Referral management is the front door of specialty care. Most front doors are broken. This episode of Scaling Specialty Growth gets into why: fragmented workflows, no real data, and a process that hasn't been digitized despite decades of EHR adoption everywhere else. Joe Zboch sits down with Chris Poole, CEO of Hatch, to pull apart why specialty practices are still muscling referrals through with bodies, and what it actually costs them.

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Chris brings a rare combination of venture capital experience, early-stage healthcare startup operations, and a front-row seat to the referral data problem through Hatch's work with leading specialty groups. This conversation covers the gap between what executives think they know about their referral pipeline and what the data, if they had it, would actually show.

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👤 Guest Bio

Chris Poole is CEO of Hatch, the referral management platform built for specialty care. Before Hatch, he served as Managing Director at 25m Health, a LifePoint Health-backed venture studio, and as CFO of MetaPhy Health, a virtual care company serving gastroenterology practices. He also spent years as a Principal at Solidus Company, LP, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on healthcare. He holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

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📌 What We Cover

• Why specialty practice CEOs consistently overestimate the quality and completeness of their referral data, and what they're actually working with
• The "muscling referrals through with bodies" problem: how front offices absorb broken infrastructure with manual labor
• Why the EHR has never been the right tool for referral management, and what it actually costs per referral to work around that ($30 on average, more for workers' comp)
• How slow patient outreach, days or weeks after the referral is made, kills referral-to-appointment conversion before the team even gets to the phone call
• What referral leakage looks like in practice: groups reaching out twice and stopping, leaving pools of unconverted patients untouched
• The case for a referral-first architecture: why referral management has to be the core product, not a feature bolted onto an EHR or patient engagement tool
• Hatch's current results: 30% reduction in administrative time per referral today, with a target of 50%+ by the end of the year, and full automation of a subset of referrals in development
• How private digital access doors and co-branded referral portals create VIP access lanes for employers and high-value referring partners

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🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Hatch, the referral management platform discussed throughout
• Joe Zboch on LinkedIn
• Chris Poole on LinkedIn

Rising costs and shrinking reimbursements are creating severe margin compression for specialty healthcare practices. To survive and expand, organizations must focus on sustainability. Joe Zboch sits down with Chris Poole to discuss the macro forces impacting operations and access leaders today.

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They outline how practices are balancing top-line volume with minimizing operational expenses to improve patient yield. Chris explains why relying on manual paperwork and throwing bodies at administrative problems is no longer a viable path. The conversation points directly at the top of the funnel: the highly fragmented referral process.

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Operations leaders will hear exactly why up to half of all referrals never convert to appointments. Fixing this leakage removes administrative bloat and builds stronger relationships with referring physicians. The discussion provides clear focus areas for teams working to bring down operational costs while driving patient volume.

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👤 Guest Bio

Chris Poole is the CEO of Hatch and a three-time healthcare CEO. He is an industry veteran with experience in venture capital and health system innovation. Chris started his career as an accountant before moving into healthcare investing and operations. A decade ago, he founded a virtual care company where he learned firsthand the importance of removing administrative bloat to improve both the practice bottom line and the patient experience.

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📌 What We Cover

• Overcoming margin compression by balancing top-line volume with the complexity of patient yield.
• Moving away from throwing bodies at manual tasks to create sustainable front-office models.
• Treating the patient referral process as a strategic business function to capture critical consumer insights.
• Identifying where patient leakage happens to prevent up to half of all referrals from falling through the net.
• Differentiating your specialty practice through evidence-based site selection and improved patient convenience.
• Strengthening relationships with referring physicians by modernizing the top of the funnel.

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🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Hatch
• Starbucks: location selection case study