Westley (Wes) J. Bernhardt is a driven, entrepreneurial senior operations executive with a proven track record of transforming organizational performance, enhancing efficiencies, and driving profitability across diverse industries. In his current role as Managing Partner of OnePath Diagnostics, Wes leads with a focus on operational excellence and strategic growth. He applies his extensive expertise to create highly efficient organizations, build loyal and collaborative teams, and foster positive, results-driven cultures.
Previously, Wes served as Vice President of Operations for Aurora Diagnostics, the largest independent anatomic pathology laboratory in the U.S. Wes managed a team of 400, including 30 doctors and four general managers, across six laboratories. He led numerous transformative initiatives, including laboratory mergers, technology conversions, physician recruitment, and market expansions.
A proven leader in operations, Wes continues to deliver innovative solutions that drive growth, operational excellence, and profitability, helping organizations adapt and thrive in rapidly changing industries.
Join us to hear how OnePath Diagnostics found success and accelerated its growth with digital pathology.
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Transcript
Bianca Collings: Hello and welcome to the PathPulse: Pathology Innovators in Action podcast. This podcast showcases pioneers, innovators, and forward-thinking individuals within the digital pathology arena that are actually making a difference in our day-to-day use. I am Bianca Collings. I’m the executive director of the Digital Diagnostics Summit and the Vice President/Head of Marketing for Lumea.
In today’s episode, we’re going to explore the insights and experience of someone that I consider an industry expert and one of the most knowledgeable leaders in laboratory medicine. He is also one of the earliest adopters of digital pathology and has successfully demonstrated how this technology can scale pathology operations in a world grappling with a shortage of pathologists, rising costs, and stagnant reimbursements.
So I’m thrilled to welcome Wes Bernhardt, he’s a Managing Partner of One Path Diagnostics, to the podcast. I’m so happy to have you. I think you’ve been a cornerstone of innovation, you’re a visionary, and you’ve also been also a regular contributor to our expert panels at the Summit. So thank you for your return. You’ve done three years in a row and really contributed to the success of that event. And today, I’m hoping you’ll share some of your success, the secrets to success, and the tools and strategies that have helped you navigate this kind of crazy world that we’re in. So with that, Wes, would you just tell us about you and give a little background.
Westley Bernhardt: Okay, so funnily enough, I grew up in Jacksonville, Florida. My father was a pathologist. That’s the reason I’m in this business. And so when he was in his residency in Miami, he got drafted at the end of the Vietnam War, which brought him to Jacksonville. That’s why we’ve been in Jacksonville since I was four. And even though he was a polio survivor, handicapped pathologist, he got drafted, came to Jacksonville. My brother was born in Jackson AS.
After he finished his time in the military, he went back to Miami, finished residency, and loved Jacksonville so much, he came back here. In 1986, he started a company called Bernhardt Laboratories, which is what really started what we had. And that’s where everything started. Funny enough, though, he saw things changing in medicine. When I got ready to go to college, he didn’t want me to go into medicine. He wanted me to go into business.
Bianca Collings: Really and he’s a doctor!
Westley Bernhardt: He said don’t do it. And the funniest part is he comes from a physician family, one of four kids that grew up in New York. Three of them became doctors. One went into construction, there’s a brother that’s an oncologist, a brother that’s a dermatologist, and then he was pathology. And much of that family has gravitated toward medicine as well. Sons, daughters, daughter-in-laws, so forth, PAs, DOs, you name it. So they’ve continued in that pipeline.
But for me, he said, don’t go to medicine, go into business. And I did. I went to UNC Chapel Hill where I met my lovely bride.
Bianca Collings: Oh, great school. I’m a huge women’s soccer fan too.
Westley Bernhardt: That’s right, national champs this year. Great school, great, great place, great women’s soccer team. And so we went to Carolina, met my wife there, and my daughter went to Carolina. So when I came back, I didn’t even get into pathology at that time.
I spent my first 10 years in healthcare though—I was in insurance investments and corporate benefits. So I was helping people get health insurance, which gave me a whole different perspective when you deal with looking at what people go through when they’re getting health insurance, how they use it, the struggles they have, how do you get a claim paid? What is going on? So I saw a lot of that and I helped people with that, which helped me even more when I joined the provider side. Understanding that, RCM, everything.
Bianca Collings: I get it, okay.
Westley Bernhardt: So when I did that, I was working with risk management and HR. And because of my business background, my dad, in 2003, basically said, “I’ve got this small lab in Jacksonville, I want to make it bigger. I’d love to do something with it.” He was really the visionary.
He’s the one that said, “I want to be a doctor, but I spend so much time doing all this business stuff, I can’t be a doctor. I can’t read slides, I can’t do what, really in this very challenging workforce in medicine, the way reimbursement is going and everything’s going, I need to be able to read slides. I need to be able to do this. I need somebody I can trust that can do this stuff.” And so he asked me to come in.
I ended up becoming his CFO, managing all the business side, working on all of that. And we built this successful practice that had 15 employees and was localized in Jacksonville. We moved into Tampa and Orlando. We built this regional operation in Florida, and it was really doing great to the point where we were going to sell the lab so that he and my mother, who both had some health concerns, could ride off and into the sunset, take some money, enjoy their time, and have some fun.
And unfortunately, in January of 2007, he had a heart attack and passed away suddenly. And so we lost him. And that was a challenge because everybody walked away from the sale. They said, this place is going to fail. You know, it’s just not an option anymore.
Well, fortunately, someone like him who was so smart and such a visionary, he taught us so well on what to do, how to do it, and more importantly, how to be a leader. Right. That’s what’s missing in a lot of things these days is who are the leaders and who steps up when the times get tough, who makes hard decisions on what you’re to do. Cause that’s really what this is about.
When you talk about going to digital pathology, it’s about hard decisions that you know are right. And so we stepped up, we continued what he taught us. We continued to build that practice out, and only got bigger and better.
And in New Year’s Eve of 2009, we sold to Aurora Diagnostics. So that’s where it started. After an earn-out period in 2013, I became Vice President of Operations for the Southeast for Aurora. And I ran all the labs from Greensboro down to Miami. It was about a hundred million dollars worth of labs and had a very successful tenure there while they were private equity-owned until after the private equity had sold to Sonic Healthcare.
We kind of decided that we were going to do our own thing. And Gary Davis, my partner, was there and that’s where it all came together. You know, yeah.
Bianca Collings: What a rich history you have. And I love that you’re this hybrid of a visionary pathologist, but a solid business leader coming together and planting the seeds for what is about to come. And let’s talk about, so your digital pathology venture pre-dated OnePath. Is that correct? Because you’re saying you got the idea, or the vision, for it.
Westley Bernhardt: That’s right. So basically, it was really in about 2020. We were still at Aurora, but Sonic-owned. It was clear that probably Sonic wasn’t the best fit for us and we weren’t the best fit for Sonic. And we were going to look to do something different. And Gary, he’s been through a few labs, too. He helped Ameripath, Global Pathology sold to Aurora Diagnostics. That was one of the labs we ran. He was Vice President of Dermatology Sales for the country for Aurora. And so we kind of knew that we had a yearning and an opportunity to do something different. And we saw that it was getting close to us and we wanted to do something different. So we did.
We started a company, we looked to the future. And even though, when we originally started the premise of the company, it wasn’t about digital, it quickly became about digital, and we knew that’s where we were going to go. So we talked a little bit about it.
Back in the early 2000s, I was with an imaging company and I saw the transformation at that time from film to digital. And you see that and you say, “When will that happen in pathology?” You know, it’s obviously a lot harder, but I saw it coming.
And even at Aurora, we were investigating it. We were looking at Phillips and at Leica and these different instruments with their viewers and they looked at it, but it didn’t have what it took. We knew—it was slow, it was clunky. The storage was expensive; it didn’t move as quickly as the pathologists did, but we knew that technology would catch up at some point. And my experience from seeing it in imaging told me it’s going to be here one day, because they will catch up and have that ability. And when it does happen, it will be the thing. And it’s no doubt you will have more benefits from a computer than you can get from that microscope. So, yeah, so that’s where it was.
Bianca Collings: Absolutely. Okay. You saw it. So when you and Gary came together, this quickly became a part of your business plan, your world, this world you were building.
Westley Bernhardt: Yep. Well, so one of the reasons that came together so well was I had great relationships with my physicians. You know, because I’m used to talking to pathologists, I used to talk to my father and used to talk to these doctors and work with them in all the different laboratories that I was in.
We had, you know, 15 doctors at GPA, we had eight or nine, 10 doctors at Global, Bernhardt, so forth. And you do have great relationships with them. And one thing that was constant was the life of a pathologist is hard. There aren’t so many labs that if you sign a non-compete, a non-solicit, and you lose your job, you’re going to have to uproot your family. You got to move around.
There’s things you’ve got to do that make it tough. And some of them, I had doctors driving sometimes an hour, hour and a half each way just to get to the lab where they’re waiting to hopefully have a stack of slides, they can read through those slides, get through them, and get back to their family because they want to see their kids and they want to see their husbands, wives, you name it. And so it was important for them.
And you look and you say, eventually you lose those doctors that are making those trips, and you’re losing talent, and that attrition is challenging because when you find good doctors, you don’t want to lose them. And so you always tried to look at, how do you provide a better life for these people? How do you make things better? And that quality of life was something that stuck with you that you knew you said one day there’s going to be a way to make this a better situation. And digital was so perfect for it.
And uniquely enough, so many of the wonderful physicians that we have nowadays are women; they’re moms, they wanna meet with their kids’ teachers, they wanna go work out, they wanna have lunch with their husband, they wanna do things that when you’re working, you know, eight hours plus three hours travel, it’s very, very hard.
Bianca Collings: I can only imagine. Being a working mother myself, this remote world that I live in in tech has enabled me to have a very balanced life. So, I can only imagine when, especially when pathology statistically speaking, there’s a decline in pathologists. You bring that lifestyle in and then the opportunity to just scale and do more. Um, it then becomes a different story for the pathologists.
So you had that vision and in a way, it sounds like it was a value prop as you went into this, this new venture with, uh, with Gary.
Okay. So you’ve decided, we’re gonna head down this road. Did you have any idea what you were getting into? Did you know?
Westley Bernhardt: We weren’t sure. Sometimes, you it’s, you got to vet processes, you’ve got to look at what you’re doing. And let’s be honest, sometimes you have a little luck too, it takes all of the above to do it right. But you also have got to be prepared, if you’re a strong leader, that if you do make a bad decision, own up to that decision and make the right one too. Don’t keep going down the wrong road just because you spent money on it or you did the wrong thing. Own up to it.
Make the change and get going because so many people keep going down the wrong road when they’ve made a wrong decision because they’ve invested a lot of time. It’s not going to make it better. So you have got to learn how to change, just do the right thing.
But when we got down that road, I think we did a really pretty good vetting process as to what we were doing because we knew being in heavy dermatopathology, NGI, you know, these heavy-reading physicians, you’re not getting them away from that scope unless you provide an alternative that’s going to be at least equal to it. So our goal was…
Bianca Collings: I like how you say equal to. You didn’t say faster, which we will talk about, but at least what they have.
Westley Bernhardt: Right. That’s right, because we’ve got to remember, if you start with a computer at what they have, it’s only going to get better. OK, you’re only going to get better because your times are going to come when you can customize, get things better. And remember, it’s that day-to-day routine. It’s not these bells and whistles. That’s one of the biggest fallacies of what people choose in digital pathology and why a lot of people make mistakes. You got to do the routine. 90 percent of your daily work has got to be fairly automated and fast.
And so that’s what we look for.
Bianca Collings: Bells and whistles meaning that we’re not necessarily looking for the Mercedes-Benz, but what do we need to do to get from point A to point B to make your life, the day-to-day tasks, feasible. How did you vet? You said you’ve vetted you were looking for the right partners; what’s the process?
Westley Bernhardt: That’s right. Yeah, so basically investigating what was in the marketplace, we even flew out to Salt Lake City. We met with Lumea. We met with Pathology Watch. We met with a few other IMS vendors. We had seen Phillips and Leica both in our own investigations at Aurora Diagnostics. So we were vetting what was out there and trying to find, as we reviewed it, what looks like it can do that day-to-day routine, what’s quick, what’s crisp, what’s a good image, what can we clearly see?
And most importantly, can’t rely on my opinion, I’m not the scientist that’s looking at this on the microscope and making the diagnosis, have people of value that can give the input to help you arrive at the right decision. And that is really, really crucial.
Bianca Collings: You took your pathologist on some test drives? Is that what I’m hearing?
Westley Bernhardt: Yeah, you know, the great thing was we left Aurora with great relationships and great people that are phenomenal pathologists that we knew we could lean on. And they know the same with us. They could come and lean on us. And that’s who we work with today. And it gave us the opportunity to say, hey, take a look at these things. Tell me what you think of these images. Tell me how this process looks. And knowing how good they were, you know, you can take their word to the bank that absolutely, if they give you this, you know where you’re headed.
And we were able to really check a lot of boxes, make sure everything was right. And that doesn’t mean there’s not going to be bumps in the road. But did we get to the right decision? We really felt we did.
Bianca Collings: Okay. Talk to me. Well, what was your formula? Your tech stack.
Westley Bernhardt: Okay. So, obviously, we settled on Lumea. Lumea was our choice for an IMS. Now, mind you, Lumea’s IMS I love. They do a great job. The images are great. The daily work routine, and this is really where people fail. You talk to a lot of IMS companies, and they have, like I said, lots of bells and whistles. There’s things that sound great, but when you add it up and you look at the daily routine, I’m an operations guy. What am I doing day to day and how do I automate 85 to 90% of what I do day to day so that I am lean processing everything?
And that goes down to the same thing when you’re selecting an IMS and doing the routine for your doctors. We needed something that replaced that scope, did it cleanly, quickly, so they could maximize their revenue, but also teach them how the process is gonna change. And so we did that. We found Lumea, it did what we wanted it to do. By no means was Lumea perfect, okay? But nothing’s perfect when you start.
These guys are all coming to market. Everybody’s rushing to market. They’re trying to get there. How do I get something that we can help mold and create and make better? And that’s kind of what we did. But like I said, it wasn’t perfect. You know, we started, and we had some stumbling blocks with the LIS. We did have to change our LIS in the process. And so if we were four months with an LIS, it wasn’t the right LIS for us. So we went and got another LIS.
Bianca Collings: Okay, so that’s part of the tech stack here. You’ve got to find an LIS that worked for you that wasn’t going to hamper you operationally, that also merged with this, this IMS that you felt was the best for your daily throughput. What about your scanner? Just curious. You’ve been through multiple; you don’t even have to say names if you don’t want to, but I’m just curious because these all have their synergy here. They have to work together to meet your needs.
Westley Bernhardt: So it’s interesting, scanner; some of this is where the luck comes in too. You know, I had a close friend who had been with Leica. He’d worked with them. He and I had worked in the past. He’d been in the healthcare business for a long time. He was with 3D Hyst- A-PREDIA, which is 3D Hyst-TEC. And it just so happened that they’d come out with a new P1000. Thousand slides, fast scanning time.
We knew from our experience and our relationships we were going to grow quickly, and we knew we were going to have a lot of slides. So we had to have capacity. We’ve got to handle the capacity. You know, a scanner is expensive, and everyone knows that, you know, a lot of physician groups are looking at this, saying it’s prohibitive to get into digital pathology because of the cost that it takes to get there. So what did we do?
Bianca Collings: I want to talk about that, too. Were you ever intimidated by the cost? Did you know what you were taking on? And you realized, oh boy, this is a great idea. Did you know that the cost was going to be what it was?
Westley Bernhardt: So yes and no, I knew because I saw what it was. Number two, we were fortunate and we were able to develop and get pretty good rates. But you also know when you’re getting into a technological paradigm shift like this, rates are going to change. It’s not going to be there forever because as it continues, more people will come to the market just like they are now. Prices continue to drop. Technology gets better. We’re already seeing that. OK, everybody’s getting more competitive. The more scanners you sell, the lower the cost, the supply goes up.
But it’s a big number to start. But again, we built in—the beauty we had was we started with digital. It wasn’t a conversion, it was we are going with digital right now, which probably gave us an upper hand to move with it, right?
Bianca Collings: Yeah, because you were going from ground, I mean, not necessarily from experience, but you were going ground up. 2020 is only five years ago. And I’ve been shocked, however, in the last two years. What I’m hearing, it’s no longer maybe.. it’s now. It’s not if but when.
And to me, it’s very similar to the electric car in a way. I remember when that first came to market, it seemed unattainable, incredibly high cost. Now, you can pick up 30, 40 grand, it’s comparable. But it’s because of the infrastructure and the competition and the pricing options and government reimbursement, all of it. And we’re seeing that happen in digital pathology now, but someone like you that’s so visionary, you knew it was going to happen.
So why even go a different direction as we’re building this lab, you know, building your group from ground up, like we’re just going to go digital. And I like that you knew you were going to have a high throughput. And so you went with the bigger scanner. That’s great. It’s like the one with the biggest car. Cause you’re going to have a lot of kids. No, I’m just kidding.
So you’ve got this tech stack and how have you been able to scale? Because I have to say that is one thing that really I’ve gravitated towards you because of how savvy you are in the business sense. And I’ve just, you just seem to be growing exponentially. And I’m assuming you would probably not be able to do this without having this digital solution in place. But let’s talk about what it’s done for you.
Westley Bernhardt: Well, and I think you’re absolutely right, and I think the biggest thing is this: when we all talk about pathology, digital or not, the end result is about patient care. Number one is always patient care. So, if I’m going to deliver the highest level of patient care, I need the best doctors. And let’s face it, even though Jacksonville is a great place, and Florida is a beautiful place, you’re not gonna attract everybody you want.
I remember when my dad died, it took me six months. Dr. Massol was part of the University of Florida. Their team helped us for six months while we recruited. I’ve recruited doctors all over the country before. It is not easy. They’ve got families. They’ve got kids in school. They don’t want to uproot their family and move.
And, you know, it’s very challenging, and a lot of them don’t move. They get an apartment, they’re there, and they’re half with you, and they’re half not. Their family’s back. It’s a miserable life. They don’t want to be doing it that way until they figure out what’s going on. You know, sometimes you look, and you think they’re one foot out all the time. And so that was number one.
How do I get great doctors and digital is going to allow me to do that. So I knew I was going to have a cost, but I thought I could still probably get them. It may save me a little bit in the cost of pathology if I provide a better quality of life. There is a point to that. There is a value to that. It’s value-based. And so that had to be sold.
Bianca Collings: So you’re recruiting the highest level of doctors, not just from the Florida area. Now, you’ve blown this up to a national workforce. Talk to me about this unique tech stack that you’ve put together, how it benefits your pathologists specifically, other than just digital sign out. I know there’s other things I’ve heard that you love about your setup.
Westley Bernhardt: So yeah, so I think one of the things once we settled on the right LIS and what we really concentrated on was I didn’t want my doctors having to be, number one, stationary, and not in a cockpit. Okay, which is why Lumea it was great.
Bianca Collings: Well, explain to me your name in my cockpit. I mean, I know, but let’s explain to our listeners what you mean.
Westley Bernhardt: So, so many people said that when you go digital, you’re gonna sit in a cockpit with these big screens, and this is where you’re gonna read. You’re gonna have these two big screens, and you’re looking at your slides and everything. I look at that, and I say, “So you’re still in a dungeon. You’re still attached here. You’re still kind of ball and chain down there. You can’t leave until you’re done reading,” and it’s like, what freedom is that?”
And when we saw that not only was Lumea’s imaging and everything so fantastic, it moved really quickly to provide the speed and storage and everything else we needed, but my docs could be mobile. They could do it on an iPad and with great quality.
I said, “This is fantastic. Now they really do have freedom.” And I didn’t want that cockpit. I didn’t want them stuck in a room with all these screens that they have to go to. I want to be able to do it from anywhere. Because we all knew too, looking at this, one day you’ll be looking at it on your phone.
Bianca Collings: It’s the promise, the same old, you know, we’re no longer tethered or chained to a desktop computer. I’ve got the world at my fingertips and with that iPad, or laptop too, it is the promise of remote. If you still have to come into an office or, I have to be careful, because of regulatory and all that. But yeah, when we say remote, we mean remote.
Westley Bernhardt: That’s right. And I think that was crucial because I think that really gives them that breath of fresh air. And more importantly, we wanted to build them a business that they could own as well. It’s kind of their business working for us. So it’s different too. I don’t have non-compete, non-solicits. If a doctor wants to work, I want to respect that. If they don’t want to work with us, that’s okay. As long as they’re not stealing business from us, that’s okay. So we have something called a non-solicitation of our non-circumvention.
So we just don’t want them to steal what we’ve brought to them. You want to go work for somebody else, that’s okay. I understand it. I would never deprive a doctor of their ability to work. And there’s so many people that get around these non-solicits and non-competes that it’s really pointless.
Let’s preserve what we’ve got. Let’s treat people respectfully. Let’s give them a good opportunity, but that made it easier. They can work from wherever they are. They’re not going to uproot families. They’re going to keep the kids in the schools that they want them to be in. And then they’re going to have flexibility.
Now with that, though, in processing, some of the things that change—you go from batch processing to constant feed. That’s a difference. Most labs batch process, get it all out, get it ready for them. We can feed. They can be reading, they can read a hundred. There’s nothing in their queue and they go, “I’m going to run up and go have lunch with my husband.” They come back, there’s another hundred in your queue. They get back in and it keeps feeding. That’s different.
Bianca Collings: Yes, so it’s very dynamic. It’s static versus dynamic. What, what is the really on that’s that is yes.
Westley Bernhardt: So that’s a mindset change in the lab because forever, labs have been about batch. Now, additionally, the biggest thing was I don’t want them having to go into more than one system. So the LIS is for my staff. The IMS, or Lumea, is for my doctors. So we built a first generation, one-of-a-kind integration.
And let me tell you, not everybody wanted to do it. I had my LIS, which is LigoLab, screaming. I had Lumea screaming, neither of them wanted to do it. I heard both their points, and at the end of the day, it was clear. We’re going with what I want to do, which is we’re going to do it this way. And we got it done. The customization was done, and it worked out great. And I think everybody appreciates it now, once we saw it, but it was so different. Everybody has trouble when they’re looking at something different. Even technology people, everybody, sometimes it’s hard to see that vision if it’s not yours. So it’s okay.
Bianca Collings: That’s very true for integration, absolutely, because we know how involved that is. However, at the end of the day, you get a clean integration, and it truly makes life better. Seamless, faster, all those promises. It just is.
Westley Bernhardt: That’s right. And that was the beauty. So my docs do their signature. They end the case in Lumea. They have to go to one system to do it. It’s all accessed from that iPad. So that makes it very simple and clean and easy. Now, we have continued to customize on both the LigoLab side and the Lumea side as we continue to make it better, to add those bells and whistles that would be nice to have but weren’t necessary for day-to-day routine to get this thing going, to make it a more perfect system.
But we’ve continued to make strides in doing that. And it’s been a really good run.
Bianca Collings: It’s like you’re adding apps to your app store, right? You’ve got the basics and now we can bring in some frills, but you can’t even do that unless you have the foundation for what is required to get the job done.
Before I move on, who’s the specific pathologist or someone that has really benefited… any success story where they’ve come and said, “I’m so happy that I joined your group, that this is a game changer for me.” And you don’t even have to mention them by name, but I mean, just humanizing instead of generalizing the success.
Westley Bernhardt: Yeah, so I mean, I’ve got a couple physicians that come to mind. One’s reading GI for me now, one reads Derm and she’s my medical director. And both had unique situations where things were very challenging. They’ve been with big, big laboratories before and, you know, moved away from home and moved away from family and had situations that, you know, one has family, had family challenges, kids, the whole thing can’t just up and leave and go to the next pathology group.
And one was more quick, it happened quicker and the other one took a little bit of time, but both are really, really happy now. And they’re two of the most exceptional women I know. They’re so smart, and they give great input, and I really respect them; they’re qualitatively, they’re great doctors and they’re great people. And this has really enabled them to enjoy their lives and have a better life with it. So it’s been fantastic.
Bianca Collings: So, really, again, it comes down to quality of life. And I don’t want to say anyone’s giving a poor diagnosis, but it’s a better experience, a better diagnosis.
Westley Bernhardt: Absolutely.
Bianca Collings: So let’s say you have have a colleague, which I know there’s a lot of people that come to you asking for advice and they’re teetering, they’re on the edge. They’re about to take the leap. What would you tell them to push them over the edge?
Westley Bernhardt: Well, number one, I think, like I said, you know, my dad trusted me as a visionary on the business side. I think so many people in this day and age want people to be comfortable. I don’t. I want people to be uncomfortable because you don’t get better unless you’re a little uncomfortable. OK, you have to push people.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not the right decision. If you wait for everybody to be comfortable, you’re going to be waiting forever. We had those comments before. If you know what you’re doing is right, get your scientific background, but make the decision and push forward. If you’re doing it the right way, if you’ve got the sound advice, if you’ve made the right decisions…
But again, this goes back to it. You can make the wrong decisions. You select the wrong IMS, you might get into something, the docs are slowed down, they can’t get things done, they’re slower than a microscope, and they’re going right back to it, and I’ve seen that.
Bianca Collings: And it’s hard to get out of a system, especially if you have paid the blood, sweat, and tears for integrations. How do you back out of that? How do you get out of it?
Westley Bernhardt: Yep. So, I’d say the vetting process is incredibly important. Make sure you’re doing it right. Make sure you check with other people. See if you can use someone’s system before you do it. You know, see if there’s a rent-to-own option. We offer rent-to-own options to people to help them in this decision-making process so they can see what’s out there and understand it because it benefits you so much. Because when you make the decision, it’s hard and you don’t want people to have that bad taste in their mouth.
Because you are going to push them into an uncomfortable state, and they are doctors. They’re very smart people. And when they’re led down the wrong road, it’s going to be hard for them to have trust again. They don’t want to get burned. So it is crucial. They need to have respect and respect you for the decisions, but you need to be a good leader and make the right decisions so they can believe in you.
Bianca Collings: That’s fantastic that you offer them a test drive option or let them put one toe in this pool and see. And I agree it’s like with anything, especially where there’s so much unknown, the sales pitch isn’t just about money, right? In this cost sensitive world, the cheapest option may not always be, I mean, often it’s not your best option.
It’s like the airlines, okay? So I’m getting a really cheap flight, but then I’m like, “Well, I’ve got to pay for my bag. I’ve got to pay for legroom. I have to pay for my t-shirt.” I don’t know. You’re gonna nickel and dime me.
Westley Bernhardt: That’s right. You’ve got to pay for the bag. You’re sitting in the middle seat. You’re in the very last row. And by the way, you know, you’ve been rescheduled four times, and you’re gonna be four hours late. That’s right. It’s a challenge. That’s right.
Bianca Collings: We’ve got to go apples to apples and having a resource like you that, you know, you’re going to tell them straight up. You are not one to beat around the bush, and then you let them test drive what you’re doing and know that also your process may not be right for someone else, but just allowing them to ask those questions and provide that.
Again, it’s another reason why we consider you just such a great thought leader in this space and an expert. And hope you’ll come back to this summit again. You’re honestly always one of the favorite speakers because you’ve gone and done before what others are scared to do. It’s unknown, and it can be costly, but I know there are ways, and you’ve talked about them today, that it doesn’t have to be; it doesn’t have to break you.
And payment plans with scanners and the way that the IMS, the market’s driven down the cost quite a bit, which you knew it would. You said it; you said it five years ago. We’re adapting, everyone’s adapting. So, well, I sure appreciate you coming on today, and again, to the listeners out there, come and hear Wes. We’re gonna get him back to the Digital Diagnostic Summit this September 28th through 30th. Again, we wish you all the luck with your growing business. And again, appreciate you for coming on. Thank you so much.
Westley Bernhardt: Thank you, Bianca. It’s always great to be with you guys. We look forward to the summit, and we will be there.
Bianca Collings: All right, thank you.
