Follow The Brand Podcast with Host Grant McGaugh

Bridging the Gap: Transforming Veteran Healthcare with Ronald Steptoe and Warrior Centric Health

• Grant McGaugh CEO 5 STAR BDM • Season 2 • Episode 29

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Join us as we welcome Ronald Steptoe, co-founder and CEO of Warrior Centric Health, who opens up about his incredible journey from a West Point graduate to a leading advocate for veteran health equity. Discover how this former Pfizer executive is now at the forefront of addressing healthcare disparities for veterans and their families. With a staggering 79% of veterans facing chronic health conditions, Ron shares how his organization leverages powerful partnerships with industry giants like Microsoft and KPMG to drive change and improve healthcare outcomes for this deserving community.

We navigate the intricate world of military health data, examining how historical record-keeping has evolved and the crucial role technology plays today. Learn about the strategic development of platforms designed to integrate military health insights into commercial healthcare systems, addressing the unique challenges veterans face, including PTSD and traumatic brain injuries. By collaborating with institutions like Walter Reed and organizations such as Kaiser Permanente, Warrior Centric Health is reshaping how healthcare providers understand and treat veterans, ensuring their service history informs accurate diagnoses and care.

Dive into the intersection of healthcare equity and financial sustainability, where innovative platforms transition from cost centers to revenue-generating assets. With a strong emphasis on aligning with the National Patient Safety Goals and the Joint Commission's requirements, our conversation uncovers the substantial market opportunities within the military and veteran community. As healthcare landscapes rapidly change, tune in to explore how evolving practices and preventive care can transform healthcare systems, offering both a profitable market opportunity and a profound social impact.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Follow The Brand! We hope you enjoyed learning about the latest marketing trends and strategies in Personal Branding, Business and Career Development, Financial Empowerment, Technology Innovation, and Executive Presence. To keep up with the latest insights and updates from us, be sure to follow us at 5starbdm.com. See you next time on Follow The Brand!

Grant McGaugh:

Welcome to another episode of Follow the Brand. I am your host, grant McGaugh, ceo of 5 Star BDM, a 5 Star personal branding and business development company. I want to take you on a journey that takes another deep dive into the world of personal branding and business development using compelling personal story, business conversations and tips. Development using compelling personal story, business conversations and tips to improve your personal brand. By listening to the Follow the Brand podcast series, you will be able to differentiate yourself from the competition and allow you to build trust with prospective clients and employers. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Make it one that will set you apart, build trust and reflect who you are. Developing your five-star personal brand is a great way to demonstrate your skills and knowledge. If you have any questions from me or my guests, please email me. At grantmcgaw, spelled M-C-G-A-U-G-H at 5starbdm B for brand, d for development, m for masterscom.

Grant McGaugh:

Now let's begin with our next five-star episode on Follow the Brand. Hello everyone, I'm Grant McGaugh, ceo of Five Star BDM, where we help you to build a five-star brand that people will follow. I want to welcome you today as we explore the journeys, challenges and triumphs of leaders who are driving transformative change in their industries and communities, and today's episode is one you don't want to miss. It's about a group of people who have given so much to this country but are too often overlooked in critical ways. I'm talking about our veterans. This episode isn't just a conversation, it is a call to action. Today we are diving into an issue that affects millions of veterans and their families. We're talking about healthcare inequities. And did you know that 79% of veterans face at least one chronic health condition, compared to 50% of the general population? And that's just one tip of the iceberg when it comes to the challenges they face in accessing the care they need.

Grant McGaugh:

And I'm honored to be joined by Ronald Steptoe, co-founder and CEO of Warrior Centric Health, an organization that is redefining how healthcare systems serve the military community. Ron is a man of action and vision, a Westport graduate, a former Pfizer executive and a lifelong advocate for health equity. Through Warrior Centric Health, he has developed a powerful platform that bridges the gap between healthcare systems and the unique needs of veterans, active duty service members and their families. Today, ron will share startling data that demands our attention, from the gaps in healthcare intake forms to the disappropriate rates of chronic illness in the veteran community. But, more importantly, he will introduce solutions scalable, innovative solutions, backed by partnerships with industry leaders like Microsoft and KPMG, that empower healthcare organizations to improve care outcomes while meeting regulatory goals and driving financial success.

Grant McGaugh:

This episode is for anyone who wants to make a difference Healthcare leaders looking to improve equity, veterans and their families seeking better advocacy, or anyone passionate about supporting those who have served our nation. And trust me, by the end of this conversation, you will see why Warrior Centric Health is leading the charge in this critical mission. So, whether you're tuning in from your office on your commute or your home, get ready to be inspired. Your commute or your home, get ready to be inspired. Together, we can shine a light on this vital issue and, more importantly, work toward real, actionable solutions. So let's dive in on the Follow Brand Podcast, where we are building a five-star brand that you.

Grant McGaugh:

Welcome everyone to the Follow Brand Podcast. We're going to take it all the way to DC. I love DC. There's so much going on in DC. We just had some gigantic elections Good, bad or different, it is what it is and we've got to move the ball forward Now. I met my next guest at the NAHSE conference in Fort Lauderdale. He was in my town so I got to be there and he was one of the first speakers that I encountered and I was blown away by some of the things that he was talking about, especially when it comes to our veterans and healthcare, and I wanted him to have this candid discussion around what he does, why it is important, and for our audience to truly tune in. So I'd like to introduce you to Ronald Steptoe. Do you like to introduce yourself, ronald?

Ronald Steptoe:

Hey, grant, it's an absolute pleasure to be with you today. I enjoyed our time down in Fort Lauderdale again at the conference. And so I'm Ron Steptoe. I'm the co-founder and CEO of Warrior Central Health. The company is based in the Baltimore Washington area, specifically Ellicott City, so in between Baltimore and Washington, but it's a dynamic medical DOD tech. So all the things you can think about about Washington DC and Maryland and Virginia area, it's all that in this particular area, and I grew up in the area. I had a chance to go to West Point, I met my wife there, and so we settled back here in the DC area the past 30 years and really dug into the healthcare and health tech space.

Grant McGaugh:

This is wonderful and I like that. I like to get a little bit of that background story. That's the first question I want to talk about. That's the Warrior Centric Health. That is your company. You started it a while back, but there's a why. Why did you feel this was important for you to get started, and what is the organization all about?

Ronald Steptoe:

So, Grant, that's a great question. So, if you look at Warrior Cent, Central Health, one of the things that I had the pleasure of being able to do when I was in industry. So this is giving you a background. Again, as I mentioned before, I'm a West Point grad. After I finished the academy, had a chance to obviously serve the nation and after the first Gulf War, which ended in 1990, 1991, my wife and I transitioned out and I began to work for a company by the name of Pfizer in the pharmaceutical industry. So I started there at 26 years of age and it's an interesting, it's material what I'm about to share with you, because I remember having what we call our glossy and our slicks as I'm walking into Harvard University Hospital one of my accounts, obviously, hcbu Medical School.

Ronald Steptoe:

Then you know hospital and I go to the physicians and I say, hey, look for this particular medication, this is the dose that you need. And they look at me and say, young man, I understand what your slicks are saying. But let me tell you what I have to do to actually get the blood pressure. I have to use double the dose or three times the dose to get the same effect. And at that point I had a real on-the-ground understanding that while we may do certain things the same way for patients, we may have to treat them differently to get the same equal results. And I learned that at the age of 26.

Ronald Steptoe:

I stayed in the industry, in the pharmaceutical industry, for about 14 years, so I left at 40.

Ronald Steptoe:

So really a critical part of my maturation in business as well as a professional, and one of the things I was fortunate to be able to do my last eight years working in the industry and the pharmaceutical industry, but specifically for Pfizer, is I led the national ad hoc team, what we call the multicultural business team, what we know today as healthcare equity, healthcare disparities. I actually designed the business model for how we were going to address that. So that's where I was able to connect the dots between hey, there is this disparity, there are these inefficiency, where is the business related to brain efficiency? And I began to look at that at a very early age for understanding kind of the science and medicine at 26. And from 30 to 40, really getting into the business of it. I'm now 59 years old, I'm one in the 60. And so it's been a lifelong journey to be here today. But I think those are some foundation components to kind of understand what took me on this journey to get here.

Grant McGaugh:

Heck of a story, to understand what took me on this journey, to get here Heck of a story and to realize that medicine, just like in a lot of things, you can't treat everything the same way. There's a precision to certain things and then there is some customization, some personalization that needs to take place, so it's just not cookie cutter. I want to understand this challenge. One thing I know that you did back in Fort Lauderdale was around the fact of the data that was coming out around health equity and the federal world and the healthcare world. I found the information to be startling. Now, for me, maybe it's not. I don't think so. Talk to us a little bit more about that bridge and that gap and the challenges that you come across when you're bridging underrepresented minorities in the healthcare system.

Ronald Steptoe:

So I think a few things. One when we look at the military community, I think the thing to start out with is we were, and are, the healthiest Americans to go into the service. There's a lot of different qualifications, and only less than 25% of folks actually meet the physical qualifications and other qualifications. They have to actually even join the military. Okay, so let's put that there. The challenge is the military is exempt from OSHA requirements during training and deployment. How can you have OSHA do what we do? Okay, if we were any other corporation in America, they shut us down tomorrow.

Ronald Steptoe:

Why are you having these people work in these conditions? But, again, our job is to run to danger, whether that is the National Guard running to national emergencies or natural disasters that we have the military doing what they do firefighters, law enforcement they're a group of people that run to danger on behalf of society. Okay, so let's put that there. What that then means, though, is that, because of the nature of the work and the prolonged exposure rates of cardiovascular disease, cancer, ambulatory issues, orthopedic issues, respiratory health issues it's significantly higher anywhere from 10% to 30% to 40% higher than the general population, and so what is important to recognize in that context is that that is really one of the key components that makes us a vulnerable population is because of the disparity and the higher prevalence of health conditions that we have compared to the general population, and people just maybe haven't thought about us in that way in the aggregate, Very important.

Grant McGaugh:

You bring up a good point. I mean it should be just like in front of us. It's like firemen police. They go into certain areas, certain situations that the normal population does not, and then you're going to have adverse effects that come out of that. But you brought up something and I'll never forget this, because you're a data guy, I'm a data guy. You've got a proprietary platform that we'll talk about as well and you were saying hey, just on, you go to the hospital, you just any healthcare. You get a form and in that form you've got to fill it out and on that form, some of them not all of them, but some of them don't really talk about your military experience as a part of the intake. Now you talk about your past history, your family history. You understand comorbidities that might be or not be. If this is not there because that's missed, then you have adverse effects come out of that. Talk to us about that. And then talk to us also about your proprietary system that you made with your business?

Ronald Steptoe:

Yeah, so I think that's an interesting another interesting question. So let's kind of walk this back a little bit. So first, only about 57% of hospitals ask the question have you served? And less than 10% do anything with the information, according to an American Hospital Association Institute for Diversity report. Okay, so we recognize that as a specific challenge. The reason that is has been a challenge and is a particular challenge today when we talk about the warrior community.

Ronald Steptoe:

When I say the word community, I include veterans, active duty, national Guard, reserves and their families. The reason that's a challenge in today's world when we look at social determinants of health is some of the key areas that we are now in our health systems. Monitoring is what is the occupation, what is the education, what is the transportation of patients, what does the housing look like? Because we know from the front end of things, these social dynamics actually have an impact on health. In fact, 80% of health is really related to the social determinants of health. There's one other area, though, that we don't speak that much about and I think is a critical area that is we're trying to bring forward in discussion and that's environment. What has been the built and work environment and the lived environment that someone is in? And that's where the military and veteran community, when we don't ask that question, becomes a key issue that we're not capturing. So the fact that we don't ask the question about military service or military affiliation to include the families is what's creating that gap right up in front. So let's again walk back a little bit further. After World War II, we actually actually I'm going to walk back even further After the Civil War, we actually, as a nation, particularly from the union side of the house, we actually as a nation, particularly from the union side of the house, actually tracked the lifespan of individuals that had served in the military.

Ronald Steptoe:

In fact, there was a study of about 35,000 individuals, and they followed them throughout their life and what they were able to do was to say how does trauma impact someone's health condition? And so we looked at four areas Were they a POW? Were they injured during the service of the Civil War? What was their age? And then how many people were killed in their unit the POWs if you're injured that has a material impact, or in the health conditions that you have, whether it be cardiovascular, gi, nervosa, you know various other things that represent the central nervous system. And they then looked at the age. What a lot of people don't know is we have people fighting in the Civil War that were nine years old up to 17. That was one of the early age brackets and obviously staggered all the way through to 31. What they found is that people between nine and 17 that lived a long life wound up having higher health, higher incidence of various chronic health conditions than if they were older. And then the number of people that got in your unit had an impact which will impact on your long-term health outcomes and they actually track people by, whatever their profession was, whether they're a farmer, whether they're a carpenter, whether they were.

Ronald Steptoe:

This my point is as back over 100 years ago we thought social determinants of health was important In the context. Now, moving forward to now, the electronic health record, looking at close Vietnam, World War II excuse me, we used to ask the question when that you served. When Vietnam era came, there was a lot of stigma around military service, and so somehow it just started to be taking out the records of asking people about that, and so we transitioned to electronic health records. We just miss it, One of those situations where we wind up finding ourselves where we just, you know we found ourselves in who knew we were going to 20 years of war, and so all these things coalesce to where we have this massive gap and where central health's role and responsibility is to one address that, and I can now talk about the platform.

Ronald Steptoe:

I wanted to kind of give a historical perspective. Oh, great, great, how things do under the sun. We've known how the block and tackle relative is, and we just need to tighten a few things up, and we think we have the capabilities and technology to do that now.

Grant McGaugh:

Well, this is what's important. You have to have the background story and understanding what's there I'm intrigued about. First of all, you say you're a company of vehicles, and then you identify the gap and then you eventually got into your own business and what you're doing now is develop this platform. It takes a lot to do. I want you to talk about that platform, what the data that it's capturing and what its output or outcome that people get out of it, and why people organizations like Ventures, fairs and others want to do business with.

Ronald Steptoe:

Yeah, thank you, I appreciate that. So, interesting enough, when the 2008, people may remember, we had been at work about seven years there was a big scandal at Walter Reed as it relates to not having the capabilities to really care for everyone, and so there was a report called the Invisible Wounds of War Report that was commissioned by the RAND Corporation to put together, and one of the four recommendations was that there need to be a uniform platform, or at least education, that would train folks on understanding this new phenomenon of PTSD post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury because we're seeing a lot more of that as well as military culture, and again from my background what I was doing in the pharmaceutical industry.

Ronald Steptoe:

I was like, oh, I know what this is and I know how to build what that recommendation was. So we really had a blueprint already on what needed to be built. But they said there needed to be some type of platform that would educate not only the DOD the Department of Defense, the Veterans Administration but also commercial health care, because service members, vendors and families are touching each one of those three.

Ronald Steptoe:

So we had a chance to get in contact with Walter Reed we submitted an honest list proposal saying we have some ideas on things we've been doing in industry to bring into the military and we've got a contract to actually begin to develop this idea, this concept of how we really bring together, integrating some of the data. We're refining the gaps.

Ronald Steptoe:

Once you identify the data gaps and the clinical gaps. How do you create the clinical medical education specific to the military needs? And then how do you develop a platform that actually began to develop communication tools, not only for the providers but to patients? So we really were an IP intellectual property business starting out on the ground wall to read, and we have since won eight DOD contracts in the R&D space. So we stayed very, very close, not specifically on the VA side but on the Department of Defense side. Yet we do have some data partnerships with the VA.

Ronald Steptoe:

We still have access to a lot of the studies they do because, again, they've got longitudinal studies they've taken and have developed and the question is how do you modify that information into a commodity of education that parents can consume, not only within the Department of Defense, but also in the commercial sector and particularly within the VA as well? So, if you think about it, we're an IP engine, we're an intellectual property engine. We look at the data, we scour the data, we scour policy statements, we scour and determine what are the best practices that folks say should be built, and then we put in place the tools and solutions on what the policy people say should be built. We didn't go built. So we're not building in the blind, we're building to policy.

Grant McGaugh:

Yes, yes, this is important and you bring up another good point, because veterans aren't just. You know. Once you serve and you get out, you go into the commercial world, enterprise world and you know you're making your way. Some take advantage of veterans' benefits, some don't. They just do regular insurances and that kind of thing. So you have specific data that a lot of these other health systems or HIT systems don't have. Hit systems don't have. Therefore, because you've built partnerships with KPMG and Microsoft and some others, why is your data so valuable to these types of groups?

Ronald Steptoe:

That's another really intriguing question. The interesting thing is that data actually is out there and exists. The government's been studying us. I tell you, they've been studying us since the Civil War. Okay, we call ourselves G-men and G-women. They got our social security numbers. They knew exactly where we lived. They keep track of us and, interesting enough, knowing that there's data on us sitting with the CDC, sitting with the VA, with the DOD, with CMS, with other agencies, we actually go find that data. We with CMS, with other agencies, we actually go find that data, we actually pull it out. But it's sitting in raw Excel spreadsheets.

Ronald Steptoe:

No one ever thought about bringing it together. We have some algorithms and things that we do to say, okay, let's align this data. So we mine and align. It's like data on our population and that alignment then begins to tell a story. That story then begins to tell you. So, for example, we can tell you, based on the data in a particular geographic area, down to the zip code, how many service members are in a particular or veterans are in a particular marketplace, what branch of service they work, what their ages are in the aggregate, what their race is, what era of service they were serving in, and that era of service will tell you what they were exposed to in various parts of the world.

Ronald Steptoe:

We didn't know. Based on those toxins they were exposed to in the various parts of the world, what health conditions are going to come off of that. So for Vietnam, it was Asian horn, causing some respiratory issues and some cancers, and Iraq and Afghanistan was oil wells in the first Gulf War and burn pits in the second, as well as sandstorms. So that really begins to frame out what health conditions may actually come off of that. We walk into a health system presumptively with that information and so we're saying with this number of people from this era, you know, let's say they may be Gulf II or the global war on terror versus Gulf I and Gulf I there has been exposed to all fires. What's going to cause this? You should be looking and training your docs on these issues.

Ronald Steptoe:

The Gulf II actually is a war on terror. They saw a bit more of these. These are the health conditions, even with the PACT Act. The PACT Act that was just passed in 2022 specifically listed 13 respiratory health conditions and 13 answers that actually now are presumptive if an individual was step one foot over there doing their time in service and they have these conditions. They're presumed to have that. So this data all exists and the PAC Act is a law and they have the VA saying you need to move forward in this. Here's the key thing Majority of veterans of the 18 to 19 million veterans only 9 million to 19 million veterans, only 9 million are registered with the VA for health care services.

Ronald Steptoe:

Only 6 million get their care at the VA on an annual basis. And here's the key statistic Of that 6 million, only 12% of male veterans get their care at the VA. Only Only 20% of female veterans get their care at the VA only. So nearly 80% of veterans are getting some or all their care in the commercial sector. And so, if we've had all these exposures 79% incidence of at least one chronic disease versus 50% of general population and we are asking the question how can you possibly give a correct differential diagnosis? That becomes a quality and a safety issue.

Grant McGaugh:

I would agree with you 100. And, as you just stated, that I begin to look at, wouldn't the payer community want to have that data, to have that data because they've got a population model or whatever they're using for their framework in that particular sector? Hey, you know what? We've got a huge veteran population here and that we're going to have to serve and we need to understand what the conditions may be so that our pricing and how they do contracts and things like that. I find that very valuable. Have you found you have discussions with the payer world and said, hey, you need to come and talk to us, right, let's sit down and have a conversation.

Ronald Steptoe:

So it's public knowledge. We did some work with Kaiser Permanente, so they actually are very interested in this, as well as Vizient. In fact, vizient published a particular paper which is called the Veterans Field Guide, and what happened was in 2014, 2016,. We worked on a data project with Lehigh Valley Health Network and they had some military folks that were there.

Grant McGaugh:

And.

Ronald Steptoe:

Lehigh Valley was really, from what I could could see and I've been all around the country was the first health system to uniformly begin. They asked a question have you served? At the time they had five hospitals so they actually went in, adjusted their ehr, but most people don't know it's not audit the veteran while it may be an epic concern, it's not automatically turned on.

Ronald Steptoe:

You have to go turn it on, okay. And then, even if you turn it on, does it ask a series of questions like when did you serve? Where did you serve All those things? So that's a gap that's in the market right now that we're addressing. Anyway, they began to ask the question have you served? And here's what they found out. We walked in with the data saying 7% of your population are veterans. When they began to actually look at the data, they found that 10% of their inpatient and outpatient foot traffic came from 7% of the population. When they looked at the GRGs okay, to actually look at the diagnostic codes that they were serving they found that 13% of the revenue came from 7% of the people. We ended the assessment and looked at the readmission rates. Veterans had a 36% readmission rate versus 25% of the general population. So we fight above our weight class in bringing revenue to the table. From a cost perspective, we have a disproportionate number of higher prevalence on the 36%.

Grant McGaugh:

So no health system wants to take the money off the table. The question is how do we do better?

Ronald Steptoe:

So I think you're right, the insurance payers would be very interested in understanding this marketplace.

Ronald Steptoe:

And again, that was just the veterans.

Ronald Steptoe:

I didn't include the National Guard Reserve active duty in that.

Ronald Steptoe:

So it's a very interesting and, I think, a vastly misunderstood opportunity, financial opportunity for hospitals and health systems, and that's what we want to bring out to them to say, while you're addressing healthcare equity, healthcare disparities, with the new CMS requirement for health equity, with the National Patient Safety Goal for healthcare equity, with the Joint Commission, while there is the requirement to meet those regulatory and accreditation requirements, we think that there is a tremendous market opportunity to better serve this patient group and one of the things we say that our IPMH platform Integrated Military Population Health Platform facilitates, definitely on the commercial side of the house, is a way to have health systems and hospitals if you don't mind, somewhat be the USA of healthcare, powered by our platform in the local market, because USA, a military veteran community, has a tremendous brand connectivity.

Ronald Steptoe:

I mean, majority of service members have some connection to include our families, but we believe that that model and that modeling and reference to brand connectivity, especially in health systems, are really becoming brands. How do you connect that? And so our platform allows and facilitates hospitals to be able to do that in their local market.

Grant McGaugh:

Ready to elevate your brand with five-star impact? Welcome to the Firebrand Podcast, your gateway to exceptional personal growth and innovative business strategies. Join me as I unveil the insider strategies of industry pioneers and branding experts. Discover how to supercharge your business development. Harness the power of AI for growth and sculpt a personal brand that stands out in the crowd. Transform ambition into achievement. Explore more at FirestarBDMcom for a wealth of resources. Ignite your journey with our brave brand blueprint and begin crafting your standout Firestar teacher. Today you got me really interested and I want you to talk to me, as I am the CEO of a major health system that in a lot of these systems now aren't just providers, they are payers as well. So both, like you mentioned with Kaiser, you know. So this model is happening, but we've got to be able to serve people, and to serve people in an equitable way. How do I get you integrated into my system? What's the process of bringing you in, setting you up and then realizing the benefits of your program?

Ronald Steptoe:

I think, first of all, there are two things that we try to explain, and what we did with our platform was align it to something that hospitals have to do Because right now they're so busy. I mean, so many new technologies, new platforms are coming coming. How do you make a choice? They just don't have time and space, so we're very I think it's very fortuitous for us to be able to say okay, wait a second. Our platform really aligns in principle with each one of the elements of the national patient safety goal to improve healthcare equity that the joint commission has come out with, each one of the six pillars, the first one being that, hey look, we need to identify a leader. Number two, we need to stratify the health related social needs. Number three, we need to determine what the gaps are. You then need to determine what are the best practices for processes and training. You need to evaluate your action plan. That needs to be written down. You need to assess that action plan and need to report that out. Well, through our partnership with Microsoft, all of our IP that facilitates that sits in almost every computer or every hospital and health system. They all have Microsoft. So, literally email password, you're into our platform? Pretty simple. Two how do you then make sure that, while the intellectual property on the data and the education and communication tools are being dispersed and programmatic way to align with the National Patient Safety Goal very correctly with the Joint Commission and CMS requirements, how do you then make sure you have the proper incumentation science? And that's where KPMG comes to the table. They're excellent at making sure that we're able to have that assessment. So it's a collaborative teamwork where we're using the National Patient Safety Goal as a thing that the hospitals have to do.

Ronald Steptoe:

The question is, they have to pick a population. So is that going to be people of color? Could it be LGBTQ? Could it be the elderly? Could it be maternal care? What we say in our context is that the majority of those individuals are in our community anyway. So if you're picking us first, at least pick a second, because we represent America. So that's point number one. In reference to a regulatory accreditation requirement, you have to do something. So this is the population. Then there's also the business side. The business side is wait a second. 97% of service members have some level of insurance. Compared to the high 80s or 90% of the general population. You have more chronic conditions, you're going to get them earlier and that means you're going to tap my cardiology, respiratory health, oncology, orthopedics as a hospital and health system as an.

Ronald Steptoe:

IDN, you could be touching a lot of my touch points, a whole lot more than the general population and your insurer might get you younger and I get a chance to manage your health and optimize that no one ever put our population in that type of framework before.

Ronald Steptoe:

And when you look at the military and veteran community again, our families serve as well. They have stressors as well. So you get a chance to again ensure this market. That represents, in the aggregate, about 25% of the US population, and if you look at the insured value of just again, that's about 75 to 80 million people. Let's just put a $5,000 price tag on per person. We know it's more, we know it's 8,000. Let's use five, that's $300 billion of annual insured value. That is flowing through hospitals, many of which they don't even know exist and they haven't connected their brand to it. So it's a market to grab.

Ronald Steptoe:

And then number two that is $100 billion more than the entire oil and gas revenues in the United States. So it is an incredible market opportunity in addition to an opportunity to fulfill a regulatory requirement and, at the end of the day, from a social perspective, we're taking care of those folks that run to danger on our behalf. So you're fulfilling also a public safety and national security, fulfilling on, I say say, the mission of making sure that our nation stays secure, because not many people run to danger and we don't take care of them. That could create some challenges for us moving forward in the future as a nation.

Grant McGaugh:

I totally agree with that. You took two of my buckets in that. First of all, it's profitable, it makes financial sense, and then it has social impact. It has, you know, the impact of social good. Uh, it is there, the goodwill that we need in the community and the branding of that uh that you can, you know, lead with hey, we are, um, prioritizing our veterans for their health, your safety, as you just said. They went out. They put their life on the line for us. At least we can put our life on the line for them and make them a priority and say, hey, here's our veteran track for you and your health here. This is what it looks like. That makes a lot of sense. Now I want to ask you this from a pricing perspective. I said, yes, I love what you're saying. Let's bring you in. Are you a model that is a monthly rate occurring that I'm paying? Is it a one-time cost? Talk to me about the pricing model.

Ronald Steptoe:

Yeah, that's great. So one of the things we've done is we've aligned our pricing model along with the every three year that the joint commission is coming in. Ok, so it's a three-year platform because, again, change management takes time and so we place it in such a way that the institution has the ability to flex and move in that context over the three-year period of time. So it's a subscription-based model. We have it outlined. Let's say, for example, a major, big hospital system. They've got thousands and thousands of people right and I'll break down the pricing. This is more of a big hospital, not necessarily medium or small, but let's take the big one. It's about a $660,000 over a three-year period of time. Okay, but remember, over a three-year period of time, that's about $220,000.

Ronald Steptoe:

Now, from our perspective, as it relates to having to identify a population, meet the TJC requirements, the Joint Commission requirements for an additional base of safety goal, that's an FTE and a half. That if you're not using our platform with everything already built the implementation team, the technology to come you're going to have to build that, and for an FTE and a half we already had that going. The upside of that is you have tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars sitting in your marketplace. By leveraging our platform, we give you the marketing tools, so we always tell folks to take a look at it. If you look at the spend, why is it being less than half of a percent of the market opportunity that you're going to try to go after? So that's what makes us different than many other tech platforms that you see coming in. We aren't a cost center, we are a profit revenue generating center. We are a technology and a platform that brings a market, and you very rarely see that in health technology.

Grant McGaugh:

That's true. That's true Most of the time. Most organizations look at technology as a cost center and not revenue generated. But that's such an outdated model in my opinion. When you start looking at today's NASDAQ and you look at the top companies that are there, they're generating enormous amounts of revenue on a technology platform. How can you look at that as just a cost?

Ronald Steptoe:

Can I add on that?

Grant McGaugh:

It's interesting what you bring that up, so I want to merge a few things and ideas.

Ronald Steptoe:

So I'm very fortunate. This top here is for West Point. This next one here is for Oxford University. So I was very fortunate to be a part of a group that goes to Oxford University every year to talk about innovation and one of the things is the byproduct of us actually participating and me being one of the initial 50 American business people to be a part of that ecosystem. 90% of the S&P's value is in its IP. It's not as brick and mortar anymore. The S&P's value is in its IP. It's not as brick and mortar anymore. It used to be maybe 70% in the 1970s, but today 90% of the value that is in the stock market and particularly S&P 500, is IP.

Ronald Steptoe:

What we allow to Warrior Centric Health is to transfer our IP into a health system's capability. So now they're leveraging our IP as their IP to tap into that marketplace utilizing technology technology they already have, they're already aimed for it. We've just plugged our IP into it. And the interesting thing about Microsoft most people don't know is they have a healthcare division and one of the key areas they have a focus on is population health and health equity. Apmg has a full health equity division, so people recognize that this is a space. This is important. The health care is critical for our nation to hopefully help us be able to moderate this increase in GDP in reference to a percentage of GDP that healthcare has, and one of the ways to do that is making sure that we bring equitable care as the nation becomes more minority, majority, and so I think it's really, really important I hadn't kind of thought of it this way but what we do in view to our keepers, our IP, so they can leverage their IP as their IP to actually move forward in their local markets.

Grant McGaugh:

It's so important to understand the value chain and where we're going. You both know, we all know, that healthcare is very expensive and the current model is outdated. And we got the chance and there's no question about that. We have an elderly population. My stepfather is still living. He's in his 80s serving Vietnam.

Grant McGaugh:

And I didn't think about all these other aging points and other stuff, but I didn't think about so. Many others have served in that type of thing and they're doing all kinds of things Now. They're no longer connected to the military, so to speak, but they're carrying around those traits and things that they don't even know or unknowns that are there. But if our health system understands it, because preventive care has become so big, if I can catch it early, I can help, because urgent care and critical care and long-term chronic disease is what's driving up all the costs. So it becomes our favor to get this early. You have a great platform for doing that.

Grant McGaugh:

I have not heard of many and I've been in the health tech technology space for a long time. I like your use case and what you're bringing to the table and you're showing hey, adopt this technology, adopt this platform and you can generate new revenues. And you just alluded to what's on the NASDAQ, what is the IP? You've got to utilize this IP to leapfrog you ahead and you know the margins in health care are very, very slim. Why not improve that?

Ronald Steptoe:

Right, it's interesting you bring that up. I appreciate you saying that, brad, because you're really driven to a particular point, and let's use another use case, ok, to show how this can really have a critical inflection point Women's health. What was women's health 50 years ago? It? Wasn't a thing, but you very rarely can find a health system that doesn't have a women's health practice today, right, why is that important?

Ronald Steptoe:

Because at the time we didn't have the technology and everybody was doing what they thought their version of women's health was and was very disparate. So it evolved, but it took time to do it and now we see it as a major population health practice area. What we're saying today and we're starting to see this with our LGBTQI populations as well Realize that, wait a second. Certain groups of people have different experiences and so we see these population health areas that are emerging, we're saying, in the context of the military and veteran community. It's very dynamic, it's real, significant health challenges, but also opportunities.

Ronald Steptoe:

But we can leverage technology now to be able to scale uniformly using our platform, so everyone doesn't have to do their own different thing. How are we learning from each other? How are the best practices? So I use the women's health as a basis of what we had to do, and we don't have to get a donor to build a building. Let's just input the IP into the organization as you feel necessary and allows for an incredible efficiency as we're bringing patients in, because we didn't have to have that hardcore brick and mortar build anymore. Let's input the IP into the brick and mortar you already have.

Grant McGaugh:

Yes, yes, yes. So what you have with your business, and what I see from my lens, is that you have ease of use. Right, you have ease of use, you have proof of concept, it works, and now you have awareness. People need to be aware of your capabilities and then how to utilize it. So my last question is very simple question how do we get in contact with you, ron? Because we need you in a book of media to have you come on in here and have a conversation.

Ronald Steptoe:

Well, I appreciate that. So obviously I can be reached at ron at warriorcentrichealthcom. Obviously, you can be reached on Twitter, linkedin and Facebook as well, but direct email to myself would be great, or admin at Warrior Central Health will get to my system and she will forward that one to me. But I appreciate the opportunity. I think that this is a tremendous time for us in this nation. I think it's a tremendous time for us to move ourselves forward and I think with technology, with partnerships, we have a tremendous opportunity to move the needle and really allow for some incredible transformations to take place.

Grant McGaugh:

Absolutely. You've opened my eyes. When I first was introduced to you and your business, I kept thinking of it from a military standpoint. That, all right, it's just in the service world, not looking at no, there's a veteran, so there's a veteran. You know, you're in everywhere. They're everywhere. They're not just connected to the active service, as you were saying before. It's not just a federal government type of application that you have. It's actually very commercial, very enterprise-centric. That includes all these different levels, because it's people-centric and you're focused on this population that is underserved. How can we do that and this? And before I let you go, you mentioned something to me earlier, so important. We just celebrated Veterans Day earlier in November, but you have stated that it's looked upon a little bit differently. Talk to us about that.

Ronald Steptoe:

Yeah, so we've recognized that obviously Veterans Day, while absolutely awesome for us to recognize that, we now have Veterans and Military Families Month. So you know the nation the US will give us credit compared to other nations, but many other nations don't revere the people that serve as we have done in this country. So we obviously have Veterans Month, which is awesome, but we also have Memorial Day that comes up and we have the Fourth of July that comes up. So you know we've got this. We have this awareness, which is really, really cool, but the fact that we focused on a particular month of November is awesome. So this is very, very timely and I appreciate this opportunity.

Grant McGaugh:

Warrior-centric health is on my radar. I want to get you plugged in. I want to see you down in South Florida doing some major business with our healthcare systems here, and that we can make a major impact.

Ronald Steptoe:

Well, we would love that, because the number one number of veterans is in California, number two is Texas and number three is Florida.

Grant McGaugh:

Well, with that said, this is wonderful and I want to encourage your entire audience to tune in to all the episodes of Follow the Brand. They can do so at our office. That's the number five Star BDM. It's S-T-A-R-B-R-A-N-D for development infomasterscom. This has been wonderful. I want you to continue to do what you're doing and to have a very wonderful holiday season and into the happy new year of 2025.

Ronald Steptoe:

To you and your family, grant and your audience, wishing you all the very same. Thank you very much.

Grant McGaugh:

Thanks for joining us on the Follow Grant Podcast. Big thanks to Full Effect Productions for their incredible support on each and every episode. Now the journey continues on our YouTube channel. Follow Grant TV Series Dive into exclusive interviews, extended content and bonus insights that will fuel your success. Subscribe now and be a part of our growing community sharing and learning together. Explore, engage and elevate at Follow Brand TV Series on YouTube. Stay connected, stay inspired. Till next time, we will continue building a five-star brand that you can follow.