Intro (00:01):
Welcome to Health Law Talk, presented by Chehardy Sherman Williams Health Law. Broken down through expert discussion, real client issues and real life experiences, breaking barriers to understanding complex healthcare issues is our job.

Conrad Meyer (00:22):
And good morning, good afternoon, or goodnight whenever you’re listening to this. This is another episode of Chehardy Sherman Williams Health Law Talk. Conrad Meyer, healthcare attorney here in the studio with my co-host, Roy Bellina, distinguished learned intelligent healthcare council. Rory, good morning –

Rory Bellina (00:41):
Good morning. How are you?

Conrad Meyer (00:43):
I’m good. I’m really good actually, it’s, it’s, it’s a beautiful day. It’s a Thursday, so we’re kind of rounding out the week. We’re in April now in in New Orleans, in Nola, you know, 504, MSY, whatever you wanna call it. And I think it looks really good, you know, just had the Easter break, so everybody’s back in school. Things are good. And and of course when you get back from vacation, you know, work-wise That’s right. Things start hitting the fan. And, you know, today’s episode, you and I are gonna talk about something that, that recently happened to one of my clients, but I think something that we really kind of don’t talk about with respect to physician practices vendor agreements.

Rory Bellina (01:21):
Right, right. Really good, really good, really timely topic. Like you, like you mentioned, I haven’t had any issues come up with one lately. in the past I’ve definitely seen issues, but it’s something that in the healthcare world, you’re, you’re always getting these vendor agreements to look at. There’s some things that we can negotiate, some things that usually we can’t. but we’re here to talk about some of the, the issues in pitfalls that we’ve seen with those agreements.

Conrad Meyer (01:44):
And, and interesting you said that when they, when the clients actually give us the vendor agreements, I mean, a lot of times the practice administrators will just take it upon themselves to review it, right. Cuz they don’t wanna spend money on attorneys. Right. And then they’ll just go ahead and sign off on it. And usually what happens, and in my case when, when stuff hits the fan, you know, or things start going downhill, is when you, you or I get the call

Rory Bellina (02:09):
Sure. After it’s been signed, after it, it’s rolled out after they’ve brought in the, the team from outta state to, you know, launch the product or trained their staff and they’re in it for a few months and they’ve spent time, money, resources. Right. And then something goes wrong

Conrad Meyer (02:24):
And then you’re like, okay, well here’s the problem. Like, you know, there’s not a lot of wiggle room at that point to fix it. And so what do you do? So I, I thought it would be a good idea we’re gonna sort of do this as a multi-part series. Yep. So today we’re gonna talk about vendor agreements in general and some of the pitfalls and some of the things that you might wanna watch out for. And then in a, in a couple of weeks, we’re gonna bring in one of the one of my clients who is a physician who was gonna talk about, you know, their specific vendor agreement and what happened. So with that being said, vendor agreements, Roy, what, what, what, first off, what’s a vendor

Rory Bellina (03:02):
Agreement? Sure. I mean, there’s so many and we could do a whole e episode just on kind of agreed EHR vendors. Agreed. But, you know, the vendors are everyone, everything from the clean company that comes in overnight to the company that takes your equipment and sterilizes it to the purple, the person who manages all your computer systems. Yes. You know it, it, it’s the whole gamut, you know, there, it’s anything that you’re not doing essentially in-house with your staff, yes, you’re gonna hire a company to do it and hospitals, you know, healthcare systems, you need, like I said, everything from who’s gonna clean at night, who’s gonna pick up your needles, who’s gonna dispose of your biohazardous waste. All of those things, you know, are gonna have some sort of vendor agreement. And some of them are, I don’t wanna say not as important as others, but, you know, some of, some of these vendor agreements we definitely need to take a closer look at compared to others, depending on what they’re doing, the cost associated with it, and the risks associated with it as well.

Conrad Meyer (04:00):
And, and I agree with that. So, and usually, I mean, like, I I would say that’s like, you know, your vendor agreement for environmental services. I mean, I, I I would say that I don’t think that’s one that would be flying across my desk or yours, I think. Right. And you’re right. So there is gonna be some selectiveness in terms of that. the one that, that I see most often, and the one that seems to be discussed are really two types. It’s, it’s the ehr. Yep. Right. And that could be, you know the EHR that’s sort of combined with claims processing. So sort of like a billing agreement and an EHR

Rory Bellina (04:35):
Agreement because so many companies have the ehr, but then when you’d add on that billing and claims backhouse as well.

Conrad Meyer (04:41):
Yeah, absolutely. You know, we can name several companies that do that. And then of course, then a straight medical billing type of, of of arrangement. Sure. So the straight medical billers who just wanna come in and do the claims processing and then your EHR combined. So, and the reason I think because those comp models involve percentages.

Rory Bellina (05:00):
Correct. That’s where the, that’s where the money is. That’s where the risk is. That’s it. It’s, and it’s the lifeblood for a lot of these practices. So you have to give it some serious, you know, thought and, and give it some respect when you’re looking at those agreements. Because if you choose a company that either is not reputable or they’re new to market, or they’ve got something in there that’s overlooked by your administrator, you know, it could, it could literally shut down the flow of cash in and, and really hamper your practice.

Conrad Meyer (05:30):
And, and, and, and I miss, I forgot one, I think any practice management company that would come. Yep. Yeah. So I left one out. So practice management companies who will come in and, and market to a practice that that’s again, a percentage based on

(05:42):
Or some revenue cycle management, right. in EHR and in a, a medical billing. So those are I think the three big ones. Sure. that I, that I think, you know, would, would fly across a desk. So the issue is, is what do you look for and, and, and why are those so important? And I, and I alluded to it a moment ago, it, it, it’s the compensation in other words. Mm-hmm. , they’re taking a percentage of the gross revenue that comes in Right. From the medical billing. And usually I find now, like in today’s world, that percentage can have a range, you know, anywhere from at least four and a half to to 5% all the way up to seven, 8%. Mm-hmm. maybe even more. Sure. And so to your point, I think that when, when a practice sees that, number one, the first thing I think that the administrator says is this percentage, you know, is, is this a normal fair market percentage? Sure. Because they’d never seen it before. And, and then the, the second question is, is, okay, what am I actually signing here? Because to me, I don’t care if you’re a physician practice management, which a lot of, there’s a lot of companies out there that, that do that. I don’t care if you’re EHR plus claims or just straight medical billing. The first question is in my mind is, what are you going to do for my

Rory Bellina (07:00):
Practice? That’s exactly, as you were talking, I was thinking, what are the most important things that I think of when I see these? And it’s usually two or three things. It’s what are they gonna do for us? Yes. And how do we get out of it?

Conrad Meyer (07:11):
That’s exactly right.

Rory Bellina (07:12):
Those are the two things that I, that I typically look at it. And then there’s a, there’s a huge bucket of, I think I’d say smaller things to be concerned about. But the big things are, you know, what is this vendor gonna do for you? Is it, it needs to be very clear what they’re gonna do and not do. Mm-hmm. , including the data part. And then how can we get out of this and what’s it gonna cost? You know, how hard is it gonna be to shift away? And I think talking about the first part, what are they gonna do for you? That’s probably where a lot of the, the details are in the agreement. And that’s where you or your, you, you or whichever attorneys involved, needs to talk with the practice administrator to make sure everyone’s on the same page. Cuz a lot of times they’ll give you like a deck page or like at that front sheet that says, you know, here’s what we’re gonna do and here’s the person.

Conrad Meyer (07:55):
And, and then, and then, and then that deck page will link online to a master agreement.

Rory Bellina (08:01):
Correct. Correct. Which we have to, and no and no looks at that.

Conrad Meyer (08:04):
No one looks at that. Nobody

Rory Bellina (08:05):
Looks at that. I just had that on my desk the other day. It was like a one page agreement and then, but there’s six links of all their other agreements after that. it’s really important to know, you know, what they’re gonna do for you. Timelines are very important. Right. You know, what’s like their uptime or their lifetime if, if we’re talking about it like an EHR system or a billion claims, you know, are they gonna take responsibility for things that are coded wrong or billed wrong? That, that’s come up a lot. Because if, you know, if there’s some sort of recoupment or clawback and it was done, if it was a system error that’s come up I know that that’s come up with a few years ago there was a big company, I’m drawing a blank on the name of it, but there’s a big issue with meaningful use and how they program their software and they program their software to get their clients in that higher kind of, for higher reimbursements. And they were manipulating the software and their clients really weren’t meaning meaningful use. And the issue came up, who’s responsible for that? You know, is it the EHR vendor or is it the, the client and the government kind of split the baby on the answer, but the EHR vendor got in a ton of trouble on that. Yeah.

Conrad Meyer (09:12):
And, and, and, and I agree with you there it is. because when you look at a physician office, whether it’s ehr, you know, cuz there, there are specifics things I think that are pertinent to, to each of these types of, of vendors whether it’s an ehr. Cuz now I’m thinking about, okay, if it’s ehr I’m thinking like one of the things you just said, what’s my uptime, downtime response time, HIPAA compliant time? You know, how does my BA business associate agreement make it a look with my vendor? Especially if it’s a cloud, if it’s HIPAA compliant, you know, if they do they have downstream requirements, who’s liable? And you know, what kind of company are they especially with to, to your point, if there’s a meaningful use issue or God know, God forbid a breach where OCRs involved Sure. And you get fined and it’s really the the BA’s fault.

(10:01):
You know, do they have the money to pay that? You know, what’s the liability for them? And then if it’s claims like a medical billing, physician revenue cycle management, or the combination EHR claims, how hard do they work the claims? I mean, it’s easy, the first 30 to, you know, 45, 60 days, you, you get your first row back once you submit the claims, you get paid. But then after that, any, like you said, recos re you know, refunds or denials, correct. excuse me, denials and recos, how hard is that company gonna go work your claims?

Rory Bellina (10:33):
Sure. And how hard are they gonna work for you versus working for others? I meaning true. Is it a, is it a big company that is doing this for everyone? They’ve got, you know, tons of resources to do it? Or is it a new company getting off the ground? You know, do they have the knowledge and expertise in this field? Right. Or are, are they new to it? Those are all things that everyone needs to definitely do their homework on to make sure that you’re comfortable in entering into these types of more important vendor agreements.

Conrad Meyer (10:58):
And, and I think too, if you’re an ehr combined claims, right? Where you’re kind of taking your EHR and the back office of that company generates your claims for you to submit to the payers. W what, in other words, what is the software doing Right? To your point about meaningful use, think of it from a claim standpoint. How are they coding like an e and m code? The level, I mean, are they, is, is the software automatically hit issuing a level three or four or five? Or is, is that dictated by the physician? And if it is not, you know, where cuz the practice one that you wanna maximize revenue, of course. Sure. But is the software improperly upcoding levels of e and m service where you get caught? Right.

Rory Bellina (11:43):
Right.

Conrad Meyer (11:44):
You get caught. Yeah. So, so I think, and that’s where the, the administrator needs to be very involved in understanding the process when they did look at the vendors. Sure.

Rory Bellina (11:51):
I think that is probably the most important thing to look at when you’re looking at these vendor agreements from revenue cycle, you know, billing ehr. It’s also really important to look at the data and who owns that data and how hard is it to get that data out. I know the government is taking a lot of steps to try to make some sort of universal data set where, you know, you can move data from EHR to EHR vendor. I don’t know if that’s gonna be possible to do in

Conrad Meyer (12:16):
Across systems, like from Epic to something else. Correct.

Rory Bellina (12:19):
Right. I, I don’t know if that’s gonna be possible to do, but, but that’s really important because inevitably, unless you’re with a, a system that you know works great and you have no problems, you’re probably gonna need to try a couple. And so getting that out and transitioning that, are they going to help you? I mean, I see a lot of vendor agreements where it says like, you know, if you terminate, you have to, you know, once there’s a termination, you have to give us written notes within 10 days that you want our data. And if not, it’s erased and basically don’t, don’t talk to us again. So I mean, that, that’s pretty unreasonable to do. Right. And then what format is that data and information in with this, with this vendor? Is it something that, that

Conrad Meyer (12:55):
You can actually use

Rory Bellina (12:56):
That can you use, can you bring into your new system? Right. Are you gonna have to pay them to put it in a different format? I mean, those are all things that have come up for me. I know we’re focusing on the, the EHR and and billing side, but we definitely wanna talk about some other vendor agreements. But that’s, that’s really important is, you know, you have to think about the breakup and, and what’s gonna happen when you need to get your data out.

Conrad Meyer (13:16):
And, and no, you bring up a good point. when I look at a contract, one of the first things I look at, how do I get out? Sure. I mean, that’s great. You know, I want to, I I I like what you’re offering, you know, sounds great. How amm gonna get out of this and what are the ramifications of me getting out? Right.

Rory Bellina (13:34):
Yeah. Is it gonna be, you can get out at any time, but you have to pay out the remainder is, is there an early termination

Conrad Meyer (13:40):
Fee? And then what what Correct. Correct. You know, termination fees and then of course tech support. Support Sure. Cross compatibility with whatever new because

Rory Bellina (13:48):
Once, once you give notice that you’re done with them, they’re not gonna bother with you anymore. They’re so Right. So they have no incentive. Stick

Conrad Meyer (13:55):
A fork in it, we’re done outta here.

Rory Bellina (13:57):
Right. To help you. So they might mail you a, a, you know, a flash drive and say, here’s your data. Best of luck with whoever you go to next.

Conrad Meyer (14:03):
Right. And, and if, if you’re a practice, right. And, and I mean obviously cash flow is extremely important. You might have a problem where you’re stuck for 30, 60, 90, god forbid, 120 days with no operational cash flow. Sure.

Rory Bellina (14:19):
Or is it something where it’s so bad, but you’re too scared to leave this vendor. Well

Conrad Meyer (14:24):
They got

Rory Bellina (14:24):
You because they’ve got you and they, you know, that it’s gonna shut down operations for, for too long.

Conrad Meyer (14:30):
And, and one of the things that, that vendors do is to strategically position themselves, some of them to, to, to do just that. Sure. So for example, let’s just, you know, say some, a more egregious example, a vendor, an EHR vendor with a, with a billing contract that has a rate of like, say 5%. Okay. And then they have a termination without cause provision for 90 days or even 60. They say 60. Okay. And the tech support is very vague in terms of downtime or uptime. And the data ownership, like you said, isn’t really clear. It’s not clear. Right. So that all that vendor has to do to strong arm, that practice is come in and say, Hey look, we’re not happy with the 5% billing rate. Okay? Mm. We’re gonna want six or 7%. You’re talking about gross revenue too. Okay, sure. Growth on top of everything. Right. Six or 7%, not to mention all the tech support fees, training fees. Oh yeah. Fees up there. All the other fees that get associated cuz they, they loop in there. Right. And sometimes through, like you said, through the deck sheet, through the link to other agreements that you don’t even read. Right. So they’re gonna strong arm you if you don’t agree to the six, six and a half, whatever, 7% we’re just gonna terminate the contract without cause and then 60 days we’re outta here.

Rory Bellina (15:51):
So they’re forcing you, they’re

Conrad Meyer (15:53):
They’re forcing you, they’re forcing you to eat the, the, the vegetables. Yeah. You know, you take, it’s my way of the highway and

Rory Bellina (16:00):
If you don’t pay it, go find someone else. Go find someone else who’s probably gonna charge close to it. Right. Because they’re picking that number because they’re competitors are doing it. Correct. Most likely. But you’re gonna have so many more calls associated with switching. So,

Conrad Meyer (16:13):
So when you look at those kind of agreements, whether it’s well, you know, revenue cycle, EHR and medical billing, I mean there’s so much that goes into, in addition to just the fee, you have to think strategically of how can these people get me right? And what do I need to do to protect the practice and cover everything, the extra hidden fees that you might not be aware of. Right. The cross compatibility of data that you might not be aware about what kind of, of access to data. Cuz a lot of times if you have your own people that can then go look at the claims, right? They need access to data. And if the vendor says, well, like you just said, hey, we’re outta here in 60 days, we’re done and they cut off all claims data, you might be leaving thousands of dollars on the table cuz your people don’t have access.

Rory Bellina (17:00):
Right? Yeah. I think that it’s, it’s, you know, that is, like we said, what are they gonna do for you? And then the termination, those are the big things to look at, you know, after that. So other things I think that are always important to look at is, and a lot of times these vendors are gonna put in there the governing law of jurisdiction in the state where they’re, they’re founded where their attorney is. That’s a good point, good point. You know, I always try to get that in the state where we’re actually operating. A lot of times that’s unsuccessful just cuz they’re like, no, you know, we’re, we have one set of attorneys or we’re incorporated in New York, so we’re doing everything in New York. You know, that’s more, that becomes up a a sometimes more of a business decision on, you know, are you okay with that? Let’s God forbid nothing happens. But if it does, we’re gonna have to get an out-of-state attorney to deal with that. I think that that’s you know, something important to look at. And then also

Conrad Meyer (17:49):
To that point, what do you do then? So let’s just say like to your, per your example, right? It’s a, a New York company, they don’t wanna do anything. New York law, New York jurisdiction. I mean, do you, do you then try to say, okay, fine, well then I want an arbitration clause or a mediation clause that allows me to mediate an arbitrate right. In my location?

Rory Bellina (18:07):
Yeah. I think that that’s, that’s typically the fair compromise Yeah. Is, is getting that in there just so you don’t have to go, you know, if there’s a, if you think that there’s a breach of the contract, you don’t have to hire New York Council if you’re here in Louisiana and fight that there. I think that that’s a, a fair compromise. But

Conrad Meyer (18:23):
How often do you get an agreement from a client before you even get to that point? I mean, that, that’s the thing. Yeah. How many doctors? A lot of Right.

Rory Bellina (18:31):
A lot of times it’s, it’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late and, and you’re stuck with it.

Conrad Meyer (18:36):
And, and, and, and the sad thing is, and this is one thing I think this is why this podcast is, is really important, especially for providers in practices is because Pennywise pound foolish Sure. Penny wise pound foolish. Sure. And look, lemme tell you, doctors are very smart. I mean, they, they wouldn’t do what they do if they weren’t very smart. Right. However, you you, you don’t know what you don’t know. Right. And so I, I think, and it’s always been my position to have a very trusted attorney Right. Healthcare attorney who literally can walk you through your practice that can be there for when you need Sure. You know, and and utilize that person. That doesn’t mean you have to pay them a general counsel fee. Right. But, but you know, I don’t think, I think when you, when you, when you’re trying to avoid the minds or the, the bodies or the bodies are buried, it’s very effective.

Rory Bellina (19:25):
Yeah. I think that, you know, to kind of self-advocate for ourselves or for someone in this field

Conrad Meyer (19:31):
Know Yeah, this wasn’t a commercial for us. I mean true.

Rory Bellina (19:33):
But we’ve all seen, we’ve all seen it, we’ve all seen the vendor agreements Exactly. For all the different industries. So I know when I get a vendor agreement for a staffing agency, I know I need to make sure that there’s language in there that if we don’t like somebody, we get the fire for a reason. They get removed immediately. Right. And Exactly. And they need to be substituted out. I know that there needs to be a pool of people I know that they need to meet like our background check policies, you know, in the EHR world I know that we need to really focus on what they’re gonna do. Is there gonna be a cost to get this data out? Are they gonna help us transition it? Like there’s, there’s little

Conrad Meyer (20:05):
Niche tech support, training data, all that stuff. Yeah.

Rory Bellina (20:08):
There’s really niche things. I know if we’re doing like Steriles and Sharps, those type of vendor agreements, it needs to be ensure that they’ve got all the certifications, they’ve got all the insurances. If they get fined, they’re not gonna pass down us for improperly disposing of things like that. I know if it’s in agreement with, you know, your IT company or the people that do all your docu shreds or the people that come in you know, dispose of stuff that got a really good BA and they’ve got good insurance. Cause if there’s some sort of breach, we don’t want those fines from OCR to come down to us if they, you know, if they don’t shred something in, it flies out the truck and someone

Conrad Meyer (20:46):
Finds it. And that’s to say that a practice administrator doesn’t have the knowledge training and experience to do that. But I think when you, when you are working on the same team and you have an, a healthcare attorney who is, like you said, like you understands all of these ramifications of the niche vendor agreements that a practice administrator should utilize all of the tools they have in their tool chest. Yeah. And so, you know, I I I I think it’s, it’s it’s wise. Sure. But you know, I mean I’m some, sometimes people don’t wanna do that. So. Right. The problem is, like you said though, how do you, what do you do when you get that oh oops call. Right? And it’s kind of like, well wait a minute, there’s really nothing I can do. You sign the agreement, it is what it is

Rory Bellina (21:31):
And we’ve got a company that’s out of state Yes. With New York law. So now we’re calling attorneys in New York saying, hey, we went out and they say, okay, we’ll pay us, pay us a remainder of your contract in. Right.

Conrad Meyer (21:42):
You got five, you got three years left, pay it all out.

Rory Bellina (21:44):
Yeah. And so those are the calls that, that I hate to get because, and your client gets stuck with it and they end up riding it out being unhappy or their staff is unhappy with the software or whatever it may be. You know, in the, in, if you’re doing your vendor agreements for devices or you know, implants or something like that, looking at, at that exclusivity. Cause if you bring in a, another group of docs and you know, they don’t like device company A stuff and they want device company B, but you just signed a five year deal to order all these implants from device company A,

Conrad Meyer (22:17):
You’re

Rory Bellina (22:17):
Stuck. Well, you know, what are you gonna do? Right? And, and you, you you agree to purchase a certain amount and if you don’t purchase a certain amount, they’re just gonna bill you for the difference. You know, that’s, that’s really big in like the ortho the plastics world spine because a lot of these doctors, they get very loyal to certain brands and certain reps and Yes. And when they move over, they say, well, I don’t want to use a, I want to use B. And so if you, but if you’ve already got a contract with a, you know, what are you gonna do? How can we, how can we make this work to keep the doctor happy with also not breach in agreement?

Conrad Meyer (22:51):
Well, and and that’s, that’s a good point. You know, and, and, and I find the whole business very interesting because you’ve got reps pushing devices

Rory Bellina (22:59):
That that’s definitely another, that’s another,

Conrad Meyer (23:01):
Another

Rory Bellina (23:01):
Another

Conrad Meyer (23:02):
Conversation. Right. But you got these rep reps who, who their livelihood depends on selling quantity. Right. Then you’ve got cutters like their practices who rely on cutting Right. For their livelihood. Right. Right. And then, you know, and then you got vendors who look at, okay, I need to make my cut, my cut too. Sure. So your revenue needs to be on the line otherwise, cuz you know, they’re doing micro they’re doing the the data management, they’re seeing how much, how much claims come in. So if year one, you know, that group has let’s say 10 million of claims and they set their benchmark level at 5%, we’re gonna take 5% sure of the $10 million. Okay. That’s, that’s $500,000. Right. That, that in, in their mind, that’s the fee in year two. Let’s say those claims dropped down to $8 million, well then now they lost a hundred thousand dollars. Right. Well, they’re gonna come back and say, well, you know, hey look, our billing fee was 5% and we were guaranteed X amount of claims. You dropped that, Rob. Either you agree to an amended contract at 5.4% or whatever, 5.2 or 5.5, or we’re gonna terminate you without cause

Rory Bellina (24:15):
Yep. And then you have to good luck start this whole process over.

Conrad Meyer (24:19):
Correct.

Rory Bellina (24:19):
And move over and you’ve gotta change all your, so

Conrad Meyer (24:22):
Either way you take it right. Because we’re going to eat you because you’re gonna have to come back to us anyway. Right. Right. Either you, either you take what we offering now or we’re gonna terminate and then, you know, I don’t care if we lose you or

Rory Bellina (24:33):
Not, and that you’re gonna have to pick a new company onboarding, change all your systems and

Conrad Meyer (24:37):
Then you’re at 120 days.

Rory Bellina (24:39):
Right. Right. So that’s,

Conrad Meyer (24:42):
That’s a big, I

Rory Bellina (24:42):
Think that’s a big deal. I think that’s gonna be the topic with our next guest.

Conrad Meyer (24:45):
It will be, it

Rory Bellina (24:46):
Will be some more facts and circumstances on, on those because yeah, the, these vendor agreements, look, everyone knows that the healthcare is, I think it’s the second or first in, in GDP in the United States. It it’s definitely

Conrad Meyer (24:59):
We’re one fifth at least.

Rory Bellina (25:00):
Yeah. I mean it is, it is where the money is right now and it’s only going to continue to grow as the population ages. So all of these companies see that. So everyone want, I mean you, Amazon’s all the tech companies, everyone wants to get into healthcare. They see that that’s where the money is and the government pays for it. So that’s also another big incentive. There’s not a whole lot of things that the government reimburses for, but healthcare happens to be one of them. So there’s a lot of people that want to get into this air quote space. And so you have to be really careful with who you choose to help you out because if you choose the wrong person, it could be hard to get out of or it could be very costly.

Conrad Meyer (25:38):
So let me just say this, I mean, I, I, I know a lot of times we ask our listeners to send emails or something like that and, and you know, give us comments or suggestions and I’ve got, we’ve got a couple I would ask, you know, our providers who listen to this and who really, you know, if you have an experience with a vendor and you’ve had issues dealing with sim, some of the things that we discussed today that you reach out to us. I mean, I would love to have you on a subsequent show so that you can educate other physicians. Other providers don’t have to be just physicians. It can be facilities, it could be ASEs, it could be anything.

Rory Bellina (26:12):
Yeah. It could be a horrible story about the cleaning company that you had. Yeah, absolutely. And how you had to absolutely get them or, or whoever it is.

Conrad Meyer (26:18):
Yeah. I mean, you know, if you want to come on the show and you want to, you know, talk about experience so that you can educate others and, and, and help other facility managers, hospitals, practices, whatever, not fall into the same bear trap that you did or you just wanna talk about it, we’d love to have you. Yeah. Love to have you.

Rory Bellina (26:36):
Absolutely.

Conrad Meyer (26:37):
You know, I think Rory, I think that’s gonna wrap it. Any final thoughts on vendor agreements for the providers?

Rory Bellina (26:43):
No, just, you know, work with your practice administrator, you know, work with your counsel because they’ve probably seen you know where the holes are and they could help you avoid them.

Conrad Meyer (26:53):
Excellent, excellent. You know, food for thought words for advice from the excellent intelligent Rory Bellina. Anyway, we’re gonna wrap that up, folks. we really appreciate your time letting us come in and, and share our thoughts with you regarding vendor agreements. We’ll be having some special guest for us coming up soon. And until that time, everyone stay safe. Enjoy. Thank you for listening to Health Law Talk.

Intro (27:15):
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