Eric Besse, Vice President of Business Information Solutions at Besse Medical, joined us to dial into the power of relationships; whether it’s with a distributor, growing your team, or giving a unique experience to your patients.
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Transcript: How to Maximize Your Customer Experience
Dylan McCabe: We Infuse podcast, episode number 35. Welcome to the We Infuse podcast. My name is Dylan McCabe. And in every episode, we give you a seat at the table as we talk with infusion center owners, industry experts, and practice managers to give you the tips and tactics you need to grow a thriving infusion practice. And in this episode, I talk with Eric. Bessie from Bessie Medical, and we’re really going to dial into the power of relationships, whether it’s working with a distributor, growing your team, or giving a unique experience to your patients. He’s going to share how he got into the industry as a family owned business, some of the key differences between Bessie Medical and others, as far as what their passion is, what their purpose is. And we’re going to talk about an exciting, Uniting of strengths with we infuse and Bessie to streamline even more the workflow for those of you running your practices. I think you’re going to get a ton out of this interview and you’re going to be really excited to hear how we infuse and Bessie are partnering up to give you what you need to succeed. to streamline, save your time, save yourself time and money in your practice. And if you haven’t done so already, you can definitely schedule a discovery call with one of our account executives that we infuse and learn how we infuse can save you time and money. You owe it to yourself to at least take a test drive of the software. And you can do that, whether it’s a discovery call with one of our account executives or a test drive in one of our. Webinars you owe it to yourself to at least know what’s possible To simplify your workflow and save yourself time and money All right, guys, let’s get into this interview with myself and eric bessey All right, as I stated we have special guest on the show eric bessey from bessey medical eric. Thanks for joining the show, man Thanks dylan. Thanks for having me. Yeah, i’m looking forward to this because You being in the space that you’re in as a distributor, have a unique background and story as to how you got into this space. And you’re going to get to share from distributor perspective, things that impact providers and so forth. And also, Bessie and we and Fuse are doing some exciting things together, and you’re going to get to unpack some of that. So anyway, looking forward to all the stuff we’re going to discuss. But before we jump into that, We always like to just take a minute and let you share a little bit about yourself. What’s your background and how did you get into this space?
Eric Besse: Sure. Thanks. that’s so, yeah, it’s, an interesting story. So you can imagine with my last name of Bessie and working for Bessie Medical, we used to be a family owned company. And, so the way we started, my grandparents started a corner drug store on the west side of Cincinnati. they were newlyweds. They had a, vision. They wanted to, create their own company, started a farm. My grandpa was a pharmacist. they lived above the pharmacy in an apartment and worked every day, had two kids, my dad, my uncle, and, over the years, just really focused on taking care of community, the community, around them and making sure they were there as a resource, as a pharmacy resource and really, growing up, I. I always make the joke that when you work for a family company, it’s like working the farm. Like it’s just assumed you’re going to work for the, family company. So, so every, weekend, especially in the summer, my job was good work at the family pharmacy. And I’ve, Done everything from picking up garbage in the parking lot to, to working in our, warehouse, that we had in the warehouse, by the way, it was the basement of the pharmacy. So, what my dad and my uncle sought out to do was they knew they had a successful business, but they knew there was a need, to distribute. Supplies to tri state doctors when I say tri state, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky. so my dad started selling, pharmaceuticals, biologics, diagnostics to local doctors and that kind of led into vaccines and we got in the vaccine market and, and really over time grew the footprint of Distribution to all 50 states and next thing, we were shipping to thousands of physicians Literally from the basement of a pharmacy. So success was, was quick. and really started to ram things up in, in the kind of late eighties and early nineties. I spent summer shipping flu vaccine, delivering flu vaccine. we were, a small, nimble company, but we saw tremendous growth. so that’s the, how, the pharmacy evolved into a medical supply business and the distribution business. It really started, from a vision that my dad, my uncle had. so you fast forward to late nineties. then Bergen Brunswick, approached, my dad, my uncle and said, Hey, you guys have a great thing going. In fact, it was Steve Collis. So Steve Collis is the CEO of Amerisource Bergen currently, but at the time he was president of ASD. And for those listening, ASD, they’re some of, Wienfuse customers are probably ASD customers. They’re buying IVIG. Well, Steve used to run ASD. ASD approached us or approached my dad, my uncle and said, Hey, we, we need a specialty distributor. We’re interested. And, they’re really headed off and, the rest is history. so, over the course of geez, 20 some odd years at this point, we’ve evolved from Bessie Medical’s division of Bergen Brunswick, and Fast forward to now we’re a division of Amerisource Bergen. So, it’s a humbling start, and I had the privilege of seeing everything from the beginning when, we were storing vaccine in a walk in closet in the basement of a pharmacy to, to fast forward today, where we’re sharing a distribution center outside of Louisville, Kentucky. That’s, a couple hundred thousand square feet and the walk in refrigerator, you could. it’s as big as a house. and that’s, great to see. And I, I, for me, I appreciate that. And, it really, I think has shaped me as an individual and kind of my view of this company and my passion for the company, because, To credit Steve Collis, he, while we became part of a big organization, he knew we had a great culture. He knew we had great leadership and really left us alone and let us do our thing and just gave us the backing, the support that we needed to be successful. and, and we have, we’ve been really successful in a number of different specialties, but primarily the infusion market, which is room gastro pulmonology, infectious disease, but also retinal surgery. Urology, you name it and any, especially under the sun, we are the distributor, for those biologics. so yeah, it’s been a great ride. and, I’m, really thrilled to be in the role I’m in now, which is I’m vice president of sales. So, so my background, Kind of working through the company, I’ve, like I said, I’ve done all the menial jobs, but I’ve also, I started off in it. so when I started in it, really focused on office automation, we had, we were a small company, we had to be nimble. when you’re nimble and you’re small, you figure out ways to work more efficiently. So that was always my focus. what systems can we bring in to make our, associates. operate quicker and leaner and more efficient. so start off in I. T. and then, move from I. T. to solutions. so we have Amerisource Bergen and Bestie Medical has its own, own solutions that we offer our physician practices, everything from inventory management to analytics to, Data and reporting. so I led a team that really was a go to market, figuring out how to, develop inventory management and analytics solutions for our retinal surgery customers. so I did that for a number of years. and then, a couple of years ago, I moved into the VP of sales role. Our former, vice president had retired and, I was in a role where I was selling our solutions to our customers and it felt like a, a good time to make a change and, to, move into an area that, that, didn’t necessarily have a whole lot of experience in, but knew that it was, the right fit for, for me at the time in my past experience. So, so yeah, that’s the quick and the quick background on Bessie Medical, how we got started. and me and my current role as, a vice president of sales.
Dylan McCabe: That is such a cool story. that is straight out of the American dream book. that’s just, that is just such a cool story. And I think that going through that experience makes you a lot more relatable. To the average provider, because especially if you have your own practice, you’re starting on your, you are on an entrepreneurial journey and, as well as I do, that can be one of the most stressful journeys that any business person can take. you’re betting on yourself. You are, reliant on a lot of people. And for things to come together and you’re also involved in a business model, if you’re treating patients where the revenue is very high and the profit margins are slim and like you said, efficiency, that’s just such a key part of it, but I love that. I love that story because. You mentioned for you personally, it’s a humbling experience to see where you started from and where you are now. And, I think, gosh, if you’re the VP of sales with that story, that gives you instant credibility to say, Hey, I’ve done everything from scrub the toilets to, to now we’re doing this. you, nobody has to doubt. Does Eric know what he’s talking about? Yeah, that’s a pretty compelling. That’s a pretty compelling part of your sales is your background. So, so let’s answer that. Oh, go ahead.
Eric Besse: Oh, no, I was just going to say, you’re right. It’s, we were, child labor laws back then. I’m not sure if they existed in our family. We, we, it was expected to work, you were, going to work and, and we did. and, yeah, we, all start at the very bottom and, my dad taught me, strong work ethic and, there’s, things that, he’s instilled Me and my siblings over the years or early on, just, really watching him and, watching, seeing him put the late hours in and you’re right, growing a business is very stressful. It’s, you’re putting, a lot on the line. You’re borrowing from the bank. You’re taking some risks here and there. And, You got to be super focused and, and really got to pick good partners to, to work with, to enable your success. And, I saw the value in, in, in our company picking great partners. And, I think the best partner we picked was, was. Mary source Bergen or Bergen Brunswick at the time, but, Steve Collison, Steve’s a great leader, great vision, and really helped. facilitate that, that culture that we had and let us do our thing. And I think that’s, that kind of what’s, what makes us different, I believe in this industry is that, while we’re part of a big organization, we operate and we treat our customers as if we’re a small organization. we like to have that relationship with our customers. That really intimate relationship where we want to get to know you, and we’re going to take care of you as if this is a family run company, because we really care about our legacy. And we really care about doing the right thing for our customers.
Dylan McCabe: That’s good stuff. So for, so I want to ask you knowing that and working with as many. providers and business owners as you do, what would you say is, one key, principle that you’ve seen that’s helped you guys to grow well, that you would want to, that you’d want to point to because you’re not successful by accident. You’re successful by doing some core things right over and over again. So there may be some owners of infusion centers listening to this, there may be some providers listening to this, some business people listening to this that think, I’m just in the weeds and I am maxed out. I am stressed out. We are in a bumpy situation here. What would be, what would you say is one of the keys to you being able to sustain that success long term?
Eric Besse: It’s a great question. I think our mentality is we always want to overachieve. We always want to go above and beyond. and, again, like to go back and storytell from the past, but, One of the things that always stuck with me is, as a corner drugstore, we had a soda fountain and my dad actually worked a soda fountain. And my grandpa told my dad, if the pharmacy down the street, the soda fountain down the street puts two cherries on the Sunday, you’re putting three. If they put three, you put four. And that’s been his mentality. Like back in the day, we used to put little mints in our And our packages. So we always try to go above and beyond. And I think, myself and Nick Bessie, who’s president mix my cousin, we’ve just been really laser focused on differentiating ourselves from the rest and how do we do that? And what, are some things we can do to, assist customers? And you’re right. They’re busy like that, some, of your distribution is just pick, pack and ship, and that’s fine, but there’s a lot of, there’s a lot more value that, that we can bring and distributors can bring. everything from just next day delivery. there’s things that we do that I think are a little unique. So it’s not just shipping next day, but we’ll ship Friday for Monday. So we have a whole process where we take the order on Friday and we pick, pack and ship it on Sunday and we, it arrives Monday morning. the technology we’ve had huge investments in technology. We, the, we, we’re focused on these practices, these infusion centers, their pain points, what can we offer these groups that just makes their lives a little easier? Can, we save them an FTE of somebody? Who’s heads down looking at a spreadsheet, trying to figure out data. Is there a report we can build for them? Is there a dashboard analytics solution we can offer them to make that makes their job a little easier. and really when we look at technology and we look at some of the things that we’ve done with our ordering platform and, payment system, we actually just went through a. Huge technology transition. And we moved to a platform that really offers our customers just a lot more bells and whistles than we had before. it’s like a next generation of ordering payment, procurement delivery, ERP system. And, we’re excited because there’s a lot of great things that we can now offer our customers that we, that we weren’t doing before. and so, so all that being said, I think. We want to be the easy button for our customers, and, there isn’t just one thing, I guess it’s, that’s the tough part of your question. It’s a lot of things. It’s distribution, distribution. It’s, we’re going to give you white glove support. we’re going to make sure your order arrives on time. We’re gonna make sure your contracts are aligned. we work very closely with our GPO, which is IPN. IPN, we work hand in hand. They’ve got a real time data feed between us. They, so from the, handoff, from distribution and us servicing you to contract management with IPN, they’re going to make sure that your contracts are aligned. you’ve got Proper pull through. You see where your opportunities are. that’s their role. That’s their mission. We have dedicated GPO resources to do that. So dedicated distribution resources, dedicated, GPO resources. And then, I think I’ve talked about technology, we’re really proud of our technology stack and, we’re going to talk a little bit about, I think a little bit about that later with what we’re looking at or what we’re doing with we infuse. but we have systems that will take your. Your practice management data, and allow you to see holistically, how am I doing from a reimbursement perspective? Are there certain pairs that I’m having challenges with versus other pairs? Is it on certain drugs is on, which doctors are more productive than other doctors? There’s a, it’s called infodive, and it’s just a really wonderful tool that we offer our customers to really see the big picture. where am I getting my referrals from? where are there? Are there situations where maybe I used, five vials of Remicade, but I didn’t bill for those five vials. those are things we can detect. And, so, again, thinking back to the practice and thinking back to I’ve got I’ve only got, two people in the back office who are going through billing and payments and making sure we’re getting paid. could those two people do something else more productive than going through spreadsheets? And we have tools that will enable them to be more efficient and to identify those issues before they occur or quickly after they occur. so that’s where our head is at. we know they’re busy. We want to be the easy button. We want to be able to enable them to order quickly. We want them to know that we’ve got their back on contract alignment and contract pull through, and we’ve got the technology to support it. And then the last thing I’ll say is, there’s the thing that, Amerisource Bergen does really well as advocacy. we have government affairs people up on the hill who are advocating on behalf of community physicians, community oncology, community, you industry room gastro, because what, we know there’s challenges out there. and we know that if our customers aren’t successful, we’re not successful. So we put a lot of effort into advocacy, making sure Congress is aware of the challenges that the community physician, the community health care provider. Is experiencing. we put a lot of resource behind that effort. So, so it goes again. Some may think of a distributors, pick, pack and ship. We think of ourselves as a partnership, a true partner, that’s going to take care of take back and ship contract technology. we want to make you as efficient as possible. And, if you’re successful, then we’re successful.
Dylan McCabe: That’s good stuff. And, when I, hear you tell those stories, you’re really highlighting the relational side of working with, you guys and what you try to give. to your customers. And so I think for those of you listening to this, I think a key takeaway is how, healthy is your focus on relationships? you, of course you got to get the right people in the right seats to have a thriving business, a thriving practice, but you’ve got to be somebody who’s relationship focused, wanting to go that extra step. And I love that story of the cherries, if they’re doing two, you add one or adding a mint and stuff like that, stuff makes a difference. And, really. What you’re doing is you’re creating an experience. You’re creating a whole experience and that’s the difference because when you have an infusion practice, what you’re, there may be an infusion practice down the street that also has chairs, pumps, nurses, patients that are getting on biologics, You have the chance to offer an experience. And so I just want to challenge anybody listening to this, to get dialed into that experience and make it unique, make it remarkable, something people will remark to others about. And it’s clear that you guys do that. And the other thing I really picked out of what you were saying was simplifying processes, because that as well as I do that anytime you add a staff member or add a patient or add. a drug that you offer, you are adding to the complexity. As you increase complexity, you increase risk, you increase the time frame to get things done. And so what I hear you saying is you guys are focused on simplifying and reducing the amount of complexity. And that’s huge for a provider or the owner of infusion center who wants to just focus on a lot of times the more clinical side. of the business. So, well, that’s so good. So, so let’s, now that we, I think that’s really neat to hear what makes Bessie different. What would you say is one or two of the biggest challenges facing the whole distributor experience from, your perspective? we hear providers talk about what their challenges are, but from your perspective, knowing what you know about distribution, what are some of the biggest challenges you guys see facing distribution?
Eric Besse: Yeah, it’s a good question. and, when you, asked me about distribution challenges, I think of provider challenges because it’s really, it really is a symbiotic relationship. If providers are not successful, we’re not successful. So the challenges that we have are directly Related to the challenges that pairs have. And, the things that come to mind are, some of the things we’ve seen with pairs and white bagging and trying to push white bagging over buying bill. I think we, 100 percent stack hands. It’s not a good solution. It’s not a good process. It’s not fair to ask. Practices and infusion centers to manage their inventory, differently than they do now, based off of the kind of white bagging experience. it, it impacts the practice and impacts patient care. so we, we’re definitely, that’s something we’re very much focused on. the government focused on pricing and reimbursement. that’s, a provider challenge. It’s also a distributor challenge. so. Getting back to the advocacy that Amerisource Bergen, does with our government affairs team, they were really focused on, the past administrations focus on, MFN, most favorite nation pricing. I know NICA was, in there as well. A number of trade organizations were really fighting that effort. And I think our collective efforts saw that, That ruling get overturned, that executive order get overturned. recently advocacy was also government affairs was focused on extending the moratorium on sequestration. So I know our organization, our, political action committee, as well as, community oncology Alliance, American hospital association, all these different organizations banded together, went to Congress said, you can’t, You got to extend the, the, moratorium. And I think I read there were over 400 customers on Amerisource Bergen side that sent over like 1300 letters to Congress and really the success. Why, I just heard the other day was that the Senate passed the moratorium and now it moves on to the house. So, again, like I know there’s focus on pick, pack and ship and distribution, but really advocacy is. Kind of the backstop to all that because we have to make sure our customers and our physicians are successful. so that’s, I would say that’s a challenge. That’s a challenge for all of us. Right. more recently the challenge has been COVID. and the, impact COVID has had on everything. Like you think about, you think about a distribution center, you’ve got people packing orders, picking orders all day long, now they’re masked up. They’re trying to keep their distance, their safety protocols that we all have, that we all abide by, I’m sure every distributor abide, abides by. and that’s a challenge, especially, a few months ago, post holidays with, the spike that we saw in certain areas of the country. it is a, it, can be a real drag on resources and productivity, when people are quarantining and this and that. So, we looked at that and said, that’s whether it’s now or later, we have to address our ability to distribute from a business continuity perspective. So, we’re, definitely from a, COVID perspective, our distribution centers in Kentucky. Our associates were considered essential workers. a lot of them have been vaccinated. We’re, in much better shape now than we were a few months ago, but without a doubt, COVID has impacted everybody from the infusion center to the practice, all the way to distribution. no one’s been untouched by this. So we have to make sure we’re nimble enough to adapt and, and, Adjust on the fly because at the end of the day, we’ve got to get product to these infusion providers because patients are coming in next day for treatment. It’s, every decision. Every decision we make is, focused on what’s the impact to our providers and their patients. Everything that we do, I’ve recently heard, Amazon, when they have meetings, they always leave a seat open and that seat is supposed to be for the consumer, their customer. And I think that’s a good reminder for all of us, when, we’re operating and when we’re, making decisions, make, make sure that patient is involved in that decision making, how’s it going to impact the patient, how’s it going to impact the practice, it’s a good reminder for all of us.
Dylan McCabe: That’s really good. And that’s such a good visual picture. And you just can’t fake that. that’s it’s since it’s, I think since it’s such a big part of your story, it’s part of the values you got from your dad, your uncle. It’s something that clearly comes through as we’re talking and you just can’t fake it. And, I think that’s obviously that’s the difference maker. that’s what makes somebody stay with you. Right. you, they may try a different distributor or whatever it means, but it’s that difference that you can make when you have that relationship, the quality of that relationship. And so, and like you said, with COVID hitting and changing everything, demand for, we infuse went way up when COVID hit because people needed to figure out how to work remotely. And when you’ve got folders moving all over an office and paper flying around everywhere, all of a sudden you need a streamlined system to help navigate a very cumbersome process of moving a patient from schedule to chair to ordering again. and, man, it can be so challenging, but it’s, neat to hear you talk about how you guys have tried to be nimble in that and to answer the call and to enter into that challenge with your customers. So let’s let’s switch gears and talk about what you guys are doing with WeInfuse because WeInfuse from inception, the whole idea is to simplify this very difficult process. Right. We want to give these patients these life changing drugs that they need, and we want to make it simple for them and simple for anybody who works in an infusion practice. It’s simplify the process, streamline it, reduce financial risk, reduce patient risk, enable people to enjoy their jobs better, all the way from the nurse’s charting in a more simple, streamlined way, etc. So what are you guys working on together?
Eric Besse: Yeah. So we’re listen, we’re excited. so we’ve, we are working on integrating with we infuse. So, we infuse has their partner connect program. And I believe we’re the first one to integrate. We’re the first one that’s well planning on integrating. it’s really exciting because we know, listen, at the end of the day, we know there’s customers that, Are we infuse users that are also Amerisource Bergen customers, whether they’re buying from Bestie Medical, they’re buying IVIG from ASD. And the benefit of us moving to a new technology platform, gives us the ability to easily integrate into systems like WeInfuse. so the really exciting aspect of this new partnership is that, we’re going to easily enable a customer from the Weanfuse interface to send their orders electronically to Bessie Medical. And ultimately to ASD. And really what that means is, again, time is of the essence, right? So you got somebody whose job it is to place an order. they want to enter that order in WeInfuse and be done with it and not have to jump back and forth between other systems. They want to live in the WeInfuse system. That’s fine. We’re going to enable that. So the exciting part of this integration is that when you go to place your order or create your order within WeInfuse and you click that submit button within seconds, We will have received that order. we’ll confirm it. We’ll send back the acknowledgement that we got it with the order number. it’s a real round trip, really slick integration that, that our technology is enabling our new technology is enabling right out of the gate. so there’s, that round trip integration. There’s also, catalog and, what they consider, real, almost like a real time inventory lookup. So do we have it in stock? Do we not have it in stock? before they place that order, they can verify, they can hit a button to confirm everything in their basket is available, and if it is, they hit that submit button and boom, within seconds, we’ve got the order. So it really, the focus will be to try to streamline that ordering experience, allow WeInfuse users to, to stay in the WeInfuse interface and to give them a similar experience that they may be had on our website. Great. Over in the, we infuse environment. and if they have to log into our ordering platform, which is ABC order, they can certainly do that. The they’ll see their re infused orders. They’ll see the invoices related to those orders. They can pay their invoices electronically online. but that first part of. Procuring product. We’re going to make it super easy for re infused users. And that’s what we’re really excited about.
Dylan McCabe: That is so good. after, I don’t know how many sales meetings I had as an account executive at we infused, you’re, you are trying to help somebody that’s the goal, save people time and save people money with. That we infuse solution and I’m convinced it’s the absolute best end to end software solution for an infusion practice. but when you can get to that point, when it comes to inventory management, I’ve seen everything from, people keeping their inventory on a spiral notebook to, having very little inventory management to having a very detailed spreadsheet to having the software. And so what you guys are doing. Is you’re bringing one more way to simplify the process and if I could have been there in those meetings and said and by the way If you want to go ahead and work through that order just right here Just order right here from we infuse and it’s connected to Bessie. I guarantee I would have closed more deals so Because if you can take somebody like a practice manager or whoever that team Member is that’s over that process and make their job easier Make their life easier, reduce their stress and enable them to focus in a better way on what they do. It’s better for everybody. So I’m really excited about what you guys are doing and it’s going to make both companies better.
Eric Besse: Yeah, it’s going to be really slick. We’re excited. I’m working closely with Reese and Brian on the integration and, we’re meeting often to tweak things and to finalize things, but, but yeah, it’s going to be, it’s going to be a really, impressive integration that, That really, I think, is going to set us apart, because again, we’re always technology focused and, and with that focus, we know we’ve got tools. It’s just how do we use those tools to, make our practices better? And it’s either use our tools or we can integrate our tools into someone else’s tool. It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter how you want to place your order, phone, fax, web, we infuse, we always joke smoke signals. If you want to send us a smoke signal, we’ll figure out how to take the order. but yeah, we want to make that process as a distributor. We want to make that process. As easy as possible.
Dylan McCabe: That’s good stuff. Well, before we wrap this up, do you have any, parting piece of advice for anybody listening to this? That’s scratching their head going, you know what? I’m happy with where I am, but I’ve had some challenges. I know we need help. I really like what you’re saying on this relational side. do you have any just parting piece of advice, for anybody on how to get started with. Starting the conversation with Bessie, what’s the best way to get in touch with you guys?
Eric Besse: Yeah. So, so the best way to get in touch with us, If you need our number, bessie.com, you can call us, we, we’ve got, in the infusion market, we have Brian Burr. He’s our director of sales in the infusion market. He’s got, six account executives. Who were signed out by geographic territory. and so, yeah, we’ve got, we’ve got a number of reps who were available at any given time. if you need to get ahold of us, you can always, like I said, go to our website, but, for, those customer or for the we infused customers that maybe don’t have a relationship with Bessie, I would say, we’ve, we are, we’re focused on your success. We are very much, driven by, honesty, integrity. Like we, we believe firmly that listen, we’re all consumers, right? And so we want to treat our customers the way we want to be treated as a consumer. So I think it’s really important when you’re looking to pick a partner that. You consider the, what’s, how, what’s the tenure of the leadership, what’s the tenure of the associates, are they happy? Are they asking the right questions? Are they engaged? these are all things I think we do really well. And, also, what’s the purpose, what’s the purpose of the partner that I’m picking? we just don’t want to be distributed. We want to be your partner and our purpose. We’re a very, AmeriSource Bergen is a very purpose driven organization is something we put a lot of focus in recently. And our purpose is to, we’re united in our responsibility to create healthier futures. And if you think about that, the word responsibility, I think is the key word. It’s not, something we strive to do or we’re trying to do. It’s, what we do. It’s our responsibility. It’s why we’re our, why we’re Amerisource Bergen employees. It’s expected to, that we’re, delivering, Or creating healthier futures. So, I think it drives us all. It drives how we interact with customers, how we take care of customers. and really it gets back to the integrity of, our organization. when you’re picking a partner, there’s things that you just got to make sure there’s certain boxes you got to check. it’s not always about price, but we know price matters. Right. but in that price, make sure, one thing that we do is We’re as transparent as possible. We’re a hundred percent transparent. We’re going to show you your contract price. We’re going to show you your distributor savings. We’re going to show you maybe a manufacturer rebate that you may or may not qualify for. We’re going to show you the G the GPO rebate or discount that you may or may not qualify for. there’s no bait and switch tactics. we have reasonable contracts. And we want to make sure that when you, work with us, you’re getting a very honest, and transparent experience. and that’s, just really important to us. It’s, it’s how, I was raised. It’s how I expect my team to operate. And, I think it’s what maybe differentiates us from, others. So, price transparency, is important. And then also just getting back to the values that Amerisource Bergen brings and bestie medical and IPN. You’ve got distributor through us. You’ve got the GPO contract pull through for IPN, contract management. you’ve got the technology that we’ve introduced with re infuse that we’re really excited about, plus other tools that we can offer our customers, and we’ve got that advocacy that, again, is the backstop to us and our industry and our customers, they’re, backing us up, they’re backing our providers up. So, you got to look at the entire picture, the, all the value, It’s more than just shipping some Remicade. It’s a, there’s a lot that goes into being a successful partner. It’s not just about price, but we know price is important. It’s about flexible payment options. making sure that again, it gets back to, we want to make sure our customers are successful. If they’re successful, we’ll be successful.
Dylan McCabe: And that’s our mantra. That’s good stuff. I love the point of responsibility. So I think for those of you listening, if you want a purpose driven company, that’s focused on responsibility, focused on relationship, focused on a really unique experience. You guys need to reach out to Bessie medical and just go to their website, start the conversation. Eric, thank you for joining the show. Dylan, thank
Eric Besse: you. it’s a, Hey, this is my first podcast. So hopefully I did. All right. But I, appreciate you setting this up and, it was fun. It was fun to reminisce. And it was fun to, to brag about our organization. Cause we’re really proud of it. We’re Amerisource Bergen employees. We’re, we’re super proud about what we do and, and our, like you said, our purpose, we have a purpose and we, live that purpose every day. So thank you again.
Dylan McCabe: All right. Great talk with Eric Bessie. I love how I highlighted the relational side of the business. And for those of you that want to learn more, you can just go to Bessie medicals website, and you can learn even more how they give really a family feel to the whole customer experience. In addition to offering tools and, rebates through their GPO and stuff like that, will really help you. As you strive to grow a healthy practice. And like I said, at the beginning, if you haven’t done so already, you owe it to yourself to learn how we infuse can save you time and money by either doing a test drive webinar, or just scheduling a call with one of our account executives, a discovery call. I think you’ll be really impressed by the amount of business acumen and attention to detail, and also just the powerful tool that the way infused software system is. To really simplify the workflow and go from using a constellation of systems and tools to one tailor made tool from beginning to end to run your practice. I think you will be so glad you did. Alright guys, this is Dylan McCabe with the We Infuse Podcast and I will catch you in the next episode.
Guest Speaker:
Eric Besse, VP of Specialty Sales at Besse Medical, is responsible for customer-facing technology strategy and business development. Besse Medical is an AmerisourceBergen company focused on the distribution of primary and specialty pharmaceuticals. Prior to joining AmerisourceBergen, Eric was experienced in systems integration, database analysis, and office automation.
