How to drive better employee health through virtual care.

Meghan Henry:
Hi everyone and welcome to For Your Benefits. I’m Meghan Henry, Director of Marketing at SentryHealth. In this podcast, our goal is to help benefit advisors, HR teams, and other stakeholders stay on the cutting edge of what’s happening in the world of employee health benefits. Today I’m going to be chatting with Jackson McConnell, CEO of Pinnacle Bank. Thanks for joining us today, Jackson.

Jackson McConnell:
Thank you for having me. I’m glad to be here.

Meghan Henry:
Today we’re going to be talking about the value of virtual health and wellbeing care. We’re going to go over some tips, some ideas, and then Jackson’s going to share his personal experience with our services. So before we begin, Jackson, can you share with us a little bit about you and your company?

Jackson McConnell:
I’m Jackson McConnell, CEO of Pinnacle Bank. We’re headquartered in Elberton, Georgia, which is on the Georgia-South Carolina border, in the northeast corner of Georgia. We’re a 2 billion dollar company with about 350 employees. I’ve been with the bank since 1994 and have loved community banking. I love the position the bank has in the community of serving people and think that I’ve found my calling.

Meghan Henry:
I would hope so, since 1994, if not, then you’ve been doing this a long time otherwise. Jackson, I’m going to start with a little bit of background information here. So since the Covid pandemic, as you probably know, there’s been a big uptick in the number of people experiencing depression, stress, anxiety, and more.

Why virtual care is important to fostering a healthy workplace.

Meghan Henry:
And for a lot of them, finding a qualified provider, who can see them quickly has been proven difficult. So what’s great about virtual care, people are empowered to get the help they need when they need it most. So that’s whether they’re seeking mental health support, chronic condition care, health and wellbeing coaching, or anything like that, then trained experts are just a few clicks away.

So, I’d like to start the conversation today by getting your views as a CEO. Why do you think virtual care is important to fostering a healthy workplace?

Jackson McConnell:
Well, it’s a great question and you’re right about the access, making it easy for everybody to get the help they need in whatever area it is, is incredibly important. I think the wellness program that we’ve had at the bank for a number of years, we’ve tried to do that exact thing to make sure that we’re helping people where they needed to be helped or where we could help facilitate that and not force them down a certain path.

So, it’s never been about a particular thing, stopping smoking, losing weight, or starting an exercise program, et cetera. But to try to make all those things available to them so that when they were ready to take advantage of it, it was available to them. And as time has gone on and the technology’s gotten better and it’s become more accepted to do things virtually, then that’s just enhanced that program because it’s made it easy, each time we’ve gotten more comfortable with it.

One of the outcomes of the pandemic has been that we’ve all become more accepting of technology as we’ve gotten more comfortable with it and used it more often. So I believe that these services that you provide are extremely helpful and extremely readily accessed which makes them more valuable.

Meghan Henry:
I’ve got friends and family members who live in a rural place and there are just not the amount of providers, counselors, therapists, and things that they need right outside their door. They’re traveling an hour, an hour and a half to some of these things. So, I think that’s really great about virtual care too, is being able to not have to drive, not have to leave work, whatever it is, and get the care they need, right when they need it.

Jackson McConnell:
We are in some rural areas, and we’re also in some more urban areas, but even in the urban areas where you’ve got to travel with traffic, you may have an hour to your service provider anyway. So, I think this virtual access is very beneficial.

Meghan Henry:
It’s interesting, I have a family member who was looking for some counseling and it took a good three weeks to locate a counselor who was available at the time she needed and had the specialty that she needed. All of these things, it took so long just to find that, and having something virtually in place would’ve saved so much time and effort for everybody.

How to embrace employee health and wellbeing.

Meghan Henry:
So, today’s employees are looking to work for a company that really cares about how they’re doing in and outside of the office. And I know you mentioned your wellness program. I’d love to hear a little bit more about how you guys are embracing better health and wellbeing for your employees.

Jackson McConnell:
Yeah, thank you. And we try to do that from the very moment that we’re first introducing them to the bank and the opportunities here. Of course, we always want to talk about career opportunities and advancement and the opportunities that growth presents. And we do that from the very beginning of our recruitment process. But early on in the onboarding, we try to help them understand some of the things that we provide because we have a culture of hard work.

So, we come here, we want to work hard, and we want to make our days full and that brings stress. And so, how can we relieve that stress and make sure that it’s an enjoyable work culture even though we plan to work hard? So, we’re going to do things that maybe try to make it fun to be here, help them get to know their coworkers better. But we’re also trying to put into it financial wellness, helping them understand the various things that come up in life that you need to deal with and that they would be better equipped to handle if we help educate them on those sorts of things.

Meghan Henry:
And just because you work at a bank doesn’t mean all of that.

Jackson McConnell:
No, absolutely. In fact, you encounter maybe more things that you don’t know about because you’re here. And so helping them understand that is a part of reducing the overall stress level by having financial education. And then, of course, there are the obvious things like health education. And we’ve tried, over the years, to do things like subsidize membership to gyms, to nutritional programs, to making sure that our days off and the other benefits that we provide are all recognizing that we need to have a life outside of work.

But then also including programs like SentryHealth has that have this full array of access to all of the things that you need, whether it be nutritional help, counseling help, or whatever it might be. So, for us, and we’ve been engaged with your company for seven or eight years, helping to develop and continue this, it’s been a perfect fit with the culture that we wanted to provide and the access that we wanted to provide to our employees.

Benefits of virtual care to employees.

Meghan Henry:
Great. We’re happy to hear that. What have you heard from employees? Have you heard positive feedback from them? What are they saying?

Jackson McConnell:
Oh, it’s been great. And one of the things that we’ve done, I’m very supportive of it. I like to stay healthy and active and so I’d like it when everybody else enjoys the things that I enjoy. I think that’s natural. But we do have people that, we call champions. And so we have these Champions around the bank that have the people in their team trying to do something fun and engaging that’s health-oriented.

And once a year we get our champions together and have a champions’ dinner. And that’s been one of my favorite things to do is that we go and we’ll have 20 or 30 of us in the room and then we ask the Champions to tell a story from their team, a success story.

Meghan Henry:
That’s great.

Jackson McConnell:
And so, over the last seven or eight years, I don’t know how many stories I’ve heard, but lots of things where people have, maybe a 30-year smoker, finally found the means to stop smoking or somebody needed grief counseling.

There’s always been things like weight loss and exercise programs. But one of my favorites was one of our team members who was frustrated at home because her family didn’t want to eat the healthy food that she was cooking. So one of your advisors helped her work through healthy menus that also tasted good. And she had this great success story about how her family had really embraced that and started enjoying eating healthy at home and what a neat thing to have been able to facilitate for one of our employees.

Personal experience with SentryHealth virtual care.

Meghan Henry:
Well, I think without this kind of care, where would they have gone to get that information? You Google, and when you Google it all, you get pages and pages and pages, and then you’re not even sure if it’s valid if there’s any evidence that supports what you’re reading. So I think having that access to a registered dietitian or somebody, a nutritionist, what a great thing for them to be able to have access to. So I know that we said we would talk about your personal experiences with virtual health and wellbeing care. I’d love to hear a little bit from you about how you came to use our services.

Jackson McConnell:
I, just like everybody else, have stresses and the company has gone through quite a period of growth. So we’ve doubled our size and then doubled our size again. And then we encountered this wonderful experience of a pandemic. And you have all of the stresses that come with that and worrying about your company, your business, your clients, your employees, and your family.

And at the same time, teenagers at home and then young adults and it’s life. It’s the things that you experience that all of us experience. But I think in our particular case, because of the circumstances, things were awfully stressful. And at the same time, I’m seeing about an aging parent. My particular situation involved me going to my dad’s house every day to make sure that we could take care of his house and make sure he ate and that he was taken care of.

And after a couple of years of doing that every single night, that’s also very stressful. And then he ultimately passed away. So I had several things cascading and crashing down at one time, and it ultimately became overwhelming. And I realized I needed some help. And there was only so far that my local doctor and friend could take me, and I really needed some grief counseling.

So as the illustration you gave earlier about being in a rural area, which is where my hometown is, where I live, I don’t know that I would’ve sought that on my own. My wife was very encouraging and said, “You know, you’ve got access to that online, through the bank’s wellness program.” And so I did get online and searched through the available professionals that you had and selected one that I thought would be a fit.

And started just a day or two later with that. And for a period of months had a great experience and he helped me through what I needed help with and got me on the right path. And at some point, maybe six months into it, he said, “Jackson, I think you’re good.” And I said, “I do too, and thank you for your help.” And he launched me onto a new path, a path of recovery, but a healthy path too. And it’s something that I probably would not have sought if I hadn’t had access to this.

Meghan Henry:
Gosh, that’s such a great story. And I’m so glad that things are looking up for you. And I think that that’s not really an uncommon story. So many life changes, the pandemic, and everything, it’s just been so hard on people. I’d love to talk a little bit about the process once you reached out. There is a mental health provider shortage, and finding providers can be super hard. You were able to get an appointment quickly and it was easy to do.

Jackson McConnell:
Yes, very easy. As I recall, I had to sign up and do the registration piece of it. But then all of the providers presented… you can scroll through them and easily find one that is either maybe in your area or you like the look of them. It seems like there’s a brief there about some of their background too.

Meghan Henry:
A little biography, a summary of their specialties.

Jackson McConnell:
Yeah. So I just found one that I thought looked like a fit, and it turned out to be a great fit and had zero friction. I sent out a notice that I was requesting an appointment, got an immediate response, and was able to schedule something within probably a day and a half of my initial outreach.

Meghan Henry:
That’s fantastic. That’s really unusual. Like I said, it usually takes so long to get an appointment and you’ve got to go through all these hoops just to get to that point. So when you really need the help, having it virtually like that, that’s fantastic.

Advice for employees considering using virtual care benefits.

Based on your personal experience, and you’re also the CEO of Pinnacle Bank if you’ve got employees who maybe are hesitant to use these services because I do think that it’s not always something that people are gung-ho about using. There is some hesitancy. I do think, as you said earlier, that Covid has made telehealth, and virtual care much more acceptable for folks these days. But I do think there’s some hesitancy still. What would you say to those people, particularly your employees?

Jackson McConnell:
Well, first of all, I think I’d want to be open to saying to them that I understand. I’ve dealt with the same thing and you are hesitant. You think, “Well, I’ll just power through it, I’ll pass in time.” And while that may be true, it can also be, I think, dangerous to your health to try to do.

Meghan Henry:
Sure.

Jackson McConnell:
So, first of all, “I get it. I understand, but let me tell you how easy it was for me. I think you’ll experience the same thing.” That would be my message to them would be encouraging. “Hey, take the time to do it. It’s easy. And the technology’s there, take advantage of it. I think you’ll be blessed by it.”

Meghan Henry:
And it’s confidential so they can share as much as they want to share with their employer or share nothing at all. And as an employer, you’re not seeing any of that data. You’re not getting information that Joe Smith, went to talk to the therapist yesterday and he’s talking to the dietitian tomorrow. You guys don’t get that information.

So, I think that’s good for people to realize that it is confidential. I think there’s always that hesitancy when it’s a benefit that an employer is offering, “What are they going to know? I don’t want to share personal information.” And they don’t have to.

The value of virtual care to employers.

Meghan Henry:
I want to shift gears just a little bit again. As a CEO, you’re looking at some of these benefits as a business move as well. There is humanity involved, but also it’s business too. And I’d love to hear your advice for employers who might be looking to add this service to their benefits plan.

Jackson McConnell:
I would be completely supportive of it. Our experience has been good and solid, and you and I are only touching on a small piece of what’s offered. Some other examples of the ways you’ve provided is through a podcast, blogs for our newsletters, and little tips that go out in an email blast.

So, these things help support and keep energy and keep it moving. And it’s not like I’ve done an exhaustive search of other programs, but as I understand other programs, it’s sort of, “Here’s the menu of things we offer. Good luck to you.” And that’s never been the experience we’ve had with SentryHealth, it’s always been, “Hey, how can we help you enhance this?” Even to the extent of you sending people on-site to do seminars, we’ve done online webinars. We’ve had all sorts of continual reinforcement from the company to keep it going.

And so, I don’t see that there’s a downside. I don’t see how you cannot get a benefit out of this. As long as you’ve got a supportive environment where people want to be healthy, it’s worth it. The business case, I think would be one; you’ve got a happier, healthier workforce that’s going to be there more often and work more productively when they are there.

But there’s also a benefit on the health side, the health insurance side. You should have lower claims, expenses, and all these things that are going to feed into what your ultimate premium expense is. So it takes effort, it can be hard to make it work, but it’s completely worthwhile. So I would encourage anybody to pursue a program like this.

Meghan Henry:
So, you’re definitely seeing the ROI out of this. I think that the other thing is that folks go, “Gosh, I don’t want to spend, we’re already spending all this money on health insurance. I just don’t see how we can spend anymore.”

Jackson McConnell:
They’re coupled together. I don’t know how you can separate it. Let’s give you the tools to be healthy. Well, that includes taking care of your health, not just serving it after the fact, after you have an event happening.

Meghan Henry:
Absolutely. So, it’s that proactive care. Somebody who is pre-diabetic talking to one of the diabetes educators and talking about diet with the dietitian, talking with a personal trainer about exercise, taking care of all of that before they become full-blown diabetic, and then they’re having to take medication and then there’s this whole other expense that you’re getting from that. So, taking care of it at the beginning, I think is vital to keeping your healthcare costs down, for sure.

Well, Jackson, I really appreciate you sharing your story with us and sharing Pinnacle Bank’s story. It’s really touching to see what we are doing for our clients, and for our members. I really just love hearing those stories, and I know you do too from your employees. And so we really appreciate you sharing that with us.

Jackson McConnell:
Thank you, Meghan. I’ve enjoyed our conversation and I appreciate you and your company and what you’ve helped do for our employees and our culture. And so, thank you, keep doing it.

Meghan Henry:
We will. Thank you so much. That wraps up this episode of, For Your Benefits. We hope that you enjoyed today’s conversation with Jackson. If you like what you heard today and want to hear more, please don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast. You can also visit our website at sentryhealth.com. Be sure to join us next time. Have a great day.