Successfully Navigating a Slow-Growth Healthcare IT Industry for 10 Years: Stan Nowak, CEO of Silverlink (Part 7)

Sramana: How are your investors navigating the length of the investment? Have they switched between funds?

Stan Nowak: I have been impressed with my investors. They are patient, and nobody is running for the exits. We see the best days for the company right in front of us. The consumer influx from the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as well as the risk bearing provider shift as the hospitals assume new rules. These are both massive opportunity areas for Silverlink.

Sramana: If you map your revenue growth curve, where have you had inflection points in the past and how do those map to the upcoming cycles?

Stan Nowak: The most impressive inflection points were around Medicare Part D. The parallels today are striking. In 2006, there was a relatively minor influx of Medicare members getting new drug benefits yet there were exchanges and public websites where they could go. It affected 34 million seniors. It was a regulated retail market with a lot of compliance. At Silverlink, that increased our business 30% and create new market, all within a single year.

Today we are looking at the ACA, which has an impact on a much larger healthcare population. Everyone is going to be impacted in some way. The regulatory construct is extremely complicated and overlays federal regulations with states regulations. The navigation for the consumer is going to be confusing. We see this as our next inflection point.

Sramana: Have you started seeing revenue impact from that already?

Stan Nowak: We are. The healthcare industry would not be embarrassed to hear me say that they have not focused on consumer focus or knowing their customers very well. It was an industry that served HR departments, and the consumer was a claim. The customer was the company that bought healthcare insurance.

We are now seeing urgency in understanding the consumer and the data around the consumer. Almost 100% of your health insurance experience is communications, and to date they have underinvested in that part of the business. Now they are going to be in a retail environment where they have to compete for consumers. They have to make up for decades of inactivity at this point.

We are starting to work on the provider side as well. There are doctors who are starting to think about the way that they are going to handle the transition. Some of the responsibilities that healthcare plans have had for decades are now moving into doctors’ offices. We have a decade of experience in handling those responsibilities at scale. We have done it for the big aggregators, and now we can bring that experience into other markets.

Sramana: This has been a very interesting story. Thank you for taking the time to share it. Best of luck as you press forward.

This segment is part 7 in the series : Successfully Navigating a Slow-Growth Healthcare IT Industry for 10 Years: Stan Nowak, CEO of Silverlink
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