Saurage Collective’s Story

hi my name is Cade Sarge and I have been in healthc care for the last 20 years um went into Healthcare right out of college worked on the medical side and then uh a few years later I ended up uh switching over to behavioral health which I’ve spent about the past 16 years in um I have made every mistake there is to make in Behavioral Health and uh Treatment Center program and Hospital management I’ve run every Department uh that you can that each facility has I’ve uh I’ve had wonderful people that worked underneath me and I have led some of them wonderfully and and made mistakes with some of them as well but one thing that I have uh that I take most pride in is the relationships I’ve been able to create and nurture and secure and sustain with insurance companies insurance company Executives representatives and claims and Collections and billing and Contracting I have literally spent 20 years focusing on building a book of business complete with insurance Executives who make decisions at the insurance companies when a entity controls 70 80 and 90% of the revenue that comes into a program essentially being its Lifeline it would only make sense to create the most solid uh relationship and and mutually beneficial relationship that you can possibly create with that entity and so I I learned that early on um I began to refuse to talk on the phone uh to to the different uh insurance company contacts that I was uh speaking with and and insisted on meeting them face to face uh some accommodated that request and it led to a very fruitful relationship on both sides um initially when I got into the space I thought that uh what my calling was is to protect and and support and and really take care of give a voice to all of the patients that were uh struggling with behavioral health issues and so I took it on uh a very personal level and and really began to to have a confrontational relationship with insurance company Executives and and while I had a couple of Victories here and there ultimately I I did not succeed and I was not getting anywhere um and so I switched gears and and uh and and and then decided that if uh if I could get support financial support to go out and visit these insurance companies uh and and meet them face to face I figured the relationship would grow from there and sure enough it did and uh what happened after that was nothing short of a miracle um the individuals that I met fa to face began to call me by my first name on a regular basis and and began to answer my phone calls and emails and and and so it was a lot difficult a lot diff uh a lot more difficult for these same individuals to say no to someone over the phone that they didn’t know um and the success was real the uh the the the support for the patience that I was representing got better uh the length of stay got better obviously the the the reimbursement got better but this was not about money it was trying to figure out you know how to work with insurance companies and and you know bottom line is we had the same goals um you know we wanted the patients to get better we wanted them to to uh to start a new life and and and you know get healthy and and fix the relationships and and go on to live you know Wonderful lives we all wanted the same thing difference was is we wanted more time to do it uh to help them and then the insurance companies wanted us to do it in a shorter time um I remember early on in my career I I’d been promoted up to uh to uh the corporate level for uh for a company I was working for after the successes I had and and I remember sitting in this boardroom and and my nerves were were were there because I was still the new guy and and while I had had some success I was still trying to prove myself to a group of people who had uh who had already been in this space for quite some time and and uh and they knew what they were talking about but I remember speaking with this lady that had just come on board with the company and she was a former executive of an insurance company and I remember finally speaking up in this uh in this meeting and I said you know uh insurance companies they used to you know years ago when manage care began insurance companies were supporting patients who struggle with Behavioral Health mental health psychiatric issues uh giving them 6 months then it was down to 90 days and and then it worked itself down to 45 days then 30 days and now where we at we’re uh we’re we’re week to week we’re day to day with some of the payers trying to you know trying to trying to convince them that the that these patients need to stay in treatment and it’s become somewhat of a battle and it’s just wild to me that it went from 6 months all the way down to uh to to 30 days and then 15 you know in 10 days and and the lady that worked at uh insurance company who had left her executive uh Kush job to come and and work on the other side on the provider side looked me dead Square in the eyes and she said that’s because we knew exactly what we were doing and uh and that stuck with me because what I took from that was an implication that we didn’t uh that the insurance companies had their had their game together had their stuff together and we didn’t uh we are Infamous in this space for not working together working as one now there are great organizations that have tried to remedy that uh but the bottom line is we have not worked well with one another and so I have uh I have I have made a lot of people a lot of money um I’ve worked for companies that were amazing and I’ve worked for companies that were not amazing and I made them both a ton of money and I did that through the relationships I had created with the insurance companies um there’s nothing wrong with making money in this space right but uh the problem for me is when you get into the space only to make money and you forget about the uh the mission and for me I I have to remind myself you know that that I am still on a mission um at some point in the near future I’m going to have an opportunity to run to have my own program um um I feel like I have uh I have worked long and hard enough to figure out what I’m am good at and what I’m not good at and there is plenty I’m not good at but the good thing is there are people that work uh in the space that are great at those things and so I have every intention of hiring them but one thing I will bring to my program and the one thing that I will help any programs out there and that is to get a seat at the table that is it get a seat at the table uh insurance companies want to work with us all right but they won’t be bullied they won’t be threatened with lawsuit they won’t be they won’t be manhandled they won’t be lied to uh they won’t be cheated um but they will work with you most of them and uh good thing is is I have the list of the ones that will Coast to Coast I’ve spent my career building this list and working from this list and refining this list and and uh and and I want to share the list I I want to share what I know I I I W The Faculty for uh for natap and and you know conferencing and to speak and talk about Managed Care Partnerships I’ve had an opportunity to do that several times and and each time is a blessing on my part cuz cuz the faces light up and the people line up to ask me questions afterwards and and you know bottom line is uh you know we can hate insurance companies all we want it gets us nowhere um you know my uh my grandma used to sing a song to me and it went Sai and I went to the circus we got hit with the rolling pin and we got even with that circus we bought tickets and didn’t go in all right and I always L that song I never knew what it meant until I got older and I could process bottom line is like we can hate and we can blame and point the finger we can hire a lawyer and and they can represent us and you know but but life’s about relationships everything is relationships relationship ships in business matter and relationships with insurance companies matter and a relationship with the person or the enti or the organization that controls 90% of our Revenue that relationship matters a relationship without communication is doomed to fail I mean heck I told that to young couples struggling in their marriage to to uh to young men in recovery who are having a tough time plugging into to the fellowship I’ve I’ve told that to many people to my own kids to myself I have to remind myself that same thing but in business it is key relationships without communication are doomed to fail and uh and negative relationships get you nowhere hate all you want blame all you want complain all you want but insurance companies are uh are here to to uh to make money certainly of course they are um but they’re people that work at the insurance company that want to improve they want to improve systems they want to improve relationships they want to improve processes and they want to work with good providers and so uh so that is what I’ve tried to align myself with like-minded uh programs and some amazing programs out there and I have no problem going to bat for them I have no problem getting them at a seat at the table uh we got to level this playing field bottom line level this playing field and I have strategies to do that they are proven in the space and I want to share those with ethical groups out there interested and doing the right thing bottom