Learn about the key takeaways from this cornerstone event of the San Antonio Free Market Medical Association.
- What is the San Antonio Free Market Medical Association?
- Why the Free Market Healthcare Model is the Future
- Inviting Dr. Marty Makary to Speak
- Creating an Event that Attracts Medical Providers and Consumers
- Lead Up to the Event With Powerful Content Online
- Create Opportunity for Intimate, One-on-One Conversations
- Medical and Healthcare Event Planning Made Easy!
Shankx Web Development CEO, Shankar Poncelet, was asked by Dr. Roger Moczygemba, physician and founder of Direct Med Clinic, to co-lead the San Antonio Free Market Medical Association. Shankar has led the first two meetings as the Master of Ceremonies.
on March 04, 2020.
What is the San Antonio Free Market Medical Association?
In short, the Free Market Medical Association delivers medical needs in a way that’s driven by free-market principles.
Dr. Keith Smith of the Surgery Center of Oklahoma and Jay Kempton of the Kempton Group came together to form the Free Market Medical Association. Now with 28 chapters nationwide, it is a grassroots movement demystifying healthcare costs by providing transparency.
It’s founded on these three pillars:
- PRICE is NOT a product. CARE is the product.
- Selling access to pricing is anti-free market.
- Discount brokers who get paid by selling “savings” are not transparent.
A free market encourages competition (with limited government involvement), and competition drives down prices of goods and services. This particular medical association is not limited to physicians. It also encourages pharmacy, ancillary, and healthcare purchasers, such as employers, cash buyers, and patients, to be involved in the healthcare market.
The free market movement recognizes patients as customers or consumers, and that medical care is the product sold for a price. The movement promotes a radical mind shift for all stakeholders by inviting an entrepreneurial focus to medicine that is typically suppressed by a centralized governing body.
Understanding the two ideals contained within the name of the association is crucial to understanding why Shankx Web Development is passionate about spearheading the free market movement in San Antonio, Texas.
Shankx Web Development and Consulting is an agency that is becoming a guiding voice encouraging medical entrepreneurship for a more competitive, fair, and honest free market in San Antonio.
Why the Free Market Healthcare Model is the Future
Rather than waiting on healthcare reform in the United States to truly revolutionize medicine from a centralized body, Americans are already gravitating towards the healthcare models they want to see by demanding consumer-driven and value-based healthcare by design. Americans want more bundled pricing, better managed care, and employers are searching for ways to avoid emergency medicine. No more price-setting monopolies. No more in-network or out-of-network debacles. No more suprise billing (or balance billing). No more fake chargemasters. Americans demand transparency, and the free market healthcare model gives it.
The free market healthcare model is:
- Efficient
- Cost-effective
- Patient-centric
- Accessible
- Affordable
- Transparent
- Fair
Price transparency allows providers and healthcare facilities to display the cost of their services and create a shoppable, free market. However, it also demands that health care providers raise their standards of medical care delivery, coordinate their efforts to focus on best practices for patients, and build relationships with ancillary services like pharmacies and emergency or first responders.
Connected and human-focused healthcare is the future and we’re collectively working on the solutions right here and now. The San Antonio FMMA plays a pivotal role in helping consumers learn more about their options and medical care providers to connect with key decision-makers in the healthcare process.
Creating an Event That Attracts Medical Providers and Consumers
The FMMA’s 1st Quarterly Meeting in 2020 occurred just before shutdowns across the country in March 2020.
To create a memorable and valuable event for everyone present, we decided to organize a simple but powerful event structure. Use our key takeaways as your very own “playbook” to create the most impact for your events.
1) Inviting Dr. Marty Makary to Speak
Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and Independents alike agree that there is a price we pay to keep this current, albeit, broken system in place. Dr. Marty Makary, Johns Hopkins surgeon, professor, and author of The Price We Pay: What Broke Health Care And How to Fix It is taking the nation by storm with his brazen account of the current healthcare situation. He is well-positioned to detail how our current healthcare state is both a crisis and an opportunity.
Much like the Free Market Medical Association, Dr. Makary goes beyond identifying the system’s failures and actually offers solutions.
Dr. Makary encourages up-front billing and prices, entrepreneurship within medicine, and concurs that price transparency is a must in health care.
The market will soon reward hospitals that offer quality and price transparency. Dr. Keith Smith of the Surgery Center of Oklahoma and other leaders of the free market medical movement have demonstrated how transforming a medical center to one that embraces transparency is not only feasible, but profitable.
Doctors and medical professionals in the field already know of Dr. Makary’s significant expertise in healing our healthcare delivery system. The event also allowed his message and our shared vision to reach other key stakeholders like employers and consumers.
2) Lead Up to the Event With Powerful Content Online
Last year, our CEO, Shankar Poncelet, and Content Specialist, Antréa Ferguson, connected with Dr. Marty Makary shortly after publishing “Webinar Recap: Is there a CURE for Employees’ Surprise Medical Bills?” In a serendipitous twist, this happened just two months after the release of Makary’s book, The Price We Pay.
Dr. Makary’s presentation was about money games of price gouging, predatory billing practices, and creating public accountability on a local level for hospitals. He insisted that “billing quality is medical quality.”
CEO Shankar Poncelet of Shankx Web Development, Dr. Marty Makary and Antrea Ferguson in Green Cuisine Restaurant at the Pearl Brewery
Connecting the webinar with Dr. Makary’s presence as the FMMA’s keynote speaker managed to achieve two significant wins:
First, his presence stirred innovators who are eager to become a part of the movement propelling healthcare forward in a way that is more transparent and value-based.
Second, Dr. Makary explained the vital role of innovation and price transparency in medicine, which is important in understanding the free market. Dr. Makary pulled the curtain back on an otherwise mysterious and unnecessarily complicated healthcare access process, a call to action for innovators to lead a movement.
3) Create Opportunity for Intimate, One-on-One Conversations
Shankx Web Development was among the Gold Sponsors who dined with Dr. Marty Makary along with Cox Manufacturing, Direct Med Clinic, IB-TX, and River City OMS.
One of the best ways to truly give value to your attendees is to provide an opportunity for face-to-face, authentic conversations.
(Of course, nothing is a better facilitator of authentic conversations than food.)
Before the event, VIP Sponsors connected with our attendees, who ranged from potential clients to partners and associates. At this special dinner, they had a rare chance to network and engage in intriguing conversation.
Many employers searching for solutions to improve their fiscal health were among our attendees. They had a chance to speak directly with other collaborators of the event, such as Direct Med Clinic, about their concerns or “pain points” — to hopefully walk away with some solutions.
The “pre” event quickly transformed into a social mixer, allowing face-to-face interactions with other sponsors. The VIP Sponsors Dinner became a personalized experience bringing together problem-solvers.
Sponsors also embraced the opportunity to ask questions that might bring solutions to their organization. Questions about bundled pricing, plan design, Obamacare, and community pricing were right on the menu.
What we found was that employers are frustrated, need honest brokers, and as Dr. Marty Makary suggested, “Employers need to be proactive and more involved with decisions.”
Shankar Poncelet in discussion with Cindy Brenke of IB-TX and Dr. Roger Moczyemba in discussion with Bill Cox of Cox Manufacturing. 
Free Market Medical Association Executive Director James Dunavant and student activist/protégé of Dr. Marty Makary also attended dinner.
4) Medical and Healthcare Event Planning Made Easy!
Hosting a corporate event requires careful coordination of event logistics and funding for everything from the venue, food and catering, audio and visual, and even Wifi!
1st Quarterly Meeting Preparation 3-Month Timeline
Our CEO Shankar Poncelet was also responsible for constructing a well-crafted speech and introducing all sponsors and our keynote speaker, Dr. Marty Makary, which was no small feat for such a distinguished individual.
Dr. Makary signing books during lunch
San Antonio Free Market Medical Association Chapter Leaders.
Dr. Roger Moczygemba and Shankar Poncelet
Planning for first quarterly meeting of 2020
Planning marketing strategy
Planning with James Dunavant
Poncelet preps the stage for Dr. Makary.
Overall, the event required a great deal of organization and coordination,
and we wouldn’t have had it any other way!
Planning an event is an opportunity to make a direct impact for the cause that you are trying to support while creating brand recognition and visibility for your company.
Attending the VIP Sponsors Dinner led to great audience insight, understanding what companies need and want from our company, leading to better targeted marketing and a cleaner marketing funnel.
Organizing events allows business relationships to foster, creating effective lead generation. In essence, sponsoring an event will ultimately drive sales by enhancing brand visibility and distinguishing your company.
Shank Web Development designed print programs, web design, banners, photography, and developed all mediums of print, electronic, and online collateral.
Sponsoring an event with cash donations is important for funding an event. However, pro bono service is also important. IBTX not only cash funded the event, but also publicized the event on their social media platforms and gave help with logistics from inspecting Omni Hotel and Resorts Colonnade to signing attendees in at the registration table.
Dr. Kristin Held gave a prize donation of designer sunglasses, and Shankx Web Development rewarded one lucky company, Simply Crowns, with a Google Home Smart Speaker and Home Assistant.
In addition to sponsoring a cause that we believe in, our involvement in the event required management of creative projects including the ability to create, deliver, edit and optimize marketing materials. We regularly promoted the event via LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, email, post mail, and social media outreach. The Shankx team established connections, communication and disseminated information after marketing meetings.
Shankx Web Development delivered press releases and successfully gained media coverage. Preparation involved examining a number of case studies, white papers and keeping abreast of the industry while writing articles and contributing to the promotion of the San Antonio Free Market Medical Association.
Providing Ongoing Networking Opportunities
After successfully establishing a network of people who are changing the purchasing of healthcare services in San Antonio, we are happy with the outcome of the event. The San Antonio Free Market Medical Association is providing much-needed networking opportunities, a sphere of influence, and connecting like-minded individuals who will be the next medical entrepreneurs of San Antonio.
Shankx Web Development has a tremendous work ethic and a passion to help small businesses succeed. SHANKX will continue to provide the city of San Antonio with the opportunity to connect with the FMMA and we cannot wait for the next quarterly meeting!
