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TouchPoints: Moments that Matter in Healthcare

TouchPoints: Moments that Matter in Healthcare

Di: Melissa Gilkes-Smith
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A proposito di questo titolo

TouchPoints: Moments that Matter in Healthcare explores the critical moments in the patient journey where leadership, operations, and experience intersect.

Hosted by Melissa Gilkes-Smith, patient experience consultant and Founder of Healthcare Management Consulting Group, the podcast features practical insights and conversations with healthcare leaders about improving patient experience, strengthening healthcare operations, and building cultures of care.

Each episode examines real healthcare touchpoints, from scheduling and patient access to communication, leadership, and service recovery, offering strategies that healthcare executives, practice administrators, and clinicians can apply immediately.

If you are passionate about improving healthcare delivery and creating better patient experiences, this podcast is for you.

© 2026 TouchPoints: Moments that Matter in Healthcare Economia Gestione e leadership Igiene e vita sana Management Ricerca del lavoro Successo personale
Episodi
  • The Employee Is the Patient: When Morale Goes Up, Patients Feel It.

    The Employee Is the Patient: When Morale Goes Up, Patients Feel It.
    Nov 2 2026
    Send us Fan MailFeaturing Dr. Derek C. Price, President and Co-Owner of Salia HealthcarePicture an employee arriving at work with shoulder pain she has been putting off for months. She has health insurance. Her employer contributes to it. But every time she thinks about the deductible, the imaging, and the therapy, she decides to wait.Now imagine that same employee finding a participating provider, scheduling an appointment, and receiving a covered service without an out-of-pocket bill.What changes, not just in how she approaches her care, but in how she feels about the organization she works for?That comparison opens this episode of TouchPoints: Moments that Matter in Healthcare, as host Melissa Gilkes-Smith welcomes Dr. Derek C. Price for a conversation about employee experience, patient experience, and the systems connecting them. The episode looks at employee experience from two directions: people trying to use their employer-sponsored healthcare benefits, and the teams helping patients navigate care inside a practice. It asks what happens when financial and administrative barriers shape both sides of the encounter, and what becomes possible when those barriers are addressed. Coverage is not the same as accessAn employer can offer a health benefit. But can employees comfortably use it?Melissa and Derek explore what Salia calls the Access Gap: the distance between having coverage and being able to obtain care without cost and complexity getting in the way. The conversation examines what a difficult-to-use benefit communicates to employees, how delayed care can show up in their working lives, and the questions employers should ask beyond whether they offer insurance.They also discuss Cultural ROI, Salia’s framing of healthcare as a benefit employees genuinely appreciate rather than simply tolerate, and explore its connection to morale, attendance, recruitment, and retention.The question running through this part of the episode is straightforward: Are we offering a benefit on paper, or making care accessible in practice?The team delivering care has an experience, tooInside the practice, the financial conversation often falls to the front-desk person.The copay. The outstanding balance. Explaining a cost the staff member didn't set and cannot change.Melissa and Derek examine what those conversations ask of employees, and what a different check-in experience could mean for their workday. Drawing on the questions raised by Derek’s clinic ownership experience, the discussion connects front-desk responsibilities, staff support, turnover, and the continuity patients experience when familiar people remain on the team. The conversation then moves into the exam room to consider administrative burden, prior authorizations, and respect for clinical judgment. What might patients experience differently when their clinician can devote less attention to navigating the payment system and more attention to the encounter?This is the employee-patient connection at the center of the episode: How we design the work of delivering care becomes part of how patients experience receiving it.From “Can I afford to go?” to “Where should I go?”The patient journey begins before check-in.Melissa and Derek explore Salia Healthcare’s approach to working with self-insured employers alongside their existing health plans, offering covered services through its program at no patient out-of-pocket cost. The conversation follows the experience from finding a provider through the mySalia app to scheduling and arriving for care. They also examine Salia’s focus on what Derek’s materials describe as the front door of healthcare: chiropractic care, physical therapy, family practice, imaging, telehealth, and urgent care.Through Melissa’s patient experience framework, these are questions about Initial Exposure, Inquiry and Scheduling, and Arrival and Check-In. How easy is it to understand where to go? How difficult is the first step? And what changes when the patient’s attention shifts from the anticipated bill to getting help? Melissa frames billing as the touchpoint that can follow a patient home, arriving after the appointment and influencing what they remember about the experience. The discussion asks what changes when a service is covered through Salia and the patient owes nothing. Does removing that financial consideration affect how patients approach the next appointment, continue therapy, or complete a course of care? The practice’s financial experience remains part of the conversation. Melissa asks how reimbursement works when the practice is not collecting from the patient, bringing provider payment into the same discussion as access and patient experience.From there, the episode connects to Pillar 9: the long-term patient-provider relationship. What could greater continuity with a familiar team and fewer financial barriers mean for trust over time? A Culture of Care must work for both patients and employeesFor ...
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    55 min
  • Earned Authority: The Leadership TouchPoints That Build, or Break, Trust in the First 90 Days

    Earned Authority: The Leadership TouchPoints That Build, or Break, Trust in the First 90 Days
    Oct 26 2026
    Send us Fan MailFeaturing Neill Marshall and Kurt Mosley of HealthSearch PartnersThe announcement has gone out. The title is official. A new healthcare leader has arrived.But employees are already asking questions the hiring process cannot answer: Will this person listen? Will they understand what we are dealing with? Will their actions match their promises?The title provides authority. What happens next determines whether the leader earns trust.In this episode of TouchPoints: Moments that Matter in Healthcare, host Melissa Gilkes-Smith welcomes Neill Marshall and Kurt Mosley of HealthSearch Partners to explore Earned Authority™ and the leadership touchpoints that shape a new executive’s first 90 days. The conversation examines the distinction between having the authority to make decisions and earning the credibility, relationships, and trust needed to lead effectively. Drawing on decades of healthcare executive search and leadership transition experience, Neill and Kurt bring complementary perspectives: what organizations need when selecting a leader, and what that leader must understand after arriving. Melissa connects both to a central question for the podcast: How does the way employees experience leadership shape the care patients ultimately experience? What organizations are really hiring forA position description can outline responsibilities and qualifications. But what does it reveal about the organization’s culture, unresolved tensions, or expectations that have never been clearly stated?The conversation begins with the gap between what organizations say they want in a new executive and what they actually need. Melissa, Neill, and Kurt explore cultural alignment, relationship-building, and the emotional landscape of a team in transition.A new leader may see an opportunity for a fresh start. Employees may be carrying hope, skepticism, and memories of promises previous leaders did not keep. This discussion asks how executives can understand that history before trying to change the organization’s direction. Title gives authority. Behavior earns trust.What does earning authority look like in everyday interactions?Melissa and her guests examine leadership presence, visibility, and the difference between relying on a title and demonstrating credibility through behavior. The focus is on how leaders show up in meetings, move through the organization, and engage with the people delivering care.The episode also revisits Leadership by Walking Around, asking what a new executive should be listening to and looking for during those first weeks. Beyond being seen, how can leaders use that presence to understand staff dynamics, operational friction, and the culture their teams experience? Understanding the room before trying to move itThe conversation introduces the 25/50/25 principle as a framework for discussing how teams respond to a new direction: early supporters, those who resist, and a middle group still deciding whether the leader is worth following.Rather than assuming that everyone will immediately embrace a new vision, the episode explores how leaders earn credibility with people who are watching and waiting. What can a small, early action communicate? How should a leader approach resistance? And how can an early win build confidence without becoming a rushed attempt to prove that change is happening?The underlying tension is practical: How do you demonstrate momentum without moving before you understand the organization? Listening for organizational whispersFormal briefings provide one view of an organization. Hallway conversations, shift handoffs, and interactions with frontline teams can reveal another.Melissa and her guests explore “organizational whispers”—the informal information that may never reach an executive through established reporting channels. The discussion asks how leaders move beyond a carefully presented organizational narrative to understand what employees are experiencing.It also considers the uncomfortable realization some executives encounter months into a role: I didn’t know what I was walking into. What cultural dynamics, legacy conflicts, and staff concerns were not visible during the interview process? And how can a new leader begin uncovering them earlier? After listening comes the test: Follow-throughA leader holds listening sessions, asks thoughtful questions, and takes notes. Employees begin to hope that this time will be different.Then what?This episode examines the follow-through gap: the distance between asking for input and demonstrating that the input mattered. Melissa, Neill, and Kurt explore the small, consistent actions that communicate responsiveness, along with the importance of acknowledging the skepticism created by previous leadership experiences. The discussion also addresses what happens when a leader cannot deliver everything employees want. How can executives communicate constraints honestly rather than allowing silence ...
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    40 min
  • Before You Sell, Get Your House in Order: What Physician-Led Practices Must Do to Maximize Value and Protect What They’ve Built

    Before You Sell, Get Your House in Order: What Physician-Led Practices Must Do to Maximize Value and Protect What They’ve Built
    Oct 19 2026
    Send us Fan MailBefore You Sell, Get Your House in Order: What Physician-Led Practices Must Do to Maximize Value and Protect What They’ve BuiltFeaturing Robert Howell, President and Founder of H2M Strategies Inc.You’ve spent years building your practice. You know the patients, the referral relationships, the people, and the work it takes to keep everything running.But when a buyer starts asking questions, knowing your practice is valuable and proving it are two different things.Where are the documented processes? What do your patient retention numbers show? Do your policies reflect what actually happens? And can the organization keep performing without the founding physician holding everything together?In this episode of TouchPoints: Moments that Matter in Healthcare, host Melissa Gilkes-Smith welcomes Robert “Rob” Howell to discuss closing the gap between the practice a physician believes they have built and the business a buyer can verify. The focus is on preparing before due diligence, not scrambling to explain operational weaknesses after a potential buyer discovers them. A profitable practice is not automatically a sale-ready practiceThe conversation begins with the “willpower organization”: a practice that runs on the founder’s energy, personal relationships, and institutional knowledge.What happens when the physician is the only person who understands how the business works? What happens when referral relationships belong to the individual rather than the organization? What happens when critical processes depend on someone remembering what to do instead of a system others can follow?Melissa and Rob explore founder dependency, operational transferability, and the questions these issues raise during a transaction. At the center of the discussion is a distinction: Have you built an organization that can sustain its performance, or one that requires you to keep making it work? Patient experience belongs in the valuation conversationPeople often discuss patient experience as a satisfaction initiative. This episode examines it as part of the infrastructure behind a practice’s value.Melissa connects her Nine Pillars of Patient Experience Framework to the consistency, documentation, and repeatability of the patient journey. Together, she and Rob explore what it means when patients receive a reliable experience across providers and locations, rather than an experience that depends on who happens to be working that day. The discussion also considers online reputation, patient loyalty, and referral relationships. What might review patterns reveal beyond a star rating? How are referral relationships documented and maintained? And how much of the practice’s reputation is supported by organizational systems rather than the founding physician’s personal network?These questions bring patient experience into a broader conversation about what the practice can demonstrate, and what can continue through a change in ownership. Documentation must reflect the practice people actually experienceA policy binder is not the same as a well-run organization.Melissa and Rob examine standard operating procedures (SOPs) across clinical workflows, scheduling, patient intake, billing, referral management, and staff onboarding. The discussion goes beyond whether these documents exist to ask whether staff use them, whether training supports them, and whether they accurately describe daily operations. They also explore policies and procedures through the lens of compliance, accountability, and buyer confidence. A policy that promises a response to patient complaints within 24 hours tells one story. A practice that routinely takes five days tells another.That gap between written expectations and lived experience connects organizational culture, patient experience, and readiness to transact. The episode asks how leaders can identify and address those gaps before they become part of a buyer’s assessment. The financial story needs operational supportThe conversation turns to the systems behind the numbers, including earnings quality, payer mix, revenue cycle performance, and management depth.Melissa and Rob explore what denial rates, aging accounts receivable, and billing processes may reveal about the way a practice operates. They also consider the role of a capable operational leader and whether the business can function without the physician as its only real manager.Rather than treating financial performance as separate from patient experience, this discussion connects both to the processes, people, and accountability structures supporting the practice. Preparing before the buyer arrivesFor physician-owners considering a sale in the next two to five years, the episode explores how to approach preparation deliberately. The conversation considers an initial assessment, prioritization, and the sequencing of patient experience improvements, SOP documentation, policy updates, and financial preparation ...
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    38 min
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