EP362: A CFO Talks About a Hybrid Business Model, With Ali Ucar

A CFO's Playbook for a Sustainable Telehealth Business Model, With Ali Ucar. Why a Telehealth Program Needs a Business Model Before It Needs a Vendor. Episode 362.

Stacey Richter talks with Ali Ucar, CFO of Care Solutions Group, which provides mobile physician services to seniors, about how a traditional in-person provider organization built two sustainable telehealth programs by starting with the business model instead of the technology.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

✅ Why the anecdotal complaint that "patients and clinicians don't like telehealth" usually signals underinvestment, not real disinterest

✅ Ucar's stepwise approach: first define what you're trying to do for patients, then figure out how you'll get paid sustainably

✅ The two ways to get paid for telehealth: direct FFS billing, or identifying another stakeholder who benefits and billing them instead

✅ Why the operational side of the business model—workflows, roles, and responsibilities—gets treated as an afterthought even though it's just as important as the revenue model

✅ How Care Solutions' tele-urgent care and care-transitions programs both aim to keep discharged patients out of the ER and out of 30-day readmissions

✅ Why 82% of health systems now see telehealth companies as competitors, according to Chartis Group research cited in the episode

WHY THIS MATTERS

Provider organizations that bolt telehealth onto their existing workflow without rethinking the business model behind it tend to get the underwhelming results they predicted—while organizations that build the revenue and operational model deliberately, as Care Solutions did, find real financial and clinical upside. Ucar's CFO-level view gives provider finance leaders a concrete sequence to follow instead of treating telehealth as a bolt-on cost center.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

EP320 with Christian Milaster: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Other Apps

EP357 with Liliana Petrova: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Other Apps

EP354 with Shawn Rhodes: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Other Apps

=== LINKS ===

🔗 Show Notes with all mentioned links: Episode Page

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00:00 Introduction.

07:45 How do Care Solutions' telehealth programs do payments?

09:33 "As you go deeper into it, you're coupling that telehealth with transitional care, chronic care; you can also address … health equity issues in … areas which may be difficult to reach."

10:02 As a CFO, how is Ali Ucar involved in the telehealth strategy development?

11:26 How have Care Solutions' telehealth programs become sustainable?

13:02 Why would it make financial sense for Care Solutions to continue their telehealth programs?

18:55 How does the work that Care Solutions' telehealth programs do benefit customers?

21:50 Does Care Solutions have a proactive strategy to building out their telehealth programs?

24:34 How do Care Solutions' telehealth programs add value to provider organizations?

26:33 "It's basically refining your practice. That's the way I look at it."

27:58 How does Ali Ucar, as a CFO, evaluate the success of his telehealth programs?

30:09 "I think the most frustrating thing from a patient standpoint may be if they don't have those needs addressed quickly."