J2 is here for our customers. From day one, our team is dedicated to ensuring that customers are able to use our tools to build their best provider networks.
Before signing with us, a few customers had some trepidation about switching to a new network solution. Many concerns were specifically around implementation: what would a switch look like? Would the new tool be easy to use?
To address some of the more common concerns directly, I sat down with Elizabeth Raboy (Director of Customer Success), Nick Bernold (Head of Product), and Emily Fuller (Product and Customer Success Associate).
[The following interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.]
Before we get started, can you introduce yourselves and what you do at J2?
Elizabeth Raboy: Hello, I’m Elizabeth! I lead the customer success team which oversees initial onboarding and implementation and then continues on with accounts as a strategic partner. I think about customer success as proactive- our team wants to help customers improve operations and also, ultimately, deliver stronger care that both meets regulatory requirements and holds a competitive market position.
Nick Bernold: I’m Nick and I develop J2’s network adequacy solution as well as our other modules. Networks are an underappreciated lever in healthcare. Previously working at a payer, I saw firsthand how much networks could shape cost, quality, and member experience. But too often, payers have their focus elsewhere. I want to empower people to refine their networks and revisit the way they think about how networks could be shaped to improve care.
Emily Fuller: Hi! I’m Emily and I work closely with our customers during onboarding to make sure they have what they have to be successful and serve as a network expert once they are up and running. Previously, I’ve worked in claims processing and seen how network design ultimately impacts an individual’s experience of getting care, and whether or not they end up dealing with out-of-network bills and surprise costs. I am really excited about working on a tool that would help players understand their networks on a deeper level because I do know: how that ultimately impacts people seeking care.
Myth #1: Implementing J2’s Network Solution is time consuming and complicated!
Emily: We are definitely not going to let you do implementation on your own. We’re going to be there every step of the way with you. Our standard implementation time from start to finish is 15 business days. Implementation is nothing to be scared of.
Elizabeth: We partner with customers every step of the way. We share clear templates and guidelines for implementation so customers feel supported coming onboard to J2. We also set up initial user training and weekly office hours with new teams. Our goal is that users feel comfortable once onboarding is done, but we still provide resources and long-term access to J2 support for all customers.
Emily: Keeping implementation in mind, I do have to say that getting started is pretty simple. We give users autonomy to upload their own networks and run their own reports. Sure. Users need to input two pieces of data: their service area and their provider roster. We do require it to be formatted in a pretty simple way. From there it’s as easy as clicking a few buttons and attaching a file to an email, and you’re able to use the tool. You don’t need to involve your technical team to use J2.
Nick: Our customers are our best advocates. Anyone who is sort of considering switching to J2 but thinks that it would be a big hassle or burden or risk to do so– don’t not take our word for it. Talk to some of the customers that we’ve onboarded recently to hear about their experience. We think that those people’s experiences will sort of speak for themselves.
Myth # 2: J2 is hard to use.
Emily: One of our core goals is to really empower our customers to build better networks and really have full control over that natively through the tool. And so, whether that is, allowing the customer to create new networks to dynamically make changes to their networks or start to explore network optimization beyond adequacy, we are here to support those initiatives and grow with your organizations.
Nick: One instance that I am particularly proud of is when we launched our new interface. We had initially planned to retrain one of our customers that had been using the previous interface for months. But we were told that no training was needed. With our new interface, our customer’s 75 users understood intuitively where they could find important information. I took great pride in hearing that.
Myth # 3: I won’t be able to accomplish with J2 what I could with my previous solution.
Nick: One comment that we’ve heard from customers often is that it’s really refreshing to have a tool that was designed from the ground up in order to meet their needs. We know that a lot of people have been using legacy software or other methods for a long time to do network adequacy. But those tools weren’t necessarily constructed with all the users goals in mind.
Elizabeth: We’re not here to recreate what’s currently in the market, we’re here to build better, faster, and easier-to-use products. Our customer success team is here to make sure you have the tools needed to accomplish everything you were previously accomplishing and then some.
Emily: I’ll add to that– while parts of visual format might look different, our goal is to work with you to understand what question you are trying to answer and point you to how you can get it natively within our tool, or in our reports.
Nick: If there are certain formats, visualizations, or metrics that you do use on a consistent basis. You can flag those to us during implementation and we can work with you to make sure that you’re getting sort of all the information and outputs you need.
Elizabeth: Change is hard with anything. Our team is here to support that. There will always be an initial learning curve, and we hope after the learning curve J2 will make your life easier.
Myth # 4: I won’t be able to reach a person at J2 for help when I need it.
Nick: Not only is our support team onshore and based in our New York office, but the people who are helping answer your questions are people who are intimately involved in building the product. So as an early stage startup, we’re not just trying to onboard customers, and then sort of leave them to their own devices as soon as possible. We’re actively trying to shape the product based on customer feedback.
Elizabeth: We’re here to make sure that you have the help you need to be successful with J2. Each customer has a dedicated account manager and, as Nick mentioned, all users have access to our Customer Support team who are ready to jump on customer problems.
While I have you here, what are you excited about for the future of J2?
Nick: I’m really excited that we’re building out our suite of offerings. We’ve been laser focused on delivering adequacy products for the last almost 2 years. But our vision for J 2 extends well beyond helping customers have adequate networks. While we are supporting our adequacy model, we continue to build out modules that are quite innovative, focused on measuring salable networks that deliver excellent member care and experience. We’re really excited to be working with several pilot customers on those features. And to roll them out to a broader audience. Soon!
Elizabeth: I’m excited to learn and build with our customers. Our customers have really valuable industry and content knowledge, and we also have a lot of value that we can add. We’ve already shaped so much of our product around customer feedback and I’m excited to see that work continue. Hopefully, our businesses grow together.
Emily: I agree. I’m excited to continue what we’ve been doing, and really working closely with our customers, hearing their feedback and incorporating that into how the product works and how they can interact with it. I’m excited to see how our customers grow, and how they leverage our new offerings to build, not only adequate, but really great networks.
Elizabeth Raboy
Director of Customer Success
Elizabeth has focused her career helping customers grow and scale their businesses. Most recently, she launched the joint venture between Cigna and Oscar at Oscar Health. She previously worked at WeWork’s Flatiron School and as a management consultant in the pharmaceutical industry. Elizabeth holds a BA, magna cum laude, from New York University and an MBA from the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.
Nick Bernold
Head of Product
Nick has built provider network analytics for five years. For the past two years he’s led product development at J2 Health. Previously, he designed network analytics products at Oscar Health. Nick began his career in finance, working at Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund. Nick holds a BA (Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude) from Dartmouth College. He additionally completed two years of coursework at Yale Law School before leaving to build J2.
Emily Fuller
Product & Customer Success Associate
Emily works with both J2’s customers and product development, spending her time building relationships, processes and diving into the data. She holds a BA in Public Health from Brown University. In previous roles she has worked across health insurance operations functions and has experience with including provider credentialing and claims processing at both payers and provider services platforms.
