“Our goal is to take something that is complex for the consumer — healthcare and medical billing — and make it simple and trusted. We’re turning complexity into simplicity. And we’re trusted and accountable. We are highly focused on the consumer experience.”
In recent years, Big Tech has gotten a bad rep. But of course many tech companies are doing important work making monumental positive changes to society, health, and the environment. To highlight these, we started a new interview series about “Technology Making An Important Positive Social Impact”. We are interviewing leaders of tech companies who are creating or have created a tech product that is helping to make a positive change in people’s lives or the environment. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Scott Speranza.
Scott Speranza is the CEO for HealthLock, which offers the leading digital solution that syncs with insurance carriers to automatically monitor members’ healthcare claims for red flags putting their medical identity and finances at risk. He is a visionary entrepreneur with more than 25 years of success in software analytics, health management solutions, and health insurance and claims auditing. Also the Chairman and CEO of HealthLock’s parent company inAssist, Scott has led both companies to audit over half a billion dollars in medical claims and saved members more than $130 million over the past decade through innovative technology and monitoring. Combining his deep knowledge of health insurance with technical know-how, Scott is passionate about making healthcare simpler and more effortless for all.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory and how you grew up?
I was fortunate to have grown up in a caring and financially stable family in Los Angeles. I never lacked basic needs, but things weren’t simply handed to me either. I always had to work hard on any project to reap the rewards of my efforts. I started working at 11 years old sweeping the expansive warehouse floors of my father’s company. In college, I worked in accounts receivable doing collections for the company. After that, I worked my way up to a sales position and learned the ins and outs of customer service and negotiation. My father was a great mentor to me who taught me the value of hard work and the importance of never taking shortcuts.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
Early on, I followed in my father’s footsteps and worked in the roofing industry. Most people wouldn’t know, but commercial roofing is such a complex business with so many facets. The time spent with my father and his company is where I learned how to finesse my sales skills and how to secure large-scale contracts.
Even so, I am more of a computer guy at heart, and my passion is software. I was determined to land a career in the software industry, so I reached out to many recruiters and persistently followed up. Finally, a sales opportunity opened for me with RSA Security, a well-known American computer and network security company with a focus on encryption and encryption standards. I became one of the most successful sales representatives within three years of my hiring ready to take on the Western region.
This part of my life is interesting to me because it shows my tenacity and determination to follow my passion into a completely different industry and make a success story out of it. I leveraged the skills I learned from my father and his roofing business to propel myself forward in the software space. Early on, I learned that persistence is key and to not take shortcuts, and my determination paid off. It was one of the most challenging and tenacious acts I had to conquer.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
My father, a self-made success story with the largest commercial roofing contractor in the country, sold his business at 45 years old. He was a hard-working man who instilled in me a solid work ethic, determination, confidence and tenacity. My father was the most influential human in my life. He showed me how hard work pays off. He taught me leadership and problem-solving skills, persistence, how to build confidence, and that making mistakes is okay as long as you learn from them and move forward.
My father taught me the meaning behind the phrase: Embrace failure. And as an entrepreneur, I’ve learned what that really meant. To me, it’s to accept failures, grieve the process swiftly, learn from any mistakes and move onward.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Embrace failure.”
Thomas Edison believed in failure and once said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Henry Ford never gave up. He’s known for saying, “Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, only this time more intelligently.”
Both famous quotes ring true to me, which is why I value “Embrace failure.” Failures are an inevitable part of life — especially for an entrepreneur. But we learn and grow more from our mistakes.
The other quote I love — it’s hanging on my vision board — is from Theodore Roosevelt:
“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
You are a successful business leader. Which character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
The top traits that have been most instrumental to my success include:
- Visionary — I always aim to be a visionary. At a young age, I dreamt I would land a career in the software industry to solve complex problems for companies and people. And that dream fueled my persistence until I landed my first job at RSA Security. As my profession excelled, my vision grew. It drove my entrepreneurial spirit into combining 25 years of success in software analytics, health management solutions, and health insurance and claims auditing to start two companies: HealthLock and inAssist.
- Competitiveness — I am highly driven and competitive. I have warrior-like characteristics, that I use every day as I help people with their medical bills. Combined, HealthLock and inAssist have audited over half a billion dollars in medical claims and saved members more than $130 million over the past decade. That is just outstanding, and humbling.
- Persistence — I am always pressing forward, trying to innovate for the average person when it comes to their health and healthcare through technological advancements.
Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about the technology that you are helping to create that can make a positive impact on our wellness. To begin, which particular problems are you aiming to solve?
Medical bills are one of our nation’s leading causes of debt that impact millions of Americans. The total amount of medical debt in collections is an estimated $81 billion to $140 billion. And on average, Americans with medical debt owe between $5,000 and $10,000. What’s more is that medical debt is responsible for about 66% of all personal bankruptcies. More than 500,000 American families experience bankruptcy due to medical expenses each year.
While those figures and stats soak in, the healthcare industry continues to grapple with persistent billing errors. These discrepancies are abundant in virtually every facet of the system, whether due to human mistakes or technological snafus.
Recent data shows that medical overbilling, fraud and abuse cost Americans an estimated $325 billion. As such occurrences skyrocket, HealthLock offers a digital solution that syncs with one’s insurance carrier to automatically monitor for red flags putting a person’s medical identity and finances at risk. It’s the critical missing link for people who want to gain more privacy, control and savings when it comes to their medical bills.
Our goal is to take something that is complex for the consumer — healthcare and medical billing — and make it simple and trusted. We’re turning complexity into simplicity. And we’re trusted and accountable. We are highly focused on the consumer experience.
We are committed to reducing the $450+ billion spent in out-of-pocket costs, such as co-pays, co-insurance and cash payments for charges not covered. It’s projected that figure will approach a trillion dollars by 2030, and we have a solution to do something about it.
How do you think your technology can address this?
At HealthLock, we’ve created the only digital solution that proactively monitors consumers’ medical claims. Once a member signs up to sync their healthcare insurance provider with our system, our auditors get to work. They overturn questionable medical billing and/or coding errors. Should the member request for patient advocacy, our auditors will do just that in a private and secure manner.
HealthLock is a proven solution with nearly $130 million in savings to its consumers.
Can you tell us the backstory about what inspired you to originally feel passionate about this cause?
At 55 years old, my mother-in-law developed Lewy body disease, a progressive dementia that results from protein deposits in nerve cells of the brain. It affects movement, thinking skills, mood, memory and behavior.
She passed about six years after her diagnosis. And through the process, our family endured everything from insurance not covering her illness to a recommended provider who could not help with the complexity of the illness, so we faced massive amounts of bills.
Insurance would not cover the illness, so the medical bills piled up. The medical bills were so extensive that my father would have lost everything that he had worked so hard to build for the family. We had to source help from third parties to offset the costs.
This led me to create inAssist, a leading healthcare management solution with customized technology. HealthLock wasn’t possible without parent company inAssist’s creation, nor the conceptualization of technology that could monitor consumers’ claims automatically. Essentially, inAssist, which served high-net-worth individuals, was the inspiration to create and propel HealthLock forward as a different product that could serve everyone who wanted their medical billing audited for errors, fraudulent activity and data breaches.
How do you think this might change the world?
We aim to become the most trusted source for patients looking for solutions in their medical billing overcharges and mis-codings, as well as a reliant source for medical billing fraud and data breaches.
We are determined to reduce the costs Americans are paying for healthcare visits and services through our proprietary technology that monitors round the clock for fraudulent or medical coding errors.
Our efforts reduce the total amount of consumer out-of-pocket healthcare costs due to coding or billing errors — an intense issue that is skyrocketing.
If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?
Play in the large stories in life. Strive valiantly and dare greatly. Be the person who gets in the arena — the one who has life goals, mission goals, helps others, contributes to society for the greater cause. Be a changemaker.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
Elon Musk. I would pick his brain about the ups, downs, successes and risks he encountered as he built some of the world’s most innovative empires.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Readers can visit HealthLock.com and follow our social channels for more information.
- facebook.com/healthlock
- instagram.com/gethealthlock
- twitter.com/gethealthlock
- linkedin.com/company/healthlock
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational, and we wish you continued success in your important work.
About The Interviewer: David Leichner is a veteran of the Israeli high-tech industry with significant experience in the areas of cyber and security, enterprise software and communications. At Cybellum, a leading provider of Product Security Lifecycle Management, David is responsible for creating and executing the marketing strategy and managing the global marketing team that forms the foundation for Cybellum’s product and market penetration. Prior to Cybellum, David was CMO at SQream and VP Sales and Marketing at endpoint protection vendor, Cynet. David is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Jerusalem Technology College. He holds a BA in Information Systems Management and an MBA in International Business from the City University of New York.