How Virtual Teams Are Transforming Healthcare: Insights from Chris McShanag

Join us for a thought-provoking conversation with Chris McShanag, Founder & CEO of Virtual Teammate, as we explore the evolving world of healthcare operations, virtual teams, and the impact of AI on the future of work. In this episode of The Brand Called You, Chris shares his entrepreneurial journey, the challenges faced by healthcare practitioners, and the innovative solutions transforming the industry. Discover how Virtual Teammate is revolutionizing staffing models, reducing administrative burdens, and enabling doctors to focus on what they do best—caring for patients. Chris also discusses how businesses can delegate effectively, build trust with remote teams, and harness AI as a productivity tool while retaining essential human accountability and judgment. Whether you are a healthcare professional, business leader, or simply curious about the future of virtual teams, this episode is packed with actionable insights on scalability, virtual culture, and technology-driven innovation.

• 0:08Speaker 00

  Welcome to another episode of The Brand Called You, a podcast and podcast show that brings you leadership lessons, knowledge, experience and wisdom from thousands of successful individuals from around the world. I'm your host, Ashutosh Garg. And today, I'm delighted to welcome a senior and accomplished entrepreneur from Arizona, USA, Mr. Chris Makshenak. Chris, welcome to the show.

• 0:32Speaker 01

  Thank you, Ashutosh. A pleasure to be here. Thank you for your time today.

• 0:35Speaker 00

  Thank you. Chris is the founder and chief executive officer of Virtual Teammate.

• 0:41Speaker 00

  So, Chris, my first question, what problem were you trying to solve when you founded Virtual Teammate?

• 0:48Speaker 01

  So, the problem I was trying to solve was really the staffing issues that are experienced here in the US in the healthcare space. But more the bigger problem was the struggles that practitioners, clinics have to get reimbursed for the work that they do. And so tied to that is the staffing need to actually do those back office administrative tasks, thereby allowing doctors, dentists, office managers to really do what they do best and take care of patients.

• 1:16Speaker 00

  Right. And was there a defining moment that convinced you that virtual teams were the future?

• 1:24Speaker 01

  So, I mean, I think for me, you know, I grew up in my career within consulting. And so I did a lot of consulting, a lot of large implementations with health systems, ambulatory clinics. And I was delivering a lot of technology, a lot of processes. But when I talked to the doctors and physicians, what they were telling me is, Chris, I love this, but it's taking me away from the patients. It's putting me in front of the computer. It's putting my team on the phone. It's doing those sort of things. I'd love to get back to what I trained to do, which was really take care of patients. How can I handle or kind of offload all of those tasks that are administrative in nature and are in the highest and best value use of my time or my team's time in the office?

• 1:58Speaker 00

  Very interesting. Why do so many business owners feel more stressed after their companies start growing?

• 2:09Speaker 01

  I think because they're not level setting expectations, right? And don't have the right people in the right roles. What I talk to my clients about is really that, you know, how many of your, what I refer to as hundred dollar resources are doing ten dollar tasks, right? And so they get frustrated and burnt out because they're not, the doctors aren't doing what they need to do, you know, taking care of patients. And they're spending time with insurance companies and others. And it kind of flows down to their office and their clinics. And so also then the flip side, they're getting feedback from their patients that, you know, they can't get in touch with the office. They're frustrated with the billing situation, those sort of things. So I think it's a kind of a double edged sword. And that's what's causing a lot of burnout. And a lot of physicians that,

• 2:50Speaker 01

  you know, there's, there's research out that says close to 40% of physicians are kind of getting burnt out because of that, right? They're spending all the time during the day taking care of patients, then all of the evening doing the paperwork.

• 3:01Speaker 00

  Interesting. And what in your view are some of the most common operational bottlenecks that you have seen in businesses that are growing rapidly?

• 3:11Speaker 01

  Really? I mean, it's for me, where I've seen struggles is kind of in the back office focus, particularly in a clinic, it's around insurance verification and billing. You're getting reimbursed for the work that they do. It's interesting. The healthcare space is really the only industry that extends credit with the hope of payment. And they deliver amazing services. But, you know, if you think about continually reduction in reimbursements, but then continue rising in cost. And so that's where I think is the biggest struggle. And then finding the right people and getting them in the right seats.

• 3:42Speaker 00

  Okay. Why do so many leaders struggle with delegation?

• 3:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think because we're all trained as entrepreneurs and as leaders that we can do it, right? And, you know, I think it's not until we realize or get to that breaking point that we realize we can't do everything. And the way I talk to my clients about is there's really two major buckets, right? There's urgent and there's important. The most urgent and most important stuff is the best work that you can focus on. Those things that are urgent, but maybe not really important, those are things you can delegate. And so really walking my clients through how to kind of stratify that information. And those that are not urgent and not important, how do you delete them off? And those that are maybe are, you know, important but not urgent right now, you know, being able to really leverage other folks to do that work. So then you can focus on the best, highest and best value use of your time.

• 4:33Speaker 00

  Hmm. But, you know, I've often been asked this question, that I know I need to delegate, but how do I determine which tasks should be delegated and which they should do themselves?

• 4:47Speaker 01

  As I was kind of talking about, so what are the ones that are the, the drive the most value for your business, right? And the drives of revenue growth are the ones to look at? So which are the urgent, important ones? So for example, you know, maybe in a business sense, it's, you know, client complaints or client concerns, right? How do you mitigate and work with those versus say, things that maybe need to be scheduled down the road, a planning event or something like that? Or managing your social media or email account, right? Those are things that you can very comfortably delegate. Those that what I would refer to as highly process oriented repetitive tasks that don't add value, continual value to the business. Because as a CEO, your role is to continually and responsibly add value to the business. As a teammate, your job is to continually and add value to the role

• 5:32Speaker 01

  and to the business as well. And so how do you, you know, kind of align those things is really about kind of understanding and level setting expectations and focusing on outcomes, not just drug descriptions. What are the outcomes you want to drive? And as I mentioned earlier, it's about looking at where are you spending your time today? And how many of those tasks are really driving exceptional value? And what are those that you could, you could delegate to a remote team member? You know, what we've seen in the industry in the last 10 years, if you go back 10 years, about 95% of our workforce was in the office. And we're very comfortable with that. Now you, you transfer 10 years later, you know, well over 50% of our workforce is not in the office today. And I like to refer to as the here, near and far. Here, physically in your office, there's still a

• 6:16Speaker 01

  need to have folks in your office and working. There's a near model, which is, you know, working within the same geographical region. And I'm in the US and I know you're in New Delhi. And so, you know, people may be working in different states or part of the country. And then far, you know, leveraging remote team members like we have at Virtual Teammate to really embrace and build that full team. Because the definition of a team is a group of individuals working towards a common goal. And so our teams have morphed over the last 10 years. And I think that's where there's opportunities for entrepreneurs and others to grow, is really make that transition and build that team together.

• 6:49Speaker 00

  Great response. How do you build trust with people you've never met in person?

• 6:57Speaker 01

  That's a fantastic question. I think, you know, for me, you know, what I always is kind of look to the relationship, right? And look to, you know, how we can work together. If I haven't met them before, you know, I embrace, you know, particularly at Virtual Teammates, we bring people into the organization, cultural index, which is really determining what is your behavioral hardwired traits? Like, how do you interact and work from a behavioral hardwired traits? Maybe not how you think you do, but how you interact, work, how you like to be communicated to, like how you like to work with. And that's what I, we've found really a positive factor on, you know, doing a great match of our Virtual Teammates to our clients. And so that's how we build trust, but also being very transparent, you know, sharing productivity. And that's why I can confidently say, you know, that

• 7:41Speaker 01

  our team's about 47% more productive than having somebody in the office. And then you look at that and say, okay, on top of that, you know, the cost of hiring somebody in the US versus leveraging one of our teammates represents close to a 70 to 73% savings in staffing costs, which, you know, for an entrepreneur, for a business and for a clinic, you know, there's a huge revenue growth opportunity.

• 8:04Speaker 00

  Great response. What separates successful delegators from those who constantly micromanage?

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's those that understand the best value that they can add within their business, right? What the best work they can do and knowing that, you know, their strengths and their weaknesses, and where they may be lacking that. And also seeing that within their teammates, you know, recognizing, you know, within an office practice in a clinic, you know, it's the doctors, obviously, responsibility and the dentists to take care of the patients. And then they have support staff and making sure those folks aren't doing work that's not aligned to their skill setting capabilities. And being able to really recognize that and the value in people. And as I talked about before, right? You know, determining the clear expectations, but also what are the outcome based responsibilities for the role and determining is that person the right person? Because it's outcomes, capabilities,

• 8:57Speaker 01

  activities. And then obviously, how do you measure that from a key to our perspective?

• 9:02Speaker 00

  So the other thing that I wanted to get your perspective on was that, you know, after COVID, work from home is becoming reasonably common, even though companies are now insisting. But I've spoken to many gig workers, and they often say that we don't feel like a part of the culture of the organization that we work for. What makes a virtual teammate feel like they're a part of the culture rather than an outsourced resource?

• 9:31Speaker 01

  So, you know, it's an interesting question. That's one we continue to wrestle with when we have folks working remotely and for different clients across the organization. So for me, what we do, we really embrace kind of on a monthly perspective where we get the whole team together in a virtual setting. We do, we kind of gamify things, we reward people. But also what we're doing is I provide a client success manager for each one of my clients and for my virtual teammates. So when they're working with a client, they always have a direct connection back into the organization for any questions. At the same time, I'm providing benefits for our virtual teammates, even though they're in a gig freelance economy, providing those things that are

• 10:14Speaker 01

  most important to them. That's really how we go about building a culture. I also focus on behavioral traits, right? So what are the behavioral traits that we have within the organization? I mean, culture is such an important thing, but it's really how you show up every day. And so for my focus, it's about building an organization that at any point in time, 50% of the team is performing better than the top 10% of our competitors. And so we really live by those traits from a cultural perspective.

• 10:40Speaker 00

  Well said. Many people fear AI will replace jobs. How do you see the relationship between AI and human talent evolving?

• 10:51Speaker 01

  That's one thing that we're embracing very heavily right now. Gosh. And for me, I really look at it as AI productivity with human accountability. Because AI is obviously a huge productivity tool. Like, we've had productivity tools over the last 10, 20 years with the internet and technology and, you know, cloud computing. I see AI as the next wave in that productivity, but not replacing people, particularly in the healthcare space, because there's so much PHI and really sensitive data you have to work with. And you can't get it wrong. I mean, you're talking about lives. And so for me, it's about AI productivity. What's the best work that AI can do to help be more productive, but still having that human accountability and oversight, I think,

• 11:33Speaker 01

  is so important. And a lot of businesses and clients that I talk to, that's where they struggle. Like, how do I embrace AI, but still make sure I can kind of maintain control? Because at the end of the day, obviously, what you put into the tool, AI is what you get out. And I think you can get some very biased traits, right? If you're continually feeding it the same questions, it's going to reinforce those questions or reinforce that process. And so having that human accountability and auditability, I think is hugely important. I think there's key roles that will obviously get, you know, probably reduced, but also I think there's going to be roles that are going to grow because of that need. And, you know, I recently was talking with a client of ours who embraced AI from a medical scriving perspective and went all the way, just, you know, all the way to it.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  And unfortunately, experienced some real issues where the AI wasn't as crisp, particularly when you think about healthcare, which is unstructured data, it wasn't as clear. And so having to bring the pendulum back. And I think we've had a big pendulum swing one way. I think it's going to come back and kind of realign. But definitely see it as a huge productivity tool. And all of our virtual teammates are AI-enabled, you know, come AI-enabled, have capabilities. But it's not a replacement. It's really how can you go faster and provide more productivity and more value?

• 12:48Speaker 00

  Very interesting. Could AI eventually manage virtual teams more effectively than human managers?

• 12:56Speaker 01

  You know, that's an interesting question. I haven't really delved into it too much more, but I think for me, I think management is both art and science, right? And I think there's a personal piece. And we leverage AI today from a productivity and tracking. And so we can make sure that folks are performing the right tasks, analyzing their productivity, are they focused on the right areas, are they doing the right things, leveraging the right applications, accessing the right information. And so we leverage that today. But definitely, we have, as I mentioned, kind of a client success manager and a virtual teammate success group that's really helping and supporting it, because it's really a nurture process that you need to do. Like any individual, you're getting feedback is so important. How do you implement that feedback and really coaching them along

• 13:39Speaker 01

  versus just managing them?

• 13:43Speaker 00

  My next question is, you know, based on your own experience, where will human judgment remain irreplaceable?

• 13:58Speaker 01

  You've done a very good job preparing for this discussion. I really like how you're challenging me. I think human judgment is always going to be hugely important, right? I think it comes down to the moral values that you have. And, you know, I think AI is going to really struggle to replace that. I mean, we're seeing some situations now where, you know, some of the moral judgments and some of the AI results aren't aligning, right? And as I mentioned earlier, I think you can use AI tools very productively. And like any tool, it's good in good hands and maybe not so good in other hands. And so I think that's really about the intent. And if you feed the AI tool, you know, certain conversations, certain information, it's going to reinforce that. And what I've noticed in talking to some of my colleagues is, you know, they don't have a great idea, right? And they'll

• 14:43Speaker 01

  feed ChatGPT or Claude and say, hey, what about this? It's naturally going to reinforce your discussions unless you challenge it, right? And I think that's where the moral factor comes in. Challenge it. Don't just give me what I want to hear. Tell me what's right. And what the beauty of it is, it gives you access to a global community, both those that are alive and maybe have passed, to really tap into that huge value. And so I think that's where, I think people are going to struggle, or AI will struggle to be with that moral effectiveness and that moral compass.

• 15:14Speaker 00

  Great response. Chris, healthcare systems globally are under tremendous pressure. How can virtual teams help solve this challenge?

• 15:27Speaker 01

  Yes, I agree. Health systems are under huge and immense pressure. But I think there's even more pressure at the independent clinic practice level, ambulatory side, because, you know, those are the independent doctors that are, you know, two to five physicians, you know, maybe one to 25 to 50 employees, that's really struggling, right? They're trying to maintain their business under reduced reimbursements and increased costs. And so a virtual teammate, as I mentioned earlier, really has the ability to come alongside and help them form the right team without the need to have so many people in the office, which obviously reduces your real estate, your technology and your overhead costs, while being able to get the work done more effectively, more efficiently, at a

• 16:10Speaker 01

  lower cost margin, but also driving more value, right? And so, you know, I can talk directly with one of our clients who we work with, you know, had a goal of, they just wanted at least 20 to 25 claims processed a day. You know, we came in, worked with them, partnered, looked at their processes. Now they're at 40 claims per day. And it's really had a huge impact in their cash flow, a huge impact in their business from a financial standpoint, but also from a personal standpoint, because people in the office are able to focus on what they do best. And our team really takes the load of the administrative side from a insurance verification eligibility and payment posting.

• 16:47Speaker 00

  What administrative burdens consume the most time in healthcare organizations today?

• 16:54Speaker 01

  The most burdens really are dealing with insurance companies. Insurance verification, billing, denials, claims management. Also, I think, you know, there's a huge burden on the, not so much a burden, but I think a workload on, you know, kind of patient communication scheduling, right? Obviously, one of the bigger issues at a clinic is no shots, right? That's lost revenue. You know, patients not being able to communicate with their healthcare practice. And so getting scheduled or getting answers is a huge, you know, kind of drain on the business, but also kind of dealing with insurance companies and having to manage the process that goes through that. You know, insurance companies have latched onto this process, you know, a number of years ago to leverage remote team members. You know, healthcare providers are a little late to the game

• 17:39Speaker 01

  and they're learning that, you know, it's huge opportunities. And through companies like mine, virtual teammate, you have access to that global pool. Whereas before, you were limited very much to the talent pool that was maybe surrounded you graphically in your area of your practice or where your offices were located.

• 17:57Speaker 00

  Does have time for two more questions for you. What innovations in healthcare, healthcare operations excite you the most for the next few years?

• 18:09Speaker 01

  I think what really excites me on the healthcare side is the advent of genetic and precision medicine, really being able to get to the root of what the health issues are and helping folks for preventative. And we've had such a huge wave of biohacking and things like that, which I think is important, but I think it's gone a little too far. It's really about the innovation on people focusing on staying healthier and preventative medicine than, you know, those that are, you know, medicine that's about treating an illness, right? It's how do you stay healthy sooner? So I'm really excited about that. I'm excited about how technology, from a research perspective, and you talked about AI, really has a huge

• 18:51Speaker 01

  opportunity to get through clinical trials and really review new studies, whether it be tackling cancer or tackling major diseases. That's where I think AI has the best and biggest impact in the healthcare space to really improve. And I'm excited to see how that's going to play out. I'm excited to see how, as a healthcare provider, that we're going to embrace AI from a productivity standpoint, but still keep that human touch, which is so important in healthcare.

• 19:18Speaker 00

  Absolutely. And my last question for you, Chris. You say the future of healthcare and business is virtual, scalable and limitless. What does that future actually look like? And what should leaders do today to prepare for that future?

• 19:37Speaker 01

  I think that future looks like a doctor being able to go home on time. You know, a doctor being able to see enough patients to obviously support their reimbursement. I think today, a lot of doctors have to see many more patients just to kind of keep their head above the float. And so that's where I see the future of being able to really have that relationship with your patient that we used to have before, which has unfortunately been reduced to maybe a 15 minute consultation because they need to get through so many patients. I think it also looks like, you know, being able to interact in a virtual sense. I mean, I think telehealth, and you talked about COVID, really opened the eyes to what can be done from a healthcare perspective that couldn't be done before, right? If you

• 20:21Speaker 01

  think about before COVID, if I had a doctor's appointment that was, let's say, 30 minutes long, it would take me 30 to 45 minutes to get there. Maybe I'm in the office for another 30 minutes, I have my appointment for 30 minutes and 30 to 45 minutes. That's a three to four hour process.

• 20:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  Now, you know, realizing there are so many things you can do or treatments you can have or consultations that can be done virtually in the comfort of your home, you know, being able to allow physicians to do that and patients to interact that way, I think is really, you know, a huge opportunity.

• 20:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  I think, you know, as you think about, you know, the delivery of healthcare, you know, taking more personal responsibility and less reliance on insurance companies, I think is a great opportunity. Because at the end of the day, you've got your competing tasks, right? You've got healthcare, physicians and what have you that make money when you're unwell, and you've got, you know, insurance companies that make money when you're healthy, right? Because of the premiums. You're balancing that and getting to value-based care, which is about, I have a cohort of patients that I take care of, and my job as a physician is to keep them healthy and I'm reimbursed or I'm compensated appropriately versus being compensated only when you're sick or you're unwell or need service. That's, I think,

• 21:36Speaker 01

  the transition. It's a big shift that we need to do, particularly here in the US. But I think it's about taking accountability for your own health. And I think it's also about, you know, empowering our physicians to do what they do best.

• 21:48Speaker 00

  Absolutely. And on that note, Chris, I just want to say, what a fascinating conversation this one has been with you. Thank you for sharing with me your thoughts, if in the world of healthcare and people from the world of healthcare, which are really the core of any healthcare, whether it is the specialist doctors or whether it is the nursing staff or even the back office staff who are involved in supporting the frontline staff. Thank you for sharing so many different perspectives, giving my viewers and listeners some of your very interesting thoughts on the future of healthcare from a people perspective. Thank you again for speaking to me and good luck to you.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  It was a pleasure talking to you today and I wish you all the best.

• 22:29Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 22:32Speaker 00

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