PowerLiving with Kimberlee Langford
PowerLiving with Kimberlee Langford
Revolutionizing Patient Care through Advanced Data Analytics: Meet Eric Browne with SIR
Unearth the transformative power of data analytics in healthcare with our incredible guest, Eric from Self-Insured Reporting. We shine a spotlight on the crucial role of this tool in identifying risks and guiding treatment, especially in the realm of high-cost claims like dialysis. Eric and Kimberlee share how data analytics helps to manage the 20% of patients responsible for a whopping 80% of claim expenditure. Eric explains how his company, Self Insured Reporting is harnessing the power of advanced analytics to simplify stop loss reporting and shine a light on those who are about to be a group's highest risk.
Fancy a peek into the future of kidney disease detection? Well, hold on tight as we discuss the potential of advanced analytics in the early identification of this disease. We reveal how these tools can pick up on risks at an early stage, paving the way for timely intervention and prevention of disease progression. However, advanced analytics is no lone ranger. The collaboration between clinicians and analytics is vital for accurate identification of high-risk individuals, something that forms the heart of our discussion. Eric shares how his platform aids Stop Loss, TPA's, brokers and employers in managing healthcare needs, thereby ensuring a healthier workforce.
As we roll into the final phase of our conversation, we delve into the topic of self-insured reporting and the need for transparency in the healthcare system. Eric, our data maestro, unveils his tool that simplifies risk analysis, saving precious time for care management. We explore the burning issue of industry burnout and capacity and discuss the potential of employers and brokers leading the charge for transparency. We wrap up the episode by acknowledging the transformative power of data analytics in making informed decisions for population health. So, if you're ready to revolutionize your understanding of healthcare analytics, this episode is just the ticket.
Hey, hey, hey, I think we're here, we're live Hot dog.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hey, Kim.
Speaker 1:How are you, Eric?
Speaker 2:I'm doing pretty well. I'm excited to talk to you more about analytics and what we're doing with dialysis. I think, first off, what you're doing has been phenomenal what you put together at SCM and really excited to kind of chat with you about that today.
Speaker 1:Well, you can give me all the credit, I'll take it. It's kind of like when people come over to my house and they see these gorgeous quilts and I had a girlfriend come in one time and on the back of my couch is this. I would show it to you, but it's on my couch, it's beautiful museum quality quilt and she says to me she says, oh, do you quilt? Did you make that? And I'm like, oh, sure, I think it's better, but sure you can whatever. Yeah, I can't take the credit all by myself. You know we have a fantastic team here, especially care management. I know you have. Well, I can brag about you all day long and you're part of a really fantastic team too, and I know we're really excited just to be able to work with, with you guys itself and sharing reporting. But for folks who don't know you, eric gosh, tell us a little bit about you and self-insured reporting and you know what are you excited about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my name is Eric Brown. I'm one of the broker operations managers at self-insured reporting.
Speaker 2:We operate as the analytics and claims division for a parent company called healthcare reporting, which they do more claims Sorry, compliance related stuff as well, but my role is specific to analytics. So particularly what I do is I work with a lot of third party administrators, general agencies and brokers and we have an analytics platform that makes stop loss reporting easy. That's essentially what we're, what our existence is for, and recently, with Kim, we've been able to really get into advanced analytics on the health side of claims. So this is something that we're we've been involved in, but we're really making an investment and we're really expanding this out. So just kind of getting started with some of the advanced analytics, but it's one of the things that I'm personally leading at self-insured reporting so happy to talk a little bit more about that today.
Speaker 1:You know I think it's interesting and you know how I feel about data. I think and it's not just data, it's the analytics and application of data that I think is really it's powerful. It's not just sexy, it's powerful because of how it can really have an impact in terms of really choosing the right course of action to really affect the overall spend of a health plan Of a population and improve outcomes. So a lot of times if I'm talking to folks that when I think about data analytics in particular, I I liken it to you know, if you go to see the doctor because you don't feel very good, the doctor doesn't, you know, rifle through his bag and go well, I don't know, I have a, have an eraser over here and a bandaid. Let's throw that at it and see if that works Right. So the doctor usually draws some labs. He'll listen to your heart, your lungs and he'll he'll synthesize all that information and be able to develop a diagnosis that then guides the treatment to get the favorable outcome Right. It's not rocket science, that's you have to have input to figure out what the right course of action is to get the output that you want. And that's really what I think the magic is in data analytics and and I think especially where we're going today I'd love to have you share a little bit about.
Speaker 1:You know it's easy to identify the risk. That's in your face, kind of like you know, if I run my car into a tree, it's easy for me to report that my car ran into a tree, right, but how? Yeah, but how can I? You know, three blocks away or a mile away, how can I report that? Hey, I'm likely going to hit this tree if I don't change my course. That's where I think the real power is in data analytics, particularly when it comes to high cost claims. You know, if you want to have a favorable experience with you know you mentioned what you do for you know folks in terms of stop loss, and that might be a good avenue for us to talk about, because a lot of people have some funny ideas about or maybe that's the right word, naive ideas, I suppose about high cost claims and stop loss.
Speaker 2:Maybe we can go there a little bit and talk about that intersection between those high cost claims and why data Absolutely so where we're at is first, we started on the stop loss side because healthcare reporting was founded by two brokers Mark Combs, who's our CEO, he was a broker and we went in on from that side of things. So we, for the most part, we come with a very strong insurance background and we've tied that into the stop loss and we really wanted to focus on the high cost claims aspect of stop loss because Parada's principle 20% of your population is going to drive 80% of your claim spin. So that's kind of the approach that we're taking with the advanced analytics.
Speaker 2:Now one of the things that we can do with dialysis. People are familiar with car route strategies and if you catch a member that's on active dialysis, well, that's already a known risk. Right, that's like running into the tree. Your car's already crashed. It's in there in your face. It's not pretty and it's a big shock. Right, it's a little bit of whiplash, but at that point there's not much we can do.
Speaker 2:Right, the loss has already occurred, or rather the damage, you know the event has occurred, whereas what we've been able to do is we've been able to create a tool that can spot risk early on, so we're able to see whenever one trigger pops up or if there's another trigger that would catch something as early on as we can go look at.
Speaker 2:We can go look at that. We can have nurses that review the case, that can reach out to the member Should the member choose to engage. What we're trying to do in this situation? I mean, of course, if we have an opportunity to reprise the dialysis, we can, but really, where the biggest impact that we're going to have is going to be catching these members that are the silent risk, so what that allows us to do is prevent the progression or maybe reverse chronic kidney disease as well. So we're all in favor of making people healthy. That's one of the biggest things that this program will be doing. It doesn't only just focus on the stop loss reinsurance, but it also focuses on the patient as well, and I think it's a win-win for everyone involved.
Speaker 1:Yeah, healthy people are less expensive, right? Absolutely. You know you're still a young whippersnapper there, my friend, but as you get older, retirement isn't that far away and you think, gosh well, I don't want my retirement money to go for doctors and medicines and hospitals. I don't think anybody does so. In that part that you mentioned advanced analytics, tell us more about what that means, because you know that's pretty fresh and a lot of people say they do that, but I got to tell you it's that part identifying a risk. That's not yet, but that is about to be. I think a lot of people think they do that, but I found it through experience that that's harder to put into play than most people give it credit for. Tell us a little bit about that process.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 2:Well, so for my understanding of all of these tools that do analytics, we all pretty much have the same thing when it comes to we can spot conditions, we can spot procedures, certain medications, we can list that out.
Speaker 2:But what we've been able to do is work with a provider like yourself, kim, in order to kind of figure out, okay, what does it take to diagnose someone with chronic kidney disease or end stage renal disease? So a lot of it has been collaboration between our ourself and specialty care management in order to connect the clinical side of this. I think it really takes some clinical approach to. I mean, clinicians are the ones that figure out the diagnosis, they're the ones that put the case together and make the decision. So when we pair that with analytics, we can then figure out okay, this is what we're looking for. And then we can come up with a report that tells us okay, here are your people that are kind of silent risk, and then here are these people that are ticking time bombs, not on dialysis yet. So what we're looking for are those ticking time bombs, because those are the people that we want to help and those are the people that are going to, you know, in the short term those are going to be UNECT members on dialysis.
Speaker 1:You know, and it's interesting when we go through this, these reports, and we share them with our you know advisor friends. You know it's interesting. I had an advisor the other day say, oh my gosh, yeah, I can tell because these are all my high utilizers, these are all my high cost folks, and sometimes you'll even find that maybe these folks aren't yet high cost. But if you watch them and it's interesting because we've had some folks that we've only identified, you know, as a high risk for having silent CKD and nothing was done and then you watch them six, seven, eight months later and now they have CKD diagnosis. And here's the kicker 90% of people that have kidney disease don't know it right and those high risk silent population, by the time they get diagnosed they're not like CKD one, they're like CKD three or four. And the reason why that's so significant is you'll have these folks.
Speaker 1:As a matter of fact, I had a claim the other day, the only trigger. This member only had one trigger, lupus. And, by the way, if you have a member who has Lupus, 100% of people with Lupus have kidney disease, right, and that was because of that process and that was a member's only trigger. But their spend was like $170,000. And I'm like I will bet my license. You've got advanced kidney disease there. It just hasn't been diagnosed yet. And if you watch those if you don't do anything but you watch those people you'll see them pop up and they're like I said, they're going to pop up in the later stages of kidney disease and that's really significant.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and without some sort of advanced analytics to know what you're looking at, it's very difficult to really discern what it is. I kind of. The analogy I'm going to use is imagine that I have corrective lenses. So if I were to take my contacts out and drive down the road which I don't suggest you drive without corrective lenses but if I were to be driving down the road without corrective lenses, I could see that green sign. That's a street sign, but I have no idea where I'm going or where the destination is. It's very hard to navigate this, but that's from what information I do have. I can discern that green sign. Oh, I'm on a block, I'm on a different block, so yeah, that's a great analogy, but without being able to read that, it's hard to actually know what I'm looking at.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think that's probably why, for most groups, dialysis usually hits people as a surprise, and it really shouldn't, unless somebody has sepsis or you know they've lost a ton of food, you know they've got hit by a bus, for instance, and their kidney shut down. Dialysis truly should not hit groups as a surprise and it's really disheartening. As a clinician, you know to watch folks. Sometimes we'll call folks who qualify for the program and you know we'll catch them and they'll say, oh my gosh. You know I wish you would have called me. Like six months ago my doctor just told me I needed a kidney transplant. But I never had any trouble with my kidneys before and when we look back through their record we can see that this has been coming for like eight to ten years. If we would have had them eight years ago, we would have seen it before they got to this place and we probably could have helped them avoid it. So that's really the power I mean.
Speaker 1:And every time a member quietly advances in staging, you get kind of like a cancer. If you look at cancer, I can have a cancer that's quietly and insidiously advancing in stage but that's not diagnosed yet, and that has a tremendous impact in terms of what my not only my outcome is a person, but the spend for my health plan. It's the same thing. I can have kidney disease and have it not diagnosed and I'm still advancing. Every time that kidney disease advances in stage, we know that the overall cost of care increases by 57%. That's a huge uptick.
Speaker 1:Likewise, when we can intervene in a timely manner and either stop the progression or, to your point earlier, is to improve kidney function, which you absolutely can do in many cases, you know, obviously not only is there improved member outcome but there's less spend. And even for members who for dialysis is inevitable. When members are managed well and they're taking care of well on dialysis, they do better. I was just talking with a dialysis member today and he reported to me gosh, I have so much more energy because he's taking better care of himself on dialysis. That's a member who's less likely to die in a dialysis chair, which many times they do and it's he's certainly less likely to end up in the emergency room. And when folks on dialysis end up in the emergency room, they're not in the general ward right, they're in the ICU and they become very expensive hospital stays.
Speaker 1:Right right, yeah that's.
Speaker 2:that's a good. You make some really good points and a lot of the things that we're talking about, I mean, they're going to be dealt with reactively, and what we've been able to create allows brokers, consultants anyone that?
Speaker 2:deals with employee benefits on the self funded side. It allows them to be proactive Right. And what we're doing, you know, not only let's look at it like this, we know that it will really help the member out, but what would be the consequences of not acting right? If we are able to spot these members coming up? I think the biggest thing, too, is when you go to self funded and you get out of the fully insured market. You're wanting to take control for yourself. You're going to be able to control costs in a way where you're not losing the game. You renewal every year when you're on the fully insured market.
Speaker 2:But if you're not mitigating these costs, these high cost items like dialysis, then what's going to happen is you may win the stop loss game this year, but next year at renewal, when the stop loss carrier sees this is going to come up and they may have the information to know that some of your silent risks are probably going to go on dialysis, they're going to get this pass a lot along at renewal and then they'll make their money back and then you have not known risk that you could have done something about, but at that point it's kind of catastrophic.
Speaker 2:And then you the opportunity where you could have worked with your stop loss center writer to try to get a better rate. If you control that Well, it's going to be a little bit harder to build that rapport back again with your stop loss center writer. So, lastly, whenever you're dealing with a plan with employee dollars to, there is a fiduciary responsibility that the plan sponsor has in order to negotiate for the lowest cost services. So when a member is on dialysis, the plan sponsor has a responsibility to go out and make sure that they are paying the best rate possible for their plan members, because if they have any contributions, then all those employee dollars are subject to your risk. So there's there's a lot of good for acting on this, but the consequences of inaction are far greater, in my mind.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah, and you bring up some really good points there too, because sometimes I have heard, you know, in talking with brokers, you know sometimes people mistakenly think that, well, you know my group we were talking about this earlier my groups, you know they've already met their specs. So it's not, I'm not worried about it for this year because stop loss is going to pick it up to your point earlier. You know you're really not shifting your dollar off to somebody else to pay your bill. Right, it is going to come to exactly yeah, yeah. And then you know, the hard part is then you know your rates go up and now you're back to hopping around. Well, you know you can't. It's kind of like, kind of like a pimple, right, if you have a pimple you can cover it up with found. Well, maybe you can't, but we can cover it up with foundation. That pimple is still there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's still there. Yeah, these things don't go away. I mean, I was in a call not too long ago with a broker and and the plan came in under budget. It was so tens of thousands of dollars, right, but you know that's money that could be deployed in other areas of the company. However, when we looked into the reporting and we saw that they had a couple high-cost claimants and those claims were going to continue into the Previous year, there the broker was asking us, what should we advise the clients for a stop-loss? And I said, okay, look, they may have won the stop-loss game this year, but they surely will make it back up next year.
Speaker 2:And this idea that the plan sponsors, you know, winning the stop-loss game, it's kind of a fallacy. It shouldn't be looked at like a game. It should really be looked at like a floor for your self-funded plan, because, I mean, they're a partner in this system with us, right, and they're not someone to be like taking advantage of. So I kind of think this idea of like, yeah, we all like a refund, check, a reimbursement, that's great, but so think about it like a game, like you're just gonna win some, that's, that's not the way to think about employee benefits.
Speaker 1:Now you won't win in the end. It's kind of the same mentality. It says I'm gonna go take out a payday loan and have more money. Huh exactly. It doesn't work that way, costs more. So Well, here's a question for you if there's so much value and getting ahead right and not just being responsive to the risk after it's happened, but in terms of real prevention and seeing things before they hit, why aren't more people doing it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a really good question. The big buzz after COVID was technologies changed, the world were more advanced, and Technology is supposed to make our lives easier until it doesn't. And Nowadays it just feels like we're so inundated and a lot of the things too is like compliance on the employee benefit side has ramped up tremendously. So Touching advanced analytics was difficult just because it might have seemed like we weren't quite there yet. Aca changed a lot. The CAA is still changing a lot.
Speaker 2:I've got a lot of things going on this year, next just with transparency, that are going to constantly evolve. So sometimes you know, it could be a combination of burnout, it could be a combination of drinking from the fire hydrant, but now, or rather say one other aspect, that could just be lack of capacity. Maybe I don't have the staff that Can do this, because before self-insured reporting they used to take one or two analysts at every agency just to be able to do stop loss coordination and marketing. So what we've been able to do is essentially do that work where one or two or whole team of analysts used to do. What we've been able to develop with the renal risk analysis is we've been able to develop a tool that People can do a task that would normally take a bunch of people, and now we do in a short amount of time.
Speaker 2:So that might be why people don't really know about it. It's because, I mean, world gets more complicated every day. Our bandwidth is constantly stretched, then, but at the same time too, there's new things coming out. There's new things to get excited about that Maybe people just have not been made aware of. Yeah, because you know that, the renal risk analysis is fairly complex.
Speaker 1:You know, to your I think we talked about some months ago, right, it's like permutations and combinations I hated that class, by the way. But looking at all the different ways that you can combine things, and I think you know I am not a data person. I I look at data as a means for, for, as a clinician, data is a means for me to get to the person and a means for me to get to the right person. To me, data analytics is how I can perform, like a population health assessment Determine what can we put in place to help make this population and the individual population who comprise that population, what can we do to make them healthier. But you know, to be able to. You know, look at all the different combinations that go into play to build that risk. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Eric, I gotta tell you you are the man. I've seen you. Seriously, I am gonna have another baby and I am gonna call her Eric. Just in the time savings that your tool is made for us here at the moment, time savings that your tool is made for us here at, specially care management huge. And and the accuracy, I think, the other thing that I really like about what you guys are doing when you look at this kind of assessment and the clinician involvement, which is really important. But in terms of scalability, they're there, you know, without some kind of a process like what you built. It's not only incredibly cumbersome and in terms of Time, but it's hard to build that to scale and not miss anything Right. So, and that's really important, especially if you're looking at larger populations or higher risk elements. So, you know, not, not everybody is doing this, I think, because not everybody can. Just yet, not everybody has an Eric. I don't know, maybe we should clone you. What do you think?
Speaker 2:I mean I'm, yeah, I'd like a few clones myself.
Speaker 1:You got the royalties.
Speaker 2:that might be okay there would be enough time in the day to get everything done.
Speaker 1:The Doctor Strange thing. That's why I tell my husband I just need to do the Doctor Strange thing, you know, and sleep. I can sleep, but have my what do you call that astral body. I can have my astral body do all the work. Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2:Well, it's actually been a fun project to work on. We've talked a little bit more about my family, just with being nursing and the healthcare side of things too, so you know I had a really strong connection, working with you just from right out the gate, and it really helps on the collaboration side.
Speaker 2:Collaboration is important. I mean, I can build a tool, but without actually speaking to who's going to be using it. What are you using it for? What are you trying to spot? I don't think it would have been nearly as powerful as what it is today especially with the accuracy.
Speaker 2:I was very thrilled about just being pretty accurate right out the gate and we didn't have a whole lot of time or we didn't need a whole lot of time, I should say, in order to fine tune it, but yeah. I'm really excited about what you're going to be able to do this now, the people that you're going to be able to help, and just the improvements we're going to be making in the healthcare system.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I think, too, a lot of advisors out there really want to have the visibility into what's going on in their claims and it's just, it's still, even with the you know what's going on in terms of the gag clause, right, it's still hard for folks for advisors and consultants to really have eyes on what's going on and be able to determine what do I do with it? Right, if I have the data gosh, what do I do with it? I think your platform really has a nice way of helping people see what that risk is, so to help them make the choices to put in place what their groups need to mitigate their risks.
Speaker 1:So, that's the whole point of data analytics, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, we're a transparent company. We really try to make things as transparent as possible. That's one of the reasons we started. Self-insured reporting is to make things easier, so we really want to see this grow. Big thing for us is really just watching the market and how transparency is going to be ushered in the next few years. You know Congress says they've sounded an alarm about transparency. We haven't really seen a whole lot about it and a lot of the onus has fallen on the employers. So it might just be from the broker community and the employer community that really leads the charge on transparency, because when we show people the risks like this, they're going to be like why is anyone else doing this? How come? I'm just now finding out from you all, like an analytics company which we do a lot of compliance.
Speaker 2:So it's like how does that fit in with healthcare? But we're here and you know, especially in the dialysis side, with the way that they hide pricing and all that. I think when people really start to see the cost savings that can be had, it's going to be we'll see the reaction when it comes. But I think that Game changing, game changing. Yeah, you know, transparency is really going to come whenever they finally start seeing what's going on.
Speaker 1:Right oh so yeah. You know what happens when you turn the lights on Eric.
Speaker 1:Yeah everyone's grand Gatter. Yep, they scatter Well, and I think to your point earlier we're putting a lot of the onus. The responsibility is on the employer. But the employer has to have access and most employers I talked to they didn't go into business to go into the business of healthcare, or they would have gone into healthcare Right and so they're really reliant on a savvy broker, advisor, consultant to be able to help them. That's the role of the consultant.
Speaker 1:I was talking to my husband the other day. I'm like he works with a lot of employers and whatnot, and so it's kind of like if I go to see the doctor and I say, you know, I'm worried about my heart, you know, I kind of have this pain here, I don't want to see a doctor who looks at me and says, well, I don't know what do you think? Would you like to know a little bit about you know how your diet maybe might have? No, you want to see a doctor who says, well, these are the tests that we've run, this is what this indicates, this is what we need to do. You need somebody who has the knowledge base and the expertise to say this is what it is, this is what, this is your options. This is what I recommend.
Speaker 1:That's the role of a consultant is to give you a strategic if we're looking at a clinical landscape Strategic and clinical recommendations that help the decision maker make the decision that's best for them.
Speaker 1:The advisor doesn't make the decision, but it's not fair for the vulnerable person who's trying to make a decision if their advisor, consultant, isn't giving them the information that they need and helping to direct them Right. So I really think you have a powerful tool to help you know. That market that our broker friends or advisor friends are in is pretty competitive, and I do think we're at a time my feeling is we're at a time where healthcare is so expensive that you know if you're not being a forthright advisor, consultant and really making a difference for your clients are going to lose your customers, right. So having the insight to some, to the data that actually helps you make the right recommendations, is really powerful. Same thing in terms of your stop-loss partners, right. A big part of constructing a health plan is that foundational element. So having the data that you can do something about that is really important.
Speaker 2:So Absolutely, and when you have the data too, it also helps in that stop-loss conversation because you can go and prove Yep. This is what we're looking at. This is the experience, all the claims detailed by the member. It makes their job so much easier, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Creating a predictable risk element right. One of the things that I think that we do really well, especially care management, is quantifying that dialysis risk to the penny and contracting it up front so that an employer knows every month and so that stop-loss knows to your point. If stop-loss knows exactly to the penny what this member's dialysis is going to cost, now it's easy to underwrite that risk.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And one other thing that you should mention here. I think it would do you a huge disservice if you don't bring this up. There's the proactive approach you take, where other providers will do a repricing strategy on the member, but you all do it on the group and you'll do it proactively, so if it ever comes up, they're not having to go back and do the paperwork because, let's be honest, one last form I got to read or sign means I can get a whole lot more things done right.
Speaker 1:Yes. And then to your point even making it easier. How about let's not have another dialysis? That's my favorite. Don't tell my bosses here at specialty care management trying to keep people off of dialysis.
Speaker 2:Well, no, that's what we should be doing.
Speaker 1:Well, eric, I got to tell you that you're one of my very favorite people in this arena to talk, to Love the work that you and your team, your whole team, do there at self-insured reporting and we're really, we're really happy to be able to work with you to really make a meaningful difference, especially in the realm of high cost claims. Thanks for the good work you do.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, kim, it's been a lot of fun working with you and the team over at SEM, really looking to make y'all shine and help make the country a little bit more healthy. Oh yeah, Now you're talking.
Speaker 1:Well, hey by the way. If people have questions, if they want to reach out to you and get to know a little bit more about your platform, what you're doing, how do they do that?
Speaker 2:So the best way to reach us is just on the website healthcarereportingcom. I can send you a link that you can put in the description somewhere. That will be the landing page where you can go learn more about the dialysis cost containment program, the advanced analytics. So that's probably the best way to reach us.
Speaker 2:It is a way to get us to ask a question or call us on the phone on the website. So either reach out on the website or you can go to the dialysis website and you should be able to learn more about it.
Speaker 1:Awesome and follow you guys on LinkedIn. You guys put out some great content. You guys are putting out some great content now to help people in terms of the gag clause that we talked about earlier, to help people stay abreast of what's happening in compliance. So yeah, Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:The LinkedIn is a great source for all things employee benefits. We do a lot of compliance and claims analytics, so it's going to be along those lines.
Speaker 1:Awesome, awesome. Well, hey, merry Christmas, my friend. Thanks so much for sharing some time.
Speaker 2:Well, Merry Christmas, Ken. Yeah, it was a pleasure. Well, I know that this year just kind of flew by. So I want to wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy new year.
Speaker 1:Back at you, congratulations.