Dr. Karen Litzy speaks with Hannah Kim, CEO and co-founder of Pocket, about the hidden operational burden that happens before a patient ever reaches the clinic door. They break down why front office teams get stretched too thin, how insurance verification and scheduling create revenue leakage, and what it looks like when a clinic automates the full pre-arrival workflow without losing the human touch. In this episode: · Karen frames the episode around the pre-arrival patient journey and why it matters for physical therapy clinics. · Hannah Kim explains Pocket's focus on automating intake, insurance verification, scheduling, and patient communications. · The biggest front office inefficiency is overload: one team is often handling phone calls, insurance verification, scheduling, onboarding, and patient greetings. · Insurance verification is more complex than checking a portal - clinics often need to call payers, confirm authorization requirements, and verify visit limits. · Manual verification can take hours and includes documentation, EMR entry, calculating patient responsibility, and explaining benefits to patients. · Growth exposes weak systems: workflows that work for one or two locations often break when a clinic scales. · Slow or incomplete pre-arrival responses can cause patients to book elsewhere, creating missed visits and revenue leakage. · Pocket aims to own the full process from start to finish, including extracting patient info from the EMR, verifying benefits, making calls when needed, creating documentation, and uploading it back into the EMR. · Beyond insurance, Pocket also supports intake, onboarding, case creation, first-visit scheduling, and automated patient communications. · Hannah shares that the best transformations free front office staff to spend more time with patients, reduce burnout, and support clinic growth without adding staff. Timestamps: (00:01) Intro to the pre-arrival patient experience (00:52) Hannah Kim's background in healthcare and scaling Clipboard Health (02:10) Front office inefficiencies that show up again and again (03:20) Why insurance verification eats so much time (04:15) EMR documentation and the scheduling "Tetris" problem (05:53) The red flag that front office is quietly bleeding money (07:39) What front desk time could be used for instead (08:55) Why problems get worse as clinics scale (09:33) Why the pre-arrival journey affects first impressions and revenue (11:51) The biggest patient-loss window: weekends and after hours (14:08) Why insurance verification is still so manual (15:59) What a clearinghouse is and why it is not enough (17:11) The cost of sloppy or incomplete verification (18:20) How Pocket handles the full verification workflow (21:02) Expanding beyond insurance into the entire pre-arrival journey (23:48) What transformation looks like after automation (26:09) How clinics get comfortable letting go of manual processes (28:16) Why technology should reduce burnout, not replace people (29:47) Lightning round: front office assumptions, coordination of benefits, and advice from banking (34:30) Where to find Hannah Kim and Pocket Key frameworks · Pre-arrival journey: everything that happens before the first visit · Full-process automation: not just clearinghouse checks, but calls, documentation, EMR updates, and patient communication · Coordination of benefits: verifying primary, secondary, and tertiary coverage before problems show up later Notable quotes · "The pre-arrival journey is just so important. It's the first impression that patients have from your clinic." · "Nobody wants to be drowning in admin stuff." · "Technology implemented in the right way really helps a lot of clinics and really helps ease some of that burnout." Resources & Links: · Hannah on LinkedIn · Pocket Website · 2048 Ventures More About Hannah: Hannah Kim is the CEO and Co-Founder of Pocket, an AI-powered pre-arrival platform that automates patient intake, insurance verification, scheduling, and patient communications for physical therapy clinics. She devoted her entire career to healthcare - began her career in healthcare investment banking at Centerview Partners before joining Clipboard Health, an "Uber for nurses" that built a marketplace connecting healthcare facilities with nurses for on-demand staffing. As Chief of Staff, Hannah helped scale Clipboard Health from Series A to Series C, supporting the company's growth into a billion dollar company. Jane Sponsorship Information: Book a one-on-one demo here Mention the code LITZY1MO for a free month Follow Dr. Karen Litzy on Social Media: Karen's Instagram Karen's LinkedIn Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart: YouTube Website Apple Podcast Spotify SoundCloud Stitcher iHeart Radio