MGMA Business Solutions: Building a Strong CMA Pipeline With U.S. Career Institute
Download MP3Well, hi, everyone. I'm Daniel Williams, senior editor at MGMA, host of the MGMA Podcast Network. We're back today with another MGMA business Solutions podcast. We've got one of our, business partners here today being represented by Rob Fershtman. He is senior director of corporate partnerships at US Career Institute.
Daniel Williams:And tell you a little bit more about Rob. He spent more than a decade working with healthcare organizations to help them build strong pipelines for certified medical assistants and other essential roles. Rob and I got to catch up about a week or so ago and connect on a couple of things. It was fun getting to meet him there, and I hope that y'all get a great opportunity here to talk to Rob as well or listen to Rob and hear what he has to share. So, Rob, welcome to the show.
Rob Fershtman:Thank you, Daniel. I really appreciate you joining me and and having me on your show.
Daniel Williams:Yeah. Now you and I and James, our producer, were talking about your backdrop today. It was so unique and interesting looking. What what are you sitting in front of there?
Rob Fershtman:So believe it or not, I'm sitting in front of a, a shiplap wood wall. The room I'm in is, is what, what we call at home, my three season room, previously a deck. And so I always wanted a room that we can enjoy three of the four seasons in and, true to form. We, we built this thing right when it was a COVID project, you know, architect design, that kind of thing.
Daniel Williams:It's beautiful. I have to ask, what's the what's the fourth season? What's the one that doesn't make it in the three season room?
Rob Fershtman:So you're you're speaking even though even though US Career Institute is from Fort Collins, Colorado, I am from the Detroit Metro Area. And so winter would be the fourth season. We can be in here. I have a fireplace over here. We can be in here, up the it's about January Christmas, January time.
Rob Fershtman:But after that, it's, not bearable.
Daniel Williams:Okay. Okay. So love hearing that. And and I also love talking to people that took up new hobbies, new passions during that pandemic time. They didn't let it, stop their curiosity and their passions.
Daniel Williams:I've I've talked to so many people on here that learned guitar from YouTube over the pandemic, and you did a woodworking project. So that's really cool.
Rob Fershtman:Yeah. Actually, to go down the rabbit hole a little bit, I've always wanted one of these three season rooms. It's it's very sizable. It's we, we had a pretty large deck on our own. And, and so I've always wanted one of these and I was, I was able to do the destruction portion.
Rob Fershtman:I can break just about anything. Right? But we were, we required actual contractors to, to build it correctly.
Daniel Williams:Okay. When you're not designing three season rooms, Rob, what do you do? Tell us a little bit about yourself, your background in healthcare and, in the kind of work that you're doing right now.
Rob Fershtman:Very good. I appreciate that. So, I got started in corporate education, about ten years ago. And I, prior to that, I was in large corporate banking for a company you would know as RBS United States for opening of Scotland, US, and, had some big success in that area and, hated every second of it actually, despite the success. And a friend of mine said, you know, given what you do and what your wife does, you would probably be really good at corporate education.
Rob Fershtman:And so I got into it and, very early on, my wife and I, about fourteen years ago, we started a child developmental psychology practice. My wife is a psychologist. Yeah. And I am, I scale education and I scale business and, and that kind of thing. And so I became the, financier and biller and coder for my wife's startup psychology practice, fast forward fourteen years, life shifts.
Rob Fershtman:And, as things started to evolve prior to COVID, there were some, healthcare systems that had these unique needs, mostly in rural areas that they couldn't get enough talent. And so from a big wide picture, you know, some is a nerd like me, that's a finance guy that reads the wall street journal. I'm keenly aware of the age demographic shift that had been going on starting with the front end of the baby boomers. Right? So ten years ago, the front end of the baby boomers started retiring off and you could see the chasm that was happening.
Rob Fershtman:And it really started impacting healthcare, not so much on the provider end, but in the front end with the patient facing people and the people that operate behind the scenes, what, what I'll phrase is the early stage career. And so people that were getting out of the workforce, there were starting to be these gaps and the rural communities were having a really hard time figuring that out. I and I met a lady who was in charge of HR, a very large North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota based health system. She had an idea and she, her idea was instead of recruiting from schools and hoping people come to us, can we build these ourselves using online education and, and clinical training? And, that was prior to the pandemic.
Rob Fershtman:And then fast forward, the pandemic happened and this explosion happened. And so, it was really interesting to see this problem is pervasive, right? And it's not just a function of the day. It's a function of, a workforce that's changing out in an education system that has put up barriers to entry and now they have needs. And so, it started before the pandemic and has just grown and grown and grown and grown since.
Daniel Williams:That is incredible. So just give us the elevator pitch then for somebody who's never heard of US Career Institute. What is it then? What could someone hope to what's a course? What's you know, an agenda there, a career pathway someone could follow educationally and learn there?
Rob Fershtman:Very good. I, so US Career Institute is the operating name of Western Distance Learning, one of the original distance learning educators in the country. We're an accredited school from Fort Collins, Colorado. And so our accreditation goes across The United States and we have, we're, we're accredited by the DEAC, but we have different things that help us cross the, the state borders like NC SARA. And so what we're known for is healthcare.
Rob Fershtman:Okay. And so it's the early stage healthcare. It's where people start. And so, we have a variety of things. We also offer, associates in applied science degrees.
Rob Fershtman:We even have a high school that goes across The United States. And so depending on where somebody wants to start, but what we're really known for, what really should be impactful for the MGMA folks is, is that you can have people that are starting in your organization at a relatively entry level and help them grow and develop these people in exchange for a length of tenure. And, and what we've seen is, especially medical assistant. I joke around, I think I said this to you a week ago. Yeah.
Rob Fershtman:If we were like a one hit wonder, if we were Rockwell, we would be known for medical assistant from Maine to Hawaii. Mhmm. In fact, as we're talking, one of our partners in Hawaii, it's like, oh wait, we've got our, we got somebody else we have to enroll right now for our latest cohort. We got one more that was just like a late add on. Can you help us out?
Rob Fershtman:And so, what's interesting is when you're building this talent and, and getting the retention that you would expect, the correct people will choose to stay. You're you're cultivating somebody either that has a modicum of experience and a lot of interest or a lot of interest and little experience. Mhmm. And we've seen the gamut. We've seen, we have seen, oil riggers that are big burly guys, six, four, say to us, no, I know I'm supposed to be in healthcare, even though I make a lot of money.
Rob Fershtman:I don't wanna do this. I am supposed to be in healthcare and a healthcare, organization gave him a shot. He, they love him. Right. And now I think he's going to PA school actually years later.
Rob Fershtman:Yeah. We have, people that were hairstylists that in COVID could no longer cut hair and didn't know how they were gonna feed their kids in, urgent care in, in Massachusetts said,
Daniel Williams:you know, you would be pretty good
Rob Fershtman:at our front desk. And indeed she was, and they're, oh,
Daniel Williams:you would
Rob Fershtman:be a pretty good MA. Now I believe she runs three urgent cares. Right. And so it's really, I I'd like to say it's a testament to us, but it's really a testament to our partners. And that's how we approach this.
Rob Fershtman:Right. We are educators. Unlike traditional educators, our partners' interests and methodology is taken to an account to help develop their talent. Right? What their organization needs, how their organization goes about it.
Rob Fershtman:We're providing the content that gets somebody through a national certification check. But how they treat the employees and how they develop that person on day zero makes all the difference in the world. Okay.
Daniel Williams:It may differ course load to course load, but is the learning that they're taking in, is it more theoretical? Like I'm understanding concepts? Or are they actually learning, like, they could walk back into the practice later that afternoon and they've actually learned a tool that they could apply to the practice that day and do it? How does that balance out? Where is y'all's focus there?
Rob Fershtman:So it's really up to our partners.
Daniel Williams:Okay.
Rob Fershtman:And, and we run the gamut. Okay. We have, I would tell you the most effective versions, sound something like the didactic learning that we're doing is relatively concurrent with the clinical skills that the partner is teaching. And so, we have partners that have taken a medical assistant course and made it a very short form, an eight week crash course. And three of the days they're learning on our didactic.
Rob Fershtman:Okay. Sequence. Right. But they've shuffled our sequence so that they can come and learn the clinical skills associated to their job. And, and in a medical assistant role, it's very, it's very utility, right?
Rob Fershtman:So, a medical assistant in a pediatric office will do something quite different than a medical assistant in a cardio cath lab. Right. So they, they learn the core, lesson out of sequence to what the organization wants. And then they send that person to, to meet with a clinical instructor two days a week. That seems to be, at least in my mind, the most effective and gets the, the fastest, longest term results.
Rob Fershtman:If that makes sense. They're building a person from scratch.
Daniel Williams:Yeah, it does because it seems like, you know, you'll hear people say, well, I'm a visual learner. People learn in different ways, but if you're learning the practical tools that you actually apply, it seems like that would, for many people, would be more easily retained. The retention would be stronger there rather than, again, nothing against theoretical concepts. Those can be important in strategic type thinking, but, sometimes they're more difficult to apply at your job day one, that sort of thing.
Rob Fershtman:Absolutely. Right. It, it, it's more immersive is the word that I would use. Right. So they're learning these concepts and they're hearing the, the language, the medical terminology and the, the anatomy in real time from doctors and nurse practitioners and PAs.
Rob Fershtman:And they're talking back and forth and their, their light bulbs are going off. Oh, I just learned that. Right? I mean, I mean, I hear it all the time.
Daniel Williams:Right.
Rob Fershtman:You know, we just learned that and I just heard this whole thing happen. Right. And it really, it cements it for the student.
Daniel Williams:Okay. When did you know that medical assistants were your groove, so to speak? How did you know did you identify them? Did the market identify it for you? What happened there?
Rob Fershtman:So actually, it's funny that we're talking about that. We do more than medical systems. Of course. So there's a few things that that we specialize in. Initially, it's market oriented.
Rob Fershtman:Truly what happens is that, clinics, ambulatory clinic clinics, urgent cares, outpatient clinics, they have this need and it's hard to address. And there's just not enough folks coming out For a while prior to meeting that one person from the South Dakota, it was pharmacy techs were that were having this challenge and then it switched. And so we see a combination of, different we see sterile processing technicians, surgical technicians, medical assistants, but the medical assistants far and wide across the country, are the ones that draw the most attention and have the strongest need, irrespective of of organization size. We are as apt to see a a small provider with a practice or two offices as we are a giant organization. And so we have we have them all pretty much equally, but they have the same need.
Rob Fershtman:How they go about training them? Entirely different.
Daniel Williams:Okay. So let's think about, in real terms, let's paint a picture for our audience. They may be going, I'm interested in this. I want to send some of my team there. What does it look like?
Daniel Williams:If you're a student, are you signing into a Zoom room? Where is the learning taking place, and how big is the classroom, so to speak, this virtual classroom?
Rob Fershtman:Very so you are an army of one, and you're gonna log in Okay. To, to an online portal that has our content already premade in
Daniel Williams:there. Mhmm.
Rob Fershtman:US career Institute being almost 45 years old has content writers that, I mean, I can say this without hesitation because our results painted out. They're brilliant. And, and what they've created is a very lightweight user friendly way to read, gather video, but retain, didactic knowledge using real brain mechanics known as cognitive load theory. How much can a brain absorb?
Daniel Williams:Okay.
Rob Fershtman:Like an average brain can absorb X in amount of time. And so it's broken into chunks and, and it has a variety of learning mechanisms. Some folks learn by reading. I am, I was raised in the seventies and eighties, so I am a copious notetaker. Uh-huh.
Rob Fershtman:Because we had a facilitator.
Daniel Williams:Right.
Rob Fershtman:If that works for you, you can elect a voice. I wanna hear a British female's voice dictate to me and I'll write down. Yeah. All the key words. And if I write it down, I remember it.
Rob Fershtman:Some people have a blend of that. Some people need a video feed. And so we have all these mechanisms built into the, to the learning system to help people absorb this model. And then there's this component that people find shocking because again, raised in the seventies and eighties. Right.
Rob Fershtman:Our learning is entirely open book. So when you go to take a quiz, we actually want you to look up the answer.
Daniel Williams:Okay.
Rob Fershtman:And in real brain mechanic terms, you can do this with any question in the world. I I've said this to you a week ago. You can ask any question. How far is my front door to the dead center of the sun? And your brain will either tell you, I know for certain it's X amount of miles away.
Rob Fershtman:Absolutely. And it'll try to convince you that you're right. It's right. Or better yet your brain will go, uh-oh, I better look that one up. Right?
Rob Fershtman:And so when you have your quiz open in our learning management system, we're hoping that your brain goes, uh-oh, better look that one up. Our quizzes aren't timed, right? You can take days. Want you to acquire the knowledge and it isn't until the course is done and you're getting ready to prep for the, the clinical medical exam, the national exam that we ask you to close the book to see how much knowledge you've retained. Okay.
Rob Fershtman:And so it's all meant to inspire and keep you moving forward. And here's the magic part about it. Everybody's different. Mhmm. Right?
Rob Fershtman:And so, the designers and the curriculum writers have really taken into account a wide variety of approaches and ways folks work. Does that kind of long answer your question?
Daniel Williams:Yeah, it does. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I think that really helped.
Daniel Williams:I have a couple of questions in about that. I wanna follow-up first with the open book policy. I'm assuming, assuming here, that y'all did research to see that this is a valid way to do it. This is actually helpful in retention. Tell us about this because this is a unique concept for me.
Daniel Williams:I've not a novel concept. I had not heard that before. I wish I had gone to your institute when I was in k through 12 and had an open book the whole time instead of having to memorize all these tables. So, help us understand what did you find in your research that says having this open book initially is incredibly beneficial here.
Rob Fershtman:So with quite literally thousands and thousands of students every year, the curriculum team evaluates what is working and what is not working. And, they are always adjusting things. And so, it helps to think of us as an organization that as you come through, we have data on everything. What, for when you log in to how long it takes to go through a step. And so when they are planning and writing this concept, right.
Rob Fershtman:And developing this, they started with cognitive load theory. How much can somebody retain within a certain period? Okay. And there's a, there's a formula for this.
Daniel Williams:Okay.
Rob Fershtman:And then there's a, there's a scientific concept known as the Ebbinghaus forgetting curves, which in simplest terms means how long does it take for my brain to forget something when it leaks out my ears? Right? So what they've discovered was through repetitions that are built in and open book, they're dev- they're, they're lengthening the time that it takes to forget something. They're lengthening the Ebbinghaus forgetting terms and they're shortening the time to learn it. And here's the secret rhythm.
Rob Fershtman:Right? And so what I I'm gonna give a tip to the people that are listening. We have probably as many organizations that are large that train people in eight or ten weeks and then have them sit for the exam and they're done at twelve or fourteen weeks. As we do somebody that takes six months or a year, the efficacy rates are exactly the same.
Daniel Williams:Yeah.
Rob Fershtman:They pass at the exact same rate. It's the rhythm that you're giving these people to come through. And so that rhythm comes into play from when they're learning on our system to when they're preparing for the exam, to when they sit for the exam. What is interesting is, and we have this from time to time when folks fall out of rhythm, right? And so when do they forget?
Rob Fershtman:So here's your, your, your long answer. How How long does it take somebody to forget? About three weeks.
Daniel Williams:Okay.
Rob Fershtman:About three weeks before you start really forgetting meaningful contact, content. Right? And so we're watching for that. And there's times as the partner of these organizations where we have to say, Nope, you gotta go back. You gotta go back.
Rob Fershtman:Sorry. Right. And, and, and naturally we'll get some pushback. Oh, I was out sick for two weeks. I get it.
Rob Fershtman:You gotta go back. Yeah. Like, we can actually see. You have to go back. Right?
Daniel Williams:Yeah. You've brought up a couple of times. You're a kid of the seventies and eighties. So with you talking and talking about rhythm and the way people learn, it reminded me of an episode of our era of happy days. There was an episode where Potsie, one of Richie's friends, was having trouble memorizing things.
Daniel Williams:And so they had that band, that they played in. And so Potsie learned if he sang it, he could memorize things. I just wanted to throw that out there. If y'all learned you were talking rhythm, I'm thinking singing and memorizing things through song. Is there any merit to that, or was happy days and Gary Marshall just way out there by doing that?
Rob Fershtman:No. Manomics are anomics are in a known brain mechanic way to, to, to get you to memorize things. And in fact, wife, the psychologist, right? I get a lot of singing these things and putting things to a rhyme might be the single best way if you're an audible learner. Okay.
Rob Fershtman:If you learn by hearing, if you learn by speaking and hearing, right, it might be the single best way to do it. There's a reason why religious organizations, churches, and and such have a choir so you can remember things. Right? It it's time tested. Wow.
Daniel Williams:That is so cool. I love learning things from you and from seventies sitcoms too.
Rob Fershtman:So Yeah. No. I I remember happy days quite well. I will never be as cool as the Fonz. So
Daniel Williams:you brought up something earlier that I think would be very important to our listeners here, and I want to make sure I understand this before we sign off. In some cases, you're partnering with the practice to help develop the curriculum. I want to make sure I understood that. What role is the organization playing, in helping either design or show you what their people need to learn? I I just wanna help, have that explained again so we absolutely are clued in on what's happening there.
Rob Fershtman:Absolutely. So, so when an organization partners with us, before we launch, we ask them to take a look at our content. Okay. We're not actually adding content or changing content. Okay.
Rob Fershtman:We have a, we have a huge library that we can add out. But when you're talking about medical assistant, all the content that is there, is designed to help somebody sit for the CCMA, the certified clinical medical assistant exam, and pass it on the first try. The order that they take it in, except for medical terminology, is unlocked. And so we want the organization to tell us, when you train people, what can you do when you're training people with the clinical skills to move them in faster or better? Some organizations say, no, no problem.
Rob Fershtman:Just use your own sequence. But a lot of organizations actually take our content. There's 27 lessons in there. And they say, instead of going one, two, three, four, five, they say, let's go one, seven, 315, 24 pause. Then we're gonna bring them in for a clinical thing.
Rob Fershtman:Can you help us do a checklist for the clinical skills that they should have learned in that sequence? And the answer is yes, we don't charge more for that. You're a partner. Right? Right.
Rob Fershtman:And then we will, we'll bring them back and then they'll go 22, eight, nine. Right? And so it's really unique to that organization. And what we have found is the organizations that choose to do that. And even from cohort to cohort, or even student to student, they get the results that they're looking for.
Rob Fershtman:Right? They have, they have sequenced in somebody that by the time they get through the exam, this person is actually ready for their job almost in full. Right? And here's the, the amazing part about this. Even in a short window, like a twelve week or fourteen week thing, not only are they training them for this role, but the, the folks that they're gonna be working with, these utility players are getting to know them.
Rob Fershtman:Right? And they're giving feedback back to the, to the HR team or the training team. We have an, we have a few organizations that bring people in off the street and give them a thirty day wait period. And then they bring them into our program and providers have a say in this. And so very much a partnership, very much a left hand and a right hand doing this.
Rob Fershtman:I can, I can say this, I don't think two organizations do it the same way?
Daniel Williams:Before we sign off, Rob, I want to give you an opportunity. Do you have any upcoming events that might be free to the public or resources or anything you might want to point our listeners to who would want to know more about US Career Institute or building that CMA pipeline?
Rob Fershtman:You know what? We are, we are part of the MGMA CMA program. Yeah. And so right on the MGMA site, you can go right there. And click on certified medical assistant and learn about it and reach us right through there.
Rob Fershtman:And, and really what I will say is when you contact us through the MGMA, Hey, have a vision, make a plan, right? We adapt around you. You don't have to adapt around us. We'll do our best to, to assist. Yeah.
Rob Fershtman:Right? And, and when I, when I think about this, the MGMA, if I may, you have such a wide variety of organizations and providers. It really, when they reach out to us, this is definitely not a, our, our content is the same, but how we go about it is really about that member. Okay. Right.
Rob Fershtman:And, and that level of success. So when people reach us through the MGMA, right. Yeah. Think big. Yeah.
Rob Fershtman:Right. That's all I Yeah. Could
Daniel Williams:Rob Furstman, it has been a blast getting to meet you again and learn more about you and your organization today. Thank you so much.
Rob Fershtman:Thank you, Daniel. I appreciate it. Yeah. So we look forward to continuing that dialogue with y'all.
Daniel Williams:Absolutely. So everybody, what I'm going to do is in the episode show notes, I'm going to put a direct link to what Rob was referencing that you'll be able to find that on the MGMA website. I'll also put it in an upcoming article that we're going to create based on this conversation here. So I just wanted to say thanks again to Rob and to US Career Institute for partnering with MGMA. I think this partnership, it is so needed.
Daniel Williams:Think all of you, hopefully, you're nodding your heads at home or wherever you are about your CMA programs and needing that pipeline there more now than ever. So I did want to give you that link to their organization. It's uscareerinstitute, all one word, USCareerInstitute.edu. And so for now, I just wanna say thank you all for being MGMA podcast listeners.
