asserting that

actually this information, while
it's collected by the payer, and

perhaps owned by the payer, but it is
still made available to the public.

And they've asserted
that it is public data.

And that mind shift is happening.

And I think that the payers are evolving
with it, too, whether complying with the

rules, just to comply with the rules.

But now they're also realizing all
the different jobs this data can

do, especially when payers have
access to each other's data via

their Provider Directory APIs.

You're also seeing that
with patient data, too.

Payers are obligated to make data
available via Patient Access APIs.

Now, the, uh, the initial use case
around that and the mandatory use

cases that I, as a patient I can access
information either from a provider or a

payer, but I authorize how it gets used.

Now, if payers, there's a, a use
case within uh, the CMS rule called

Payer-to-Payer Data Exchange,
where perhaps there are payers with

overlapping coverage on a particular
member or a patient, or there's an

old payer and there's a new payer.

They've got the right
to exchange that data

between themselves, and they can use a
lot of the same infrastructure that was

created for the Patient Access API to
be able to enable that data exchange.

I think all that to say
there's a shifting mindset.

There's more willingness to share
this data and also more interest in

using, uh, various types of data that
are being published via these APIs.

Brendan Iglehart: You mentioned it earlier
on the evolution of FHIR, and so I want

to touch on the evolution of different
data standards here and how that affects

us as well, because as we both know, just
because you make available an API for a

certain type of data doesn't necessarily
mean that that can be useful if the data

is structured in different ways across
organizations and other source systems.

So what are some of the kind of inputs
here, such as FHIR and others that are

impacting and how data is structured
as you're able to increasingly retrieve

this from payers and other parties?

Ron Urwongse: Back in 2020, when I was
first looking at these APIs that the

payers were publishing and then, into the
early part of 2021, I got really spoiled.

So I took a look at and I remember
them, it was United Healthcare, it was

Humana and Cigna, big national payers,
they probably have a huge IT bucket.

They can put the right investment in
place to be able to publish amazing APIs.

I remember in particular
Humana documentation.

I think United too was really good.

I was talking before about as a
developer, having the experience

of interacting with well-documented
APIs versus not well-documented APIs.

These first ones were really good.

And, started querying them and all
the data that I was expecting to

come back with coming back when I
passed in the right query parameters.

And I, uh, mistakenly thought that,
well, gosh, if these first three APIs

are going to be good, then probably the
next 150 are going to be good as well.

That was absolutely not the case.

A fter that, I think the ratio was
maybe 9 out of 10 of the APIs that we

encountered first were broken in some way,
shape or form, and that was, everything

from, uh, not publishing any data at
all, the query parameters were broken,

not performance, not well documented,
authorization requirements and approval

channels were not being monitored.

But, it's evolved and matured over time.

You know, most of the Payers-Provider
Directory APIs are now working.

There's still a tail of
smaller payers where it's not.

The FHIR standard for, uh, the
Directory APIs in particular, the the

Da Vinci Plan Net implementation guide
was really good too, to get started.

And without the existence of that
implementation guide, I wouldn't have

a common ground to be able to interact
and communicate with the payer saying,

Hey, I'm expecting this data, this
data is supposed to do this job.

The IG not only talks about what data
needs to be available and the logical

model and how different entities
relate to each other, but also this is,

these are the jobs that patients
are trying to do with the data.

Now, what it doesn't do, though,
and I think there are opportunities

either through a Da Vinci workgroup,
broader HL7, or perhaps some, you

know, USCDI plus venue where we can
talk about the quality of the data.

There's no standardization on the quality
of the data, how accurate it needs to be,

how do you even test that?

I mean, particular CMS program offices
have put a stake in the ground and

said, "Hey, Provider Directory needs
to look this way. We're auditing it

this way. And this is how you should
measure it." But, you know, other lines

of business aren't that prescriptive
and it's not, there's no requirements

on that on the commercial side that

I've seen beyond, you know, some
no-surprises act and, um, update timeline.

So I think that's a huge opportunity.

HL7, FHIR, some of these IGs, really
great about describing logical models

and what data formats should be, but data
quality, I, I think is, uh, an opportunity

for the industry to mature even more.

Brendan Iglehart: So, as we both
know, technology really plays a

transformative role in terms of
how healthcare data gets better and

more useful to drive innovation.

And so I'm curious, um, are there other
innovations such as like public data sets

or other APIs that we haven't touched on
that you're really optimistic about growth

and kind of on silo in some of this data?

Ron Urwongse: Certainly.

We've been talking a lot
about Provider Directory.

We touched a little bit
upon Patient Access API.

So the patient data I think the next
data set that I haven't touched upon,

but that is probably on everybody's mind
right now is the price transparency data.

Both hospitals, as well as
health insurers, have been

required to publish their
negotiated rate within these huge

massive machine-readable file.

All with the idea that patients,
consumers, employers, uh, even

regulators can see the rates, they can
make better decisions on purchasing or

finding high quality, low-cost care.

And maybe bending the cost curve.

I think there's probably more of
a convergence in the cost curve

than necessarily bending it down.

But predictability,
predictability can be good too.

I think there's a whole
lot of opportunity there.

I think the price transparency data
is, uh, suffering from some of the same

challenges as Provider Directory data
in terms of data quality and consistency

and data format and standardization.

But I see a lot of work going on there
between public sector and private

sector to converge on what this data
could look like and what it should do.

So, I, I see a lot of opportunity to.

Leverage interplay between
Provider Directory and the price

transparency data over time.

Brendan Iglehart: And I guess on that
front, like, I'm personally the kind of

kind of guy who likes to email the mayor
and, you know, my elected officials and

help to, in my mind, move things along.

What what can people who are
listening to our innovators in

this space do to kind of contribute
and advance some of these causes?

Obviously, there's things like public
comments on different regulations that are

coming out, but do you have any thoughts
on on that and how people can pitch in?

Ron Urwongse: Yeah.

So, as you said, public comments on
any number of emergent rules, I'm

sure with the new administration
taking place, there will be a whole

slew of new proposed rules that the
public can review and comment upon.

There's an interesting experiment
going on within the state of Oklahoma

in the early part of this year, in
the National Directory of Health.

So CMS released an RFI around this notion
of a national directory a couple of years

ago, and the whole idea of it is to create
a common utility that collects data one

time from a bunch of healthcare providers
and makes it available to any number of

other organizations, including government
agencies, payers, other providers.

The whole idea is to reduce and
rationalize the administrative

burden around that.

What's neat is that CMS is doing
this out in the open and that as

they establish it, they will be
releasing public data sets from it.

It's going to benefit from more eyeballs.

If you're in this space and you're taking
a look at directory data or data sets

that are adjacent to directory data,

it might be interesting to take a look
at what's going on there and see if

this centralized national directory
approach is going to move the needle.

Brendan Iglehart: So, as we
both know, collaboration is, is

vital to success in health care.

Some, can you speak on a little bit
of the collaboration and work that

you've done specifically with perhaps
different payers to help kind of

advance this cause and especially
related to your, your current company?

Ron Urwongse: Sure.

A big part of what we do, I would venture
to say, perhaps the majority of what we

do, is review payers' APIs and provide
them with constructive feedback around it.

You know, I mentioned that early on 9 out
of 10 payers API, particularly Provider

Directory APIs, had some type of issue
that blocked us from being able to use it.

And so what we've done, we've actually
tried to streamline this process where

we have test cases that we make available
to the payer so that we tell them, Hey,

this is how we're going to test the API.

And then we create a, um, nice little
scorecard that shows we've done

these tests, here are the results for
these tests, here are the specific

reproduction steps that you can take

if you want to reproduce the results
that we made feel free to bring that back

to your technical team or your vendor.

Uh, we've had an opportunity to interact
with many technical teams across many

payers and their vendors and provide
this constructive feedback and working

in collaboration to get these APIs
working, not just for us, but for

anybody else who wants to query them.

So and we're doing that
at no cost to the payer.

We want the APIs to work
so that we can get it.

But the side benefit is that
they're available to the

rest of the industry as well.

The other thing that we are doing is,
uh, we are using the APIs to assess

the the accuracy of the data.

What we've noticed is that if a
critical mass of payers agree that

a provider is at an address and has
a particular phone number, that it's

very likely that provider is actually
there and has that phone number.

It's like the, uh, like the jelly bean
exercise at the carnival where you've got

thousands of jelly beans within a
jar, and you ask a hundred people,

how many jelly beans are in that jar?

Everybody's wrong.

Actually, everybody's wrong.

Maybe one person's right.

But if you average everybody's
guesses together, then it's very

close to the actual number of
jelly beans, like one or two off.

It's it's a similar approach around
Provider Directory, where, you know,

every Payers' Directory is wrong, but
where they agree and where they disagree

is incredibly informative to figure
out what's right and what's wrong.

And so we're sharing some of these
results with payers right now just

to help them improve the accuracy of
their data as upstream as possible.

Yeah.

Brendan Iglehart: I've

seen similar technology in place on kind
of patient level data so the concept of

a master master patient index and mapping
your specific data your organization owns

with kind of public and other data sets.

So that's that's really cool to hear that
that could be applicable here as well.

So external providers like Newfire
often play a crucial role in scaling

solutions like this effectively.

So I'm curious if you can tell us a little
bit about how you view partnerships in

fostering innovation and then ensuring
success with with complex projects.

Ron Urwongse: Yeah, so,

just thinking back to my own experience
with payers at Defacto Health.

We can only go so far into
the payer organization.

Actually, sometimes we've been on so many
phone calls with these payers that they

forget that we're an external party and
they think they're contracted with us

and we have to remind them that actually,
no, you're not paying us anything, we're

just doing this as a service to you
guys, but also to get your APIs to work.

But still, we, we can only go
so far into the organization.

We can provide evidence of incorrect data.

We can provide evidence of maybe
upstream issues where processes

are are not implemented correctly.

But it really takes an organization
like Newfire that has direct engagements

with these payers to be able to assess.

Actually, these are the upstream issues,
both from a technology perspective, but

perhaps from a governance perspective.

And, and I think with Newfire's
abilities, both from a technical and

a management consulting perspective,
there, there is an opportunity to

establish better governance and to
clean the data as upstream as possible.

Brendan Iglehart: And looking
forward, what what are some of the

trends or technologies do you think
will further transform innovation

in this space, whether it be
Provider Directories, usability or

accuracy, what are some things that
you're kind of keeping an eye on?

Or if you had your to rub your
magic crystal ball that you

expect to see in the coming years?

Ron Urwongse: The magic wand
that I've been I've been craving

for years is this idea of an
appointment API on the provider side.

So for a practice or a health system
and their EHR or, and, or their

appointment system, could they surface
up some type of standards-based API

to answer a couple of questions?

One is for a given provider, this
is for available appointments

within the next 30 to 90 days.

And also, here's an ability to
actually book an appointment.

There are a couple of IGs that were
published years ago from the Argonaut

Project that address these particular
use cases; I believe they've only

been implemented a handful of time.

I'm seeing some renewed interests in it.

Some interesting interests
on the payer side.

I've heard through the grapevine
that some payers are incorporating

direct appointment capabilities
within their directories.

If you think about it for a second,
if you can get information about

actual appointment availability,

the particular practice locations
that providers are accepting

patients and providing appointments.

That goes a very long way to
clean up these directories.

Because if a provider is not actually
providing appointments at a particular

address, maybe as a payer, you don't
want to publish it in your directory.

Or maybe you want to only surface up
the providers who have the most the

most immediate availability within
your search results so that members

or consumers will have an easier time
getting appointment because getting

appointment right now, you might call
5, 6, 10 doctors until you find one with

a near term appointment availability.

So that's one.

I wish there were a magic wand
to make that happen faster.

I am optimistic that some of this renewed
interest is going to move the needle some.

Brendan Iglehart: And I think
that brings up a good point.

This, this aligns with my thinking on the
kind of phases of the rollout of EHRs is

the first phase is just to get the kind
of base technology or systems in place and

get data flowing between organizations.

But then what's really cool from there
is, is the use cases and the problems

you can solve once you can take that
for granted, which, as we both know,

and healthcare can take a bit of time.

But once it's there, unlocks
some, some great possibilities.

Ron Urwongse: You know, I think that's
why people stay within this field for

so long for decades at a time, because:
A, it takes that long for change to

happen and B, I think for those of us
who want to see the end of the story,

who want to see the next or want to
see all of the pre-work in place really

pay off by 5, 10 years down the road.

There will be an opportunity to do that.

I do think it's iterative, we
shouldn't view the the 1st generation

of these APIs or machine-readable
files as a failure by any means.

It's just the 1st version and the
2nd version of the 3rd version.

Are you get are going to get
better as the public provides

more constructive feedback.

And as their expectations increase on
what that data should be able to do.

Brendan Iglehart: I'm going to link this
back to something that we were talking

about earlier is really the patient
perspective and the fact that we are

all ultimately consumers of a lot of
the technology that we are creating.

So from that lens of a patient, what
are some of the things that you're most

excited about in terms of what these
advances will will bring to the floor?

Ron Urwongse: We'll go back to
some of the the future innovations

and trends that I was predicting.

But I think there will come a time,
you know, and you can call me out on

this, we can have another podcast in 5
years to see if I'm right or I'm wrong,

but I think there will come a time
when these directories are going to be

more accurate, where we can search for
providers by appointment availability,

where it's going to be a whole lot
easier to get your data as a patient.

And where you can use that data
to help inform provider search

plan selection, cost estimation.

These are rules that are on the book.

These are data that are available,
but they need to get refined and the

quality of the data needs to improve.

And innovators out there need to
bring these data sets together.

But I'm optimistic that it's going to
happen just because it's more public and

there are so many eyeballs on, not only
the data, but also these API capabilities.

I do think it's gonna happen.

Brendan Iglehart: Yeah, I think it's
really exciting to me just kind of

seeing the trends and healthcare
moving toward a more consumer centric

perspective but in current state, not
giving people the the data and the

resources to necessarily be consumers.

So, the closer that we get to
that, I think, is really, really

a cool future to look forward to.

Ron, for organizations that are looking
to be tech-forward and kind of get

ahead of some of these regulations,
what are things that you recommend

that they look at and take steps to
do around the directories and other

interoperability topics as those advance?

Ron Urwongse: If I had to recommend
one thing, it would be listen

to the people who are trying
to use your data and your API.

They have they have a lot of feedback and
constructive feedback and take that into

consideration as you're working with your
tech team or your vendor and improving

them and making decisions on roadmaps and
backlog with in particular for directory.

What I would recommend for health insurers
is that they take a look at all the places

the data surfacing, the web directory,
the Provider Directory, API, any CRM

systems that they have, any data sets
that they're obligated to submit to the

government, price transparency files.

And ask the question, how
aligned are these data?

And it could be very simple.

It could be, okay, the number of
practitioners in each of these data sets.

Is it about right?

Are they within the ballpark?

And, what is the overlap
between all of them?

That would be incredibly informative.

And the reason I bring it up
is because folks like me and

others are doing that on our end.

If you guys did that on your end,
it would make sure that the data was

aligned and it could also identify
some upstream data governance issues.

I think around Provider Directory as well,
it's having a repeatable, reproducible

accuracy measure that is aligned
with how the industry is measuring.

I think we're, I mentioned it
before, but we still don't have an

industry-wide definition about how
how Provider Directories should be

measured from an accuracy perspective.

And then I think the final thing that
I would mention for health insurers is

clean the data as upstream as possible.

Don't just clean it up at the API side
or the, if you've got a dock finder

there, if you clean it further upstream
within your PDM system, then you've got

a number of other downstream systems
that are going to benefit from it.

And by the way, if you clean it upstream
all the way on the provider side, giving

that critical constructive feedback to
the providers, it's going to help out

not only you, but other payers as well.

And then recommendations on the
provider side, because right now they

don't have a whole lot of regulatory
requirements around this directory data.

But if they did want to get ahead of it,
it's take a look at what the payers are

saying about your providers and where
they're at and what their specialties are.

That's informative.

There are probably all sorts of
differences between what you're

submitting and what they're publishing.

And having that second pair of
eyeballs from that part of the

industry would also be helpful.

And it's going to be easier to
do that with these APIs and with

these machine-readable files.

Brendan Iglehart: This conversation, like
most in healthcare technology, bring to

light a lot of complex challenges, but
also makes me feel really optimistic

about the advancements and the and the
things that are coming down the pipe.

So really appreciate your time, Ron,
and bringing clarity and actionable

strategies to some of the most
complex challenges of our day.

Ron Urwongse: Thanks Brandon.

It's been a pleasure.

Brendan Iglehart: Ron, thanks for bringing
clarity and actionable strategies to one

of healthcare's most complex challenges.

Your work here in improving
Provider Directories underscores the

importance of data-driven solutions
in creating more efficient and

transparent healthcare systems.

To our listeners, today's conversation
highlighted the vital role of

accurate provider directories
in transforming healthcare.

As we navigate the evolving landscape
of interoperability and compliance,

the insights shared here offer valuable
guidance for driving meaningful change.

Thanks for joining us on Hard Problems,
Smart Solutions, the Newfire podcast.

See you next time.