E79: Revolutionary Rehab: Exploring ROMTech's Innovations with Mike Arnold

Welcome to the Get Healthy Tampa Bay Podcast with Dr. Kerry Reller! This week, I am joined by Mike Arnold, the Vice President of Business Development for ROM Technologies. In this episode, Mike introduces us to ROMTech and their innovative solutions for post-operative knee replacement rehab and cardiac rehab.

Mike shares how ROMTech collaborates with doctors to design their flagship product, a durable medical equipment device that assists patients in rehab by making movement easier and less painful. He explains the device's telemedicine capabilities and how it monitors patient progress, providing valuable data to doctors. We dive into a comparison of ROMTech's technology with traditional physical therapy, discussing the benefits of increased range of motion and the impact on patient outcomes and recovery times. Mike also highlights the transition of ROMTech's technology into the cardiac rehab space, addressing compliance issues and offering remote rehab solutions.

In addition, we explore the affordability and accessibility of ROMTech's products, and Mike shares some anecdotal success stories from both orthopedic and cardiac rehab patients. He emphasizes the importance of doctor-patient relationships and the potential for preventative care through cardiac rehab.

As Vice President of Business Development at ROMTech, Mike Arnold is dedicated to advancing medical technologies for various rehabilitation processes, including cardiac, long-term care, and orthopedic. His role focuses on presenting ROMTech's latest innovations and integrating feedback from medical professionals into the development process.

Over the past three years, Mike has conducted over 4,000 interviews with doctors across specialties such as cardiology, anesthesiology, and internal medicine. These interactions have shaped ROMTech's technology and business model while establishing a network of engaged, forward-thinking medical professionals.

Mike's efforts have attracted over $10 million in investment capital, reflecting the trust and enthusiasm from investors. His presentations highlight innovative applications of ROMTech's technology, uncovering new opportunities in the medical industry. As a bridge between ROMTech and the medical community, he ensures that all operational and developmental needs are met.

With extensive experience in telemedicine and medical R&D, Mike has enriched his understanding of the healthcare sector, particularly in rehabilitation. His skills in critical thinking and innovation have driven ROMTech's business development initiatives. His foundation in sales, revenue growth strategies, and project management allows him to simplify complex concepts, motivate teams, and drive excellence. Mike's ability to identify industry patterns and capitalize on opportunities enhances ROMTech’s ability to deliver long-term value, making him pivotal in building enduring relationships with both doctors and industry stakeholders.

0:28 - Introduction of Mike Arnold and ROM Technologies
1:41 - Overview of ROMTech's Durable Medical Equipment
4:22 - How ROMTech Collaborates with Doctors for Better Outcomes
8:27 - Comparing ROMTech to Traditional Physical Therapy
10:37 - Benefits of Increased Range of Motion
17:53 - Transitioning ROMTech Technology to Cardiac Rehab
23:11 - Addressing Compliance in Cardiac Rehab
28:45 - Affordability and Access to ROMTech Products
30:31 - Anecdotal Success Stories in Orthopedic Rehab
32:45 - Dr. Matthew's Experience with Cardiac Rehab

Connect witH Mike Arnold
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ROMTechRehab
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/romtech_rehab/
Twitter: https://x.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2FROMTechnologies
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/romtechnologies/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0WlP8_td5Liz0Wq-TvdZ5Q

Connect with Dr. Reller
My linktre

Transcript

Kerry: 0:28

Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Get Healthy Tampa Bay podcast. I am Dr. Kerry Reller and I think you all know me by now, but today we have a very special guest and Mike, why don't you introduce yourself?

Mike: 0:40

Thank you, Kerry. I'm Mike Arnold. I'm the vice president of business development for ROM Technologies, which stands for range of motion technology and ROM Tech- just to give a quick elevator is a manufacturer of a durable medical equipment product for post operative knee replacement rehab or now newly cardiac rehab.

Kerry: 1:02

Yeah, very, very exciting. I was so excited to touch base with you and learn all about what ROM Tech has to offer. And it's funny, I already forgot that ROM stands for range of motion. So that's super important as well. So you guys are based out of Connecticut, correct?

Mike: 1:19

Yeah, that's correct. Brookfield, Connecticut.

Kerry: 1:21

Connecticut. Okay. But any state. Is going to be on the platform for what you guys are doing. So it's all relevant to Florida or anybody who's listening in another state as well.

Mike: 1:29

Precisely.

Kerry: 1:30

Awesome. Okay. So can you basically give us a little bit of description of what RomTech does and how this this DME or durable medical equipment device works?

Mike: 1:41

absolutely. So RomTech essentially has created a first, a bit of a flagship product that assists any individual after surgery to rehab, whether they're really active, not active, in a lot of pain, a little bit of pain or even no pain, but really needs to, you know, Have a very strict process in the way that they move, and it makes it so easy for them that essentially, they really shouldn't have any objection to using it right. A lot of people are worried about about the pain that it might cause to move after surgery. So Rom Tech you know, created a very durable piece of equipment that has motors in it and some telemedicine capabilities. And then worked tirelessly interviewing doctors like yourself as you and I were obviously on a meeting learned everything that we could from the experience of the doctors who see the patients every day. And we took and sort of pulled that information and looked for, how many pieces of information were basically the same and said, okay, let's, let's create features and things that will accommodate the needs of the patient from the doctor's viewpoint. Historically, you know, our docs obviously know what the patients need, right? You're the one that sees the patient's needs and you make the decisions for them and help them. And so the entire product top to bottom was developed really in checked with our doctors of every specialty. And as a result, we have a fairly high compliance of patients who use this at home, who, you know, rave about the outcomes that they have. And it's, it's very interesting. It's very real. If you look at the reviews, it's very real. It's interesting. It's not that they're raving, like it's the greatest thing ever and it replaces everything. It's actually just their attention knowing that they used it and it was an important part of the process. Was it is more valuable than anything rather than it being over the top. Like, oh, my gosh, I can walk and I was paralyzed, you know And then it helps our docs too. And so that's really what RomTech does is we cultivate the experience of doctors to create technology that helps patients. And we've done that with the orthopedic model and now starting to develop into cardiac, which we did at the feedback of of doctors. And we now have a huge opportunity to save heart patients lives potentially, or at least contribute toward it. Maybe not save their life, but contribute toward the ability for them to have a better, healthier heart. And that's such an honor for us because primarily we're not doctors. So we have to rely on doctors to kind of help us and guide us. And we feel very lucky to do that.

Kerry: 4:22

Yeah. I mean, I think it's great with the collaboration of the tech and the engineering and then obviously with the medical profession as well. Since we don't have a video of the device in action can you describe a little bit about what it does, I guess, for the orthopedic side? And then like, how does that work? And how does it benefit the patient and alleviate the pain and from rehab? Well, from the surgery?

Mike: 4:46

yeah, of course, of course. And I appreciate that, you know, opening as a matter of fact. So in orthopedics, for those who aren't in medicine, ortho means bone, anything related to bones. And obviously, you know, a knee replacement is, is replacement that's usually done with an implant. It's a surgery. So a lot of times after a surgery, in this case, a patient is very limited in how much they can move their leg, without feeling a tremendous amount of pain. I think knee replacements typically are very painful after surgery to move. So what the machine does is it's delivered to the house usually before surgery or right after surgery, and it moves the body of the patient first, but keeps their range of motion low so that it can mitigate the pain as best as possible. Because if the pain is based on how much you move your, your leg after surgery, we want to keep you at the low range first so we can basically try to condense or lessen that pain and still get you motion. Now there's, there's a little bit of a culprit, which everybody is good at doing, which is it builds up what you call fibrosis or scar tissue very quickly because that's what the body is supposed to do. Well, in this case, If a patient or a person doesn't move a lot after a surgery, then that scar tissue builds up a lot and very quickly, and even if they go to physical therapy, it's still going to stiffen that joint, as you might have seen, you know, Dr. Reller, five patients who've had a knee replacement, and maybe they've complained, and so what the technology does is it makes it very easy for the patient to get motion, by keeping them at a low range and keeping them moving. But the most beautiful thing about it is it moves the body of the patient first so that there's effortless motion. Then it assists the patient to the next stage of motion, then active and then resistance in 20 minutes. And the key in the philosophy here is lighter therapies done more frequently produce a better result versus just wham and bam. Let's break it up. Let's do the things that you're uncomfortable with. Not that, you know, that occurs in the traditional sense. However, we know that both together physical therapy with our technology we've seen in our published study of the journal for arthroplasty produces a pretty good result. So that's really the idea and the structure and the machine Was developed for just that purpose to to move the body and transition the patient talk to the patient and then on top of that A lot of patients and you can attest to this or not, feel free to disagree. You know, don't like the fact that they can't just pick up the phone and talk to the doctor every day if they have a problem. That's a, that's a harder task for you as a doctor to talk to every patient nowadays, right?

Kerry: 7:27

Yes

Mike: 7:27

all right. So, so our technology reports every session into a dashboard where the patient can take a little bit of solace and comfort in the fact that if there's an indicator or anything that looks like it's going wrong, the doctor's office will know about that without the patient having to pick up that phone. So that's, that's very valuable for a lot of patients. That makes, you know, I wouldn't say everyone, but a lot of them feel very confident in that. They feel like they have that line of communication that they never have otherwise.

Kerry: 7:59

yeah, that's definitely a nice feature. It's similar to what we use for remote patient monitoring for just blood pressure and weight or things like that. So that's yeah, definitely so helpful that, you know, they think that they have that reassurance that somebody is overlooking everything. You kind of answered my next question a little bit, but let's go a little bit deeper in it. So, I guess I really wanted to know what the impact of using the device in terms of patient outcomes and recovery times compared to traditional physical therapy methods

Mike: 8:27

Mm hmm. Yeah. So, so yeah, absolutely. And that's basically a question that I think any doctor should ask right before prescribing anything. One of the things that the technology in the published study reveals is that there's, you know, in comparison now arthroplasty study that was published comparing the standard of care, which is physical therapy to the portable connect. Now, yeah. Before I go into that, I'd like to just anecdotally express that, you know, based on your own observation, if a patient is doing motion three times a day on a joint that's safe for them every single day for six weeks versus only doing three hours a week, potentially obvious that They're going to have a better outcome. And so that really is the first and foremost goal of the technology. Let's get a patient who may have mental barriers even, to have consistent motion and feel like they're winning. They get rewarded for the motion themselves. They see that and feel that reward. Versus just every time I move I feel pain, which is a penalty. And that's the first goal. The first goal is let's Help this patient feel that no matter where they are in life that they can get motion on this joint safely and that it will be a benefit and let's start getting that habit formed of motion. We have a fair number of patients that actually want to keep the technology afterwards because they never thought that they would be this habitual. So that's really the piece there. Did that answer your question all the way?

Kerry: 9:59

Yeah, I mean, I think you mentioned the increase of the frequency, so obviously getting better slowly. I guess, right? Range of motion increase would help because you're getting more contact hours already, right? Versus traditional models where you're only going like a couple times a week, right? So that's definitely probably the biggest factor. And then, like you mentioned before, it's like the gentle, gentle increase of the range of motion versus, you know, I don't know what word you use, but it was yeah, a big difference. So that makes sense. I mean, I think Obviously, they're going to get, you know, bigger outcomes and better outcomes and safer outcomes too. Right?

Mike: 10:37

sure. And just to follow up on that real fast, just because I wanted to not leave out a point here, you know, while we have proven that with our published study that the comparison is neck and neck, at least to physical therapy, we still, Attempt to to ask our physicians to prescribe with physical therapy because we we want physical therapy to handle certain things. We are just there. We know our consistency is there. And so we know that patients typically like to use this at home. They don't have to travel. They don't have to go anywhere. They could be comfortable. They could use it three times a day, any time, any three times they want. While also we follow up and make sure they're compliant as well. That's a part of our job as the provider of the technology. So that's, but obviously for further, you know, the journal for arthroplasty study would be ideal. And I could probably provide that if you want to post that on the notes or

Kerry: 11:29

Sure. You mentioned reward. Is there any like interactive games that they play with it to kind of, I guess, get that feeling of reward or have fun with it? How does that work?

Mike: 11:40

So we, games has been a high, high priority topic because obviously, you know, What's captured our attention nowadays, right? Lots of gamification. We do, we do slightly reward. I mean, there is a feedback part of using it that tells the patient, hey, this is you're doing better than you did before. This is your progress, etcetera. So there is constant feedback in that regard. However, the gamification. That we might imagine we haven't necessarily developed in that direction fully. A lot of good ideas. You know, we're piloting this in in New York City with some oncology piloting for Children, which obviously requires more gamification. And that's what brought us to that. But There is a sense of completion rate. We do have our people who drop off, pick up our technicians that talk over video sometimes with patients, giving them T shirts and different things like that. We obviously love that. That's a huge part of it. But I believe it could be better. They're on my own personal two cents in there.

Kerry: 12:44

I was just thinking about it because I keep in my head comparing it to like a Peloton or something like that. But like, because I know they have like competitions with the Peloton. Not that I own one, but I just think that would be a fun idea to do that as well. But even like you said, like, The fact that they're improving is rewarding, right? They are, you know, making sure they're creating a new habit, which is, you know, a healthy habit. So that's good too. And that can be very rewarding in and of itself, right? So they're, you know, practicing that habit to get used to moving more, I think is important as well. Yeah.

Mike: 13:16

yeah, absolutely.

Kerry: 13:17

So before I ask you more about the cardiac rehab part, do you have anything more to say about the orthopedic

Mike: 13:24

Well, I would. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. If that's all right. I mean, I, I definitely one of the things that fascinates me mostly about, you know, the, the patient reviews and experiences is that, you know, what I've learned interviewing as many doctors as I have through, through working here with RomTech is that as patients tend to get older, they tend to move less because they're in pain. They're just feel barriers physically in the physical world, right? They feel these barriers and, really, the key is, is that we're at the stage. We're moving a patient's body for them to show them that they're not going to get penalized by pain is, is the step that's needed today. That's what we've learned. We've, we've learned that's what's wanted and needed by patients who have had a surgery, who have a penalty of pain with motion. And so there's a lot of exploration outside of post operation or after your operation to just again, I would imagine you might see the patients with arthritis and different things, you know, so we're looking at that. We're researching that to find out. Well, let's take this motion doesn't equal pain philosophy and try to see how we can graduate people into more advanced levels of motion, right? Because that's really what it's all about, right? if you're to summate your, your patients and different, okay. You know, inflammation and things that there could be some indication or need to reteach them that motion is safe. Is that fair? Is that a

Kerry: 14:58

Yeah, no, that definitely makes sense. I mean, I think that's super important. And I was even going to ask you a little one step further was, does this decrease sometimes? post op pain medication usage.

Mike: 15:10

So we have some studies that that does indicate that we don't in the study we published. We didn't look at that factor. Pain was a factor. In a prior study, I believe, done with Dr Ryan Nunley who, you know, I believe, you know, did did a little bit of a Yeah. It wasn't it wasn't published, but it was fairly well known study, and it did indicate less consumptions of narcotics. You know how that was monitored. Obviously, as, as you know, as a doc, you could, you know, publish not publish. There may be some different factors, but yes, and ultimately we have seen that as an indication and that's another piece, right? We do have patients waking up at two o'clock in the morning with, with the industry term called a hot me. Okay. Right. And using our technology and what we see as the result is, is that the patient is choosing to use motion to handle pain, which is what we want, right? That's what we want in medicine. We want motion to be a solution, right? Not a barrier.

Kerry: 16:10

So if they come in or they have some sort of symptom like that and then how does that get translated to the doctor? Will that something be urgently referred or they just see it the next time they open it or how does that work?

Mike: 16:24

Well, it depends. If, if it's a post operative visit, the doctor has free access to the dashboard that every patient in every session. What's a sliding scale of one through ten pain score? So there is an accumulation and graphed out model the doctor's office sees usually the PA is the follow up you know, person, not necessarily the surgeon. It does occur. But yeah, they just have free access to the dashboard as a part of, you know, any doctor prescribing this has free access to the dashboard that we give them so they can be dangerous in a good way of course, you know, they can really understand what's happening. One of the number one questions is, did the patient really do what they're saying they did, right? You know, did they really do it? Well, this alleviates that question because it's tracking every single time. And to the patient's perspective, it's only tracking the necessary things and nothing else.

Kerry: 17:18

Yeah. So, I mean, I think it sounds like they get, you know, quicker back to quality of life, improvement, less pain you know, better function. And I'm always discussing longevity and the, you know, the moving more thing is very important. Like you said, if you don't move, you're not going to be well, what kind of quality of life is that? So, I mean, getting back to movement, I think is super important. And I, I think it's a really great. Like tool that everybody needs to be learning about. So this is very exciting. How does this portable connect technology translate into the cardiac space? Mm hmm.

Mike: 17:53

very good question. So over the years we've had a tremendous number of cardiologists, you know, do meetings with us where we ask questions, show the technology and back in 2019, potentially earlier, before I joined the company the passion from a cardiologist about, What the compliance is of people who go and do cardiac rehab after an event was over the top. I had never witnessed another specialty and I've done, you know, 3000 meetings plus right with with doctors like yourself. So, so I hadn't ever seen a specialty more passionate. about the potential of our technology. And this is long before as the years continued, we had a gentleman who semi retired out of Delray Beach joined the company in his desire to essentially pilot this because of the same passion, which was just to kind of clarify the problem in cardiac rehab is not necessarily any cardiac rehab provider doing a poor job. It's the fact that the compliance per C. D. C. C. M. S. Is very low. The number of patients in America you know, are about 3. 1 million on average that have some sort of cardiac event that would require cardiac rehab. is data from 2019. Now, since or let's say the amount that actually do cardiac rehab of that 3. 1 million is only 6. 5 percent or four. To get more specific, about 200, 000 of 3. 1 million are documented completing cardiac rehab. Now, for us, we had to really dig in and pilot before we could even consider such a thing, because obviously there's the obvious risks what It happens in cardiac rehab and what they do, just to clarify for anybody who doesn't know, they go to a center, they get on a treadmill or, or an exercise bike or exercise equipment, a nurse is there monitoring vitals, ECG, electrocardiogram, blood pressure, and oxygen absorption. And those three things are monitored continuously for that hour, while I believe mental health and diet counseling go with it. And that happens 36 hours, and then they're completed. There's two factors that we know are the outcome, which is how much oxygen absorption increases during that 36 hour program and then metabolic output, right? right now its energy Is being produced during motion. so there's probably other factors. You know, obviously, I'm not stating that's it conclusively. But the idea here is that those things per another study at the University of Colorado indicate that the patient's risk for another heart attack goes down. The risk that they're going to have any sort of death from another cardiac event also reduces based on that study at the University of Colorado. So for us as a company, it became okay, let's try this, let's pilot it, let's handle the first problem, which is People don't do it. They start. They don't finish. They don't go. Well, why work work is what we've seen is one of the larger competitors to people not going. I have to go to work. This becomes slightly philosophical in a way. Do I do cardiac rehab to make my life better and longer? Or do I go to work to pay my bills to have a roof over my head? You know what they're gonna what anyone would choose logically. So that has always historically been the problem. One of them. Yeah. And we started piloting this and found that some of our software capabilities allow a nurse to be on video with the patient. And we found that a lot of patients don't do rehab because of lower extremity problems, or lack of ability to move, or transportation, big problem. You know, in Tallahassee, it's 50 to 100 miles to the cardiac rehab center. So, so all these, these problems we then incorporate it into our system. We have some secret sauce, some software capabilities, but the long story short, we created a company called ROMP Therapy. ROMP Therapy is actually a separate corporation to ROMP TAC. ROMP Therapy employs trained, certified, licensed cardiac nurses in the areas that the patients are located, and those nurses are always live with the patient, that, of course, Is done in that patient's home and our nurses live on screen monitoring those vitals and taking the patient through cardiac rehab. So compared to traditional cardiac rehab, there's a vast difference, of course, because there's not a person present. However, the results are shown after each session because we're, we're seeing those vitals. We're capturing that data. So the patients that want to do it, but have a work schedule now can do cardiac rehab at home pretty much any time before work after work five days a week. I won't say seven days a week. I don't know. This would be totally true yet. so as we started piloting that, we started getting asked by the systems, some of the largest, you know, top first largest health care system. We'll just say many of the systems because the hospitals suffer monetarily for patients who don't do cardiac rehab. Yeah. Plus the doctors want a patient to not come back for the same problem. Would you agree?

Kerry: 23:11

Oh, yes.

Mike: 23:12

Right, right. So, so that, that all helped us kind of cultivate. Now, if we hadn't had such support by docs if our doctors were not absolutely fanatical about our technology being utilized in cardiac rehab, we wouldn't be here. Now, our CEO, huge, actually our president, Steve Siegel, who's residents in Orlando, Florida he, Took that ball and he just ran with it and he met with a lot of systems and he developed and he had the the wisdom to not jump the gun and, and take a pilot. We had a pilot offered that was huge in volume, right? Many patients and, and he had the wisdom to say, let's start small. Let's do this appropriately because we absolutely don't want patients to have a bad experience. We want to keep the experience good. And, and that's a lot to do with it. But a lot, that was a very long winded way of explaining, but that is the cultivation of, of cardiac rehab for ROM therapy.

Kerry: 24:14

No, was a great explanation. I think what was interesting, well, several things, but one was all prior to COVID. Like, so developing this at home cardiac rehab, the thoughts were, you know, prior to that having an Any impact, which obviously it has an impact now to make it even more, you know, I guess, important to be having these options for things at home, of course, but I think that that is very, really interesting. That was all prior to 2019. And then you were also saying that there's a live nurse like with them. So that is definitely more reassuring when they're doing these things after having, you know, a big cardiac event or surgery, then, you know, you kind of want to have some reassurance that someone's there monitoring you. So it is it is a live person that's interacting with them, which is helpful, too. That's really good. I think I forgot that part of it.

Mike: 25:03

I don't know. That's okay. I'm glad you, you remembered.

Kerry: 25:05

Yeah. So I mean, I think even from your guys is I think patient reviews and outcomes, it really shows the importance of cardiac rehab. And it's, I think those numbers are astoundingly sad that not enough people are, you know, doing that to help improve their life moving forward. Right. I think, you know, It's interesting because in the last, I think, two or three episodes, I've been talking about prevention of these problems, right? And now we're at, okay, so wait, something happened, and how can you, you know, move on immediately from having a cardiac event? And I think this is really, you know, helpful and engaging and timely as well.

Mike: 25:45

Yeah, absolutely. And when a problem of such magnitude in medicine, I've learned that, everyone's trying to solve that problem. The acute problem, the problem happening right now, right? When it becomes so large, the preventative problem is, is just a, it's a past situation, right? To move point. Because if you can't handle the acute problem, how are you going to handle the preventative problem? The problem before it occurs, right? The indicator that there's a problem. And so, can't say as to why the system has been the way it has been and why the performance of cardiac rehab has been so low. But what I can say is that with our current compliance, I can't specify specifically, but I can say it's much higher than 6. 5 percent of completion. We we stand the chance to be able to contribute to that. And if you, you know, if your patient qualifies for cardiac rehab because they have an indicator or marker, Indicating they have weakness, which I believe I believe it's possible for depending on the insurance. Why not? Why not? Can't can't you prescribe cardiac rehab? If we can get the same benefit to a to a patient indicating heart failure or weakness in the heart. Why can't we prescribe cardiac rehab? Why couldn't they? Right?

Kerry: 27:07

So you're saying prescribe it other than just an event, right? So someone is diagnosed with, I don't know, cardiomyopathy or something like that and helping them undergo it at that time too,

Mike: 27:18

Correct. Correct. Yeah. And I think the possibility is there. I wouldn't say that conclusively or based on evidence currently that we have as a company that we can do that currently because obviously we would need a study to do so. But if you just consider the fact that the result of a patient's cardiac rehab is a higher oxygen absorption, the O two max. During exercise that occurs to any person, whether they have a cardiac event or not. Right. And if the, if the cardiac event patient has a higher oxygen absorption after cardiac rehab, and that lowers their risk, then why wouldn't it lower the risk to the patient who didn't have a cardiac event? Right. Why wouldn't it make them healthier? You know, now, You would just have to kind of put those two together. I'm not, you know, saying rom tech says that, but I'm saying it just seems slightly obvious. Maybe that the preventative medicine is, is the key. So I, you know, I'm with you on that. 100%. We just have to get there.

Kerry: 28:16

right. No, I agree. I mean, our medical community is pretty good at solving the acute problem, but not so good at the prevention. And that's one of the things I strive to do better on too. So this is a different levels of prevention. I think that we're discussing. So I think it's yeah, definitely. So, so important. Yeah. So what How about the affordability of this? How does that work and access for patients to be able to get prescribed this by their provider?

Mike: 28:45

Sure. Now, are you speaking in the cardiac or orthopedics or wolf?

Kerry: 28:49

I guess both.

Mike: 28:50

Okay. Fair enough. So orthopedics it's, it's, you know, covered. Sure. By Medicare. It has to be prescribed, you know, within a certain amount of time after surgery. You know, obviously affordability. I think, you know, depending on, if you have a copay, you would, you know, pay a copay if you, if you do for any durable medical equipment product. For cardiac rehab, it's prescribed as cardiac rehab. So whatever you would pay for cardiac rehab as a patient going to any provider, you would pay to rom therapy, the provider. You know, it's kind of interesting because, you know, it's kind of like if you let's say if I went out to a restaurant and it was 1, 000 for the plate, I might question it maybe. But if you, if you did it in my house and it was just as good and the experience was just as amazing, I might be more willing. It's very similar cardiac rehab. Obviously, it can be done at the center or it can be done in your home. What would you prefer? The cost is pretty much the same.

Kerry: 29:48

Okay. Yeah. So basically insurance is covering this and it is, you know, affordable as long as, well, probably if they have insurance,

Mike: 29:58

That's right. That's right. Or they pay cash. They pay cash if it's, you know, a cash patient. But I believe the majority of payers or the insurance companies pay for cardiac rehab. You know, With a copay and in a lot of cases, I believe,

Kerry: 30:11

So you may not have an answer to this question, but I was going to say, do you have any like anecdotal stories of any in particular patient that underwent either I guess rehab, I'm sorry, cardiac rehab or the orthopedic rehab. Can you think of anything? Yeah.

Mike: 30:31

know, I do. I mean, I know at the beginning, at the onset of our technology, when I first started the company, one of the reasons I decided to be employed here, you know, from a consultant into being an employee of RomTech one of the founders, Sandy Gomberg had, you know, was still researching and developing the technology for orthopedics and a very particular patient that I knew was underwent a liver transplant many, many years ago, more than 15 years ago, I believe. And he had a knee replacement in his seventies. So as a doc, you understand already, there's so many things there that stopped that patient from healing. And stop that patient from progressing normally because, you know, they're on immune suppressants, et cetera. And it hadn't really dawned on me yet, but he had used a mechanical version that wasn't automated, didn't have a motor in it. That just was an adjustable pedal, which started him off at a low range of motion and increased over time. And long story short you know, I think it was week two that he had used this after surgery. Which in the traditional sense, a normal patient, six weeks, four weeks, whatever, they're, they're able to get range of motion. He was walking upstairs and, you know, a little limpy, but still moving and walking upstairs very, very, pretty well. Had a pretty good range of motion. And I hadn't understood it at the time, but later, Realizing that all of the factors going against his body healing and moving and everything happening and the fact that he was able to get such a range of motion afterwards was quite incredible. Now, the current technology so much more advanced, the outcome so much different, and it was just at that early stage. I still hadn't understood, right? The benefit and how valuable that was because it's such a simple technology. You just wouldn't think. But sometimes simplicity inspires action. Sometimes that's the case. It's just, is it easy enough for me to do it? Right? And then another one I have for cardiac, maybe, you know, if if you'd like, I can kind of tell you about a cardiac story, which I think you you may have observed once, which is you know, Dr Matthew.

Kerry: 32:45

I was going to bring it up if you didn't, I say, yeah, let's pull at our little heart strings here and see what you got.

Mike: 32:51

Absolutely. So, so you know, in the cardiac exploration, doing meetings with, with different doctors, cardiologists, et cetera. There was a particular doctor Dr. Thomas Matthew, who had, you know, been a part of a focus group meeting with us just as, as you reviewed it, you know, and went over and asking for his feedback. And I believe it was a few months before, this occurred. But, you know, he observed it being a cardiologist of a very big, large group, famous group. Knew that patients didn't complete cardiac rehab and he knew what it meant. And he very active gentleman was in France with his wife or out of the country with his wife bicycling and two months after had his own cardiac event. He went to go and being part of one of the most prestigious institutions in the United States said, well, obviously, I could get cardiac rehab, you know, as the director and, and, you know, was surprised to find that he couldn't get cardiac rehab. He had to wait three months to get his cardiac rehab going as a director. And he remembered the meeting. He called us. Our technology is portable, can be delivered anywhere. We delivered it to his beach house. He was able to do his cardiac rehab and be one of our first pilot patients for that group in his beach house. And you know, obviously raves about that videos on romtherapy. com, but very, very interesting that, you know, a doc who, you know, I've heard frequently a doctor never wants to be their own patient or a patient of something they're prescribing. And, you know, obviously, I think for more of a social view, you know, doctors are people. just like, anyone else. And they obviously have bodies just like you do, right? And they have just dedicated their lives to helping people. And so sometimes it's important to recognize that, you know, obviously, as you're helping everybody that you're also, you know, there and may need help one day. And You know, in my opinion, I think, you know, this, this particular doctor call it divine intervention, right? If you want, but what are the chances that you, you've been working in medicine for 10, 20 plus years, not ever needed something. You have a meeting with a company like Rom, Rom tech or Rom therapy in this case, and then need their products, right? That's just odd. That's

Kerry: 35:24

Yeah.

Mike: 35:25

But either way, he's, he's completed and now he's getting back to his, you know, daily routines in his life,

Kerry: 35:31

Yeah. I mean, no doctors, we are normal people, not immune to anything, of course. So I am, I mean, I think that's, that's wonderful story. Obviously it'd be nice to have to do the, do the cardiac rehab at the beach house. That sounds

Mike: 35:46

right? I know, right? That's such a hard life.

Kerry: 35:48

Yeah, it must be rough. No, that sounds, that sounds like a, I mean, it's, it's interesting to have to use the only, the thing that you prescribe, but you know, things happen. So I think that it's, I think it was probably, you know, I don't want to say it fell into his lap or God had a plan, but you know, he, he learned about it and he was able to you. You know, we use it for ourselves. I think that's great. Yeah.

Mike: 36:11

exactly. Exactly. And that's, that's an important part of it all is that, you know, not that every doc should have to use their, what they prescribe, but, you know, how much more valuable is it, right? For you to give something, you know, works. You know, that's huge. I mean, that's amazing. I have the same way I had to really understand and know that ROM technology worked before I was able to convince another person or even try to offer that it was even possible. Now, if I hear somebody getting a knee replacement or cardiac rehab and I don't even give him an option now that I know the data, right knowledge is responsibility. So I definitely push anybody I've ever known that has had a cardiac event to do cardiac rehab. And I, I Make it almost not an option even if I'm not their doctor, of course, right?

Kerry: 36:59

Well, speaking of that, so you said there are certain indications for cardiac rehab. Can you give us a timeline of when they're eligible, maybe? Just so our listeners would, oh, maybe we should start thinking about this for some of our patients and, like, when would they be eligible for that?

Mike: 37:14

So as far as I know and I have to keep very limited here just because I'm not I'm not obviously a medical Doctor and I can't give any specifics there. I would say anything that would that would indicate cardiac rehab You know any event that would indicate cardiac rehab is is prescribable We can basically be prescribed. I know that there are certain limits to what we will allow, right? Higher risk patients, patients who need an actual, like, they're very high risk. They could have an acute event. Those patients don't technically qualify at this very moment. They'd have to lower risk down to a certain number. But anything that would indicate cardiac rehab prescription is potentially prescribable. We are still piloting this, so there, I wouldn't say that every single patient it qualifies. We're still learning and discovering, and we're still in the process of that. So it's not necessarily blanketly. Prescribable. It's kind of a trial and error situation. We have to make sure that we qualify and obviously that we, we set up. But I know our system is, is pretty well set up from a risk factor. You know, we have live monitoring. So that's a factor as well. And these are all there for preventative cases. So I would say to be determined and to be the final answer there. But I, I know patients in Florida at this moment are, are doing cardiac rehab and, and, you know, pretty good numbers.

Kerry: 38:35

Okay. Well, what about I think you mentioned even after a cardiac event, like, a few years after you're still eligible. Is that correct?

Mike: 38:41

I've heard I've heard those things. Yeah. I've heard those things. I've heard from a primary care perspective. You can prescribe cardiac rehab for a pretty long number of years after event. Have you have you had the opportunity to do so?

Kerry: 38:56

No, that's why I'm asking, like, for education for somebody in my shoes. Like, typically, I thought, you know, the cardiologist would be doing that. So it was news to me.

Mike: 39:04

Yeah. Well, I would.

Kerry: 39:05

I had learned that we could do.

Mike: 39:09

Well, well, I'd say that, you know, this is not an area that we, we've concretely found to be true. So I can't say that that's totally possible. Currently, I say we are exploring it. I would love to give you and others like you the ability to do so. I've heard from other doctors that this is something that they have done and that they have the opportunity to do so. I would say, we're up against the common, you know, problem, which is if a patient to do cardiac rehab after an event, you would never ask them to do it again because, you know, they didn't do it the first time. So, the best way to test this is to see if you can actually prescribe cardiac rehab traditionally to a patient after they had an event for 2 or 3 years, it wouldn't hurt you to do so if the patient's willing, you know, maybe a year later. So, I would say, what's your ability to prescribe that and check it? write a prescription for it, find out if there's coverage, you know, any way that's possible. We're gonna try that eventually more and more and more. We're kind of still exploring it, though, so we can't really say that it's, you know, concretely possible because that would be a bit of a misstatement for us.

Kerry: 40:15

Yeah. I'm sure I can find some literature on that. I think, basically, I was going to say we could just call the insurance company and see if they're eligible.

Mike: 40:23

Right, right. It's true. That's right. Exactly. So that's and, you know, as you Right. I'm sure it's a favorite favorite of amongst the other colleagues, right?

Kerry: 40:33

Yeah. Well, definitely something to keep in mind, even if we don't know the final answer on that. But because now it's in the back of my head, right? So at least I'll be looking into that versus before not even thinking that it was a possibility.

Mike: 40:46

sure.

Kerry: 40:46

got to get those numbers better.

Mike: 40:48

exactly. And we'll do our best to give you those tools. I mean, again, ROM technology is a company built on the feedback of docs and the desires of a doctor to help a patient in a way that they haven't been before. So if we can, I see an opportunity to do that. We want to give you that tool. We want that. I mean, our entire company again is completely built on just that idea, right? We just happened to choose the channel of physical rehab as that channel. But truth be told, we have so much feedback from from doctors across the United States that were, you know, our capabilities of developing technology. I mean, it's pretty amazing. Pretty bar none. You're not going to see it very frequently anywhere else. So, so I like that. I love that. And that just helps me to push our company and our team and development to, to go harder and farther in that way.

Kerry: 41:39

Yeah, definitely looking toward the future and seeing the innovations that you guys can make. It's a very, very important thing. So where can they find you and ROM therapy and ROM tech?

Mike: 41:49

Absolutely. so ROM tech is just as simple as www. ROMTECH. com. There you can explore our, you know, flagship device called the portable connect for orthopedics and then rom therapy. W. W. W. Dot rom therapy. R. O. M. T. H. E. R. A. P. Y. Dot com for the cardiac. A lot of our companies You know, websites and online is facing mostly our doctors, right? Because we're still piloting and doing things. However, patients are more than welcome to inquire on the ortho side and get their docs, you know a price to what it does and how it works and cardiac. They can certainly ask their doctor. Why don't I have this? You know, why is this not available for me? Obviously, we don't want them to come. You know, too aggressively, but we certainly want this energy. And then for me, you know, just find me on linked in. I think it's just linked in. Michael William Arnold spelled out, I believe. And yeah, or Mike dot Arnold at rom tech dot com.

Kerry: 42:52

Perfect. Yeah, we'll put all that in the show notes. And then I was going to say, yeah, if you're really interested and if, you know, you're a loved one as, might be a benefit from these therapies. I would really go check out, you know, the websites and see what's there. And then obviously ask your doctor about it. If they think that you might be a good candidate, maybe it's a good idea. So I think that that's very very helpful to have all that information out there. And I wanted to thank you for coming on the podcast today and teaching our listeners about everything about ROM tech and ROM therapy and, and, and, I mean, you guys are doing great stuff. So this is, this is very important to get the word out. So thank you.

Mike: 43:30

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for everything you do. I happen to know that, you know, you wake up every day to help people no matter what you go through. And that's, that's incredibly valuable. And we like to acknowledge that 100%. So thank you for having us or me and

Kerry: 43:44

I appreciate you. All right.