Parallel Entrepreneur with Mark Cleveland

Michael Sprintz (00:00)
everyone thought I was crazy starting my own practice in pain and addiction. Like, what the hell are you doing? And then I'm talking about a software company and they're like, you don't know anything about running a software company

Michael Sprintz (00:10)
I have overdosed, but survived.

Mark Cleveland (00:12)
Our featured parallel entrepreneur today is Dr. Michael Sprintz. Dr. Sprintz is a subject matter expert working at the intersection of chronic pain and addiction, focused on drug testing and digital health automation.

Dr. Sprintz has been a practicing anesthesiologist in the high pressure surgical environment. But then in 2013, he founded the Sprintz Center for Pain and Recovery. Then three years ago, he started a software company. And today his platform ensures compliance, optimization, revenues, and decreased audit risks in the medical revenue cycle management space. Michael's also been in recovery for over 24 years.

Michael, welcome to the Parallel Entrepreneur.

Michael Sprintz (00:54)
Thanks Mark, it's wonderful to be here.

Mark Cleveland (00:56)
I'm going to have to jump right into this background story where you're a medical professional in the pain and addiction space, and yet you have been in recovery for 24 years.

I'd love for you to share with our audience that journey.

Michael Sprintz (01:12)
It has definitely been an adventure. I had started using drugs and alcohol early, but I also had this philosophy of work hard and play hard. Not everyone has addiction. A lot of people out there work hard and play hard, but when addiction takes over, it's no longer even play. I was in my last year of my anesthesia residency at Johns Hopkins. And it's really where my addiction took off. And I crashed and was intervened on by my program director and went to treatment, spent actually a year and a half in treatment. And it took me about five years to one, get sober to understand sobriety to really have it a part of my life. And then started that road back of trying to get back into an anesthesia residency. And in the interim, I ended up in Ohio, did a postdoc in biomedical nanotechnology while I was trying to go back to anesthesia. But what was interesting was, I got rejected year after year after year. And understandably so.

People are Doctors with addiction problems, especially anesthesiologists with an addiction problem, it's an incredibly high risk. The number one way you find out that someone has relapsed is they're dead. And so not many people wanted to take a chance on me. And I understand that. And at one point, my dad had looked at me and 170 rejections. And he's like, Mike, why do you keep doing this? And I kind of looked at him like, well, because I want it. I want to go back. And for me, it was such a simple thing. And I realized in that moment there was a quality in me that really has helped throughout my life. And that was resilience and tenacity that when I really put my mind to something, I'll succeed. I'll get there eventually. Maybe not the same path that I thought.

But eventually, and after about five years, there was a program director and a chairman at University of South Florida that gave me a chance. And I didn't miss that chance. I had a seventh grade teacher who once told me, he's like, Mike, if someone ever gives you a second chance, don't ever blow it. And that's, and so I did. And that's how I got back into anesthesia. And then,

Mark Cleveland (03:13)
Yeah, give it your best shot.

Michael Sprintz (03:19)
I finished my residency, got boarded, practiced, and got boarded in addiction medicine because I understood addiction. And, you know, it was interesting to be back practicing medicine in the field especially being around everything that a lot of people have issues with. And I did everything I needed to do and that was suggested of me to safeguard my recovery. And that gave me that freedom to show up as an amazing doctor in recovery.

Mark Cleveland (03:47)
That's compelling. That's first level compassion expressing itself professionally. You went on to then create your own clinical facilities, so that's your first entrepreneurial exercise, right?

Michael Sprintz (04:00)
Yeah, I was, I practiced anesthesia for about four years in New Orleans and then I got this crazy idea to do a pain fellowship. And I wasn't exactly sure why, but I've learned over time to trust my gut. And I followed that. And so I got a pain fellowship position at MD Anderson in Houston. And I moved down and I was really... struggling to find my place. Again, this was around 2011 where no one had heard of the opioid crisis. No one understood addiction in the medical community on a global, you know, or on a large scale. Yeah, there was maybe 3% of the docs had been boarded in addiction medicine at the time. There was a few of us who knew, but not many.

Mark Cleveland (04:41)
On a national scale, yeah.

Michael Sprintz (04:49)
And I was in my fellowship and we were rounding on this patient. I was like, well, they say the morphine works for their leg pain, but the methadone doesn't. And the methadone works for their shoulder pain, but the oxycodone doesn't. And the oxycodone works for their other arm pain, but the methadone. This patient was on three different potent opioids.

This was a cancer center. They had cancer and it was challenging to manage the pain, definitely in cancer. But in this patient, in this situation, everyone's like, I don't know what's going on and I'm not sure. I'm like, y'all, he's playing you. This is what he's going to say next. This is what he's going to say next. This is what he's going to say next. And this is what we need to do. And it was at that time that no one really understood the intersection of addiction and pain. At that time, the Institute of Medicine had put out a report that, you know, "pain is the fifth vital sign" and we have a responsibility to treat that. And so essentially I was kind of shut down at that point. And that was the moment that I realized, they don't get it. They don't understand, doctors don't understand this intersection of where addiction and pain fit. And that's really where I got the idea. I'm like, I have to do this on my own because no one else is going to do it. And that's how I started my clinical practice.

Mark Cleveland (06:04)
It's the only one that was operating at that intersection. You had partners, you built an operation, a physical plant, a brand, you built a company. So take us through some of the lessons of transitioning from a professional doctor practicing in a hospital environment, mostly.

Michael Sprintz (06:22)
Yeah.

Yeah, at that time there was you have academics and private practice. I had not been in private practice before. And the unfortunate part is that, especially at that time, no one taught doctors about the business of medicine. And it was really an important piece that we don't learn.

And so, I started my own practice by myself at first, and I made every mistake you can. I wasn't a business guy. That first year and a half almost went bankrupt. I remember you know, calling a friend of mine going, how am going to do this? I don't know how I'm going to do that. How am going to keep the doors open? And a friend of mine is like, look, you keep showing up until they lock the doors.

Mark Cleveland (07:01)
You

Michael Sprintz (07:02)
And I mean, it was good advice. And every day something would happen that would give me some hope. And I'd be driving home that night going, all right, I think this is going to work. And so one of the big lessons that I learned initially was hire the right people that have the skill sets that I don't that can complement.

And that's the first piece, your skill sets need to be in alignment. There has to be an ethical alignment and a philosophical alignment as well.

And I didn't have that in the beginning. Unfortunately, I made a bunch of hiring mistakes that later on bit me in the ass. And that was something, I mean, it did. And it was hard. I think that over the years, I started to meet the right people and really good people who knew what I didn't know and could help guide me and make strategic partnerships,

Mark Cleveland (07:36)
Yeah.

Michael Sprintz (07:52)
people where we could align and that really helped blossom our business and you

Mark Cleveland (07:57)
So sometimes you don't know what you don't know until you're getting into those hard situations where you get to learn. You know, my grandfather said, learn from the mistakes of others. They're the least expensive kind. And you are paying for other people's mistakes. You're paying for your own mistakes. And then you wander through this hero's journey with a little bit of hope at the end of every day.

Michael Sprintz (08:19)
Yes

Mark Cleveland (08:19)
And you talked about alignment. I want to focus on that for a second, because that's been an emerging theme in parallel entrepreneur conversations is how important it is to be lined up, to be aligned in just about every aspect of the human experience.

How did you recognize you were out of alignment in the first place?

Michael Sprintz (08:37)
I was struggling. I was struggling in the business part of it, but I was also struggling with the people in my business. It didn't flow. There was constant tension and friction. It became clear to me that as I brought people on, they didn't understand my vision and where I wanted to go with this. They said they did, but their words and their actions didn't match.

And sometimes, especially with physician groups, as you start to bring in extricating yourself can be messy and complicated. And that's the other thing that I learned later in retrospect, is that if someone doesn't fit the relationship, if it's an unhealthy relationship, it's important to end it early, not later, because it only gets more painful for everyone later.

That was one of the key lessons that I learned is when there's a problem, you have to communicate and address it early. Is it the right person in the wrong seat? Is it the wrong person period? Or is it an education problem? Is it a systems problem? Or is it a people problem? And I think that I've learned that a lot along the way and I had started my software company while I was still in the medical practice, so was trying to run both at the same time, which...

Mark Cleveland (09:43)
Yeah, you did that successfully for some time. Let's go ahead and follow that transition story. All of a sudden you're a parallel entrepreneur. You're operating a software company. Talk about Cellarian and what's the mission there?

Michael Sprintz (09:57)
Cellarian's mission is really to automate medical and necessity in clinical documentation so that providers can actually focus on patients and and the business part of medicine can actually focus on the business parts of medicine.

You know I had four people that worked in my medical practice, that their sole job was to try and make sure that we got paid for the services we delivered. And that's kind of part of an overall global healthcare issue in the US. But for myself, I'm like, why do we keep throwing people at this problem? More people are expensive, they make mistakes, and were slower.

Why not for repetitive tasks and for things like documentation, why are we not automating and innovating?

Mark Cleveland (10:40)
You decide that you're going to invest your own money and build a software platform. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you've never been in the software business before either.

Michael Sprintz (10:49)
I've never been in the software business before. It was born out of a problem that I had in my business that I looked around and no one had solved. Our practice had a clinical lab where we do drug testing. It's an important part of practicing good clinical medicine, especially in pain management and addiction. You need to make sure that the patients are taking what they're supposed to be taking and not taking things that they aren't.

But the way the pay structure goes is that the payers, if a lab comes in, you have to document exhaustively the medical necessity reasons to support why you are billing or why you're doing this test or otherwise you don't get paid. And I couldn't even get my own partners to document well enough. And to be fair, the documentation requirements were cumbersome and exhaustive and when we think about health care in general as reimbursement continues to decrease the number of patients you have to see increases which means the time that we spend with with our patients decreases so everything is getting compressed and pressured and then as this documentation requirements increase it's impossible to do.

And I looked around to see if there was something out there that could help us automate this. Because just copying and pasting notes doesn't work. The payers have software that identify that and they won't pay for that. And there was nothing out there. So I created it. I was part of American Society of Addiction Medicine's drug testing expert panel who helped write the guidelines in 2017 on appropriate testing. So I understood drug testing and I understood what's medically necessary and not. And then I dove into all the payer policies and I read the policies to understand what they required. And I wrote an algorithm that would take the information that a doctor ordered, because they have to have certain amounts of information. It took that information and it created a unique statement of medical necessity that supported the billing code. So what we did is we helped labs, whether you're a a reference lab or a physician-owned lab, we help the labs get paid for appropriate work that they do, and we help them recoup money, we help them appeal denied claims and get prior auths approved. Because previously, they were taking a 20 to 30% haircut every month because you couldn't get the providers to document well enough.

Mark Cleveland (13:09)
But the patient still gets the test. So the doctor places the order, the patient gets the test, everybody's performing to have a better health outcome. And then there's a payment hole that shows up later and your processes are broken. Enter Cellarian, right?

Michael Sprintz (13:25)
We fill the gap. We create the documentation that labs need in order to get paid and stay compliant and decrease the risk in audits. And we do it in a way that's compliant.

Mark Cleveland (13:37)
You have some wisdom to share with the parallel entrepreneur about what it's like to be raising capital, what it's like to transition from one successful enterprise and decide to set that down and sell.

This isn't a one thing and then another thing like a serial entrepreneur. This is all parallel, isn't it?

Michael Sprintz (13:56)
Yeah, it all intersected. And I know we talked about previously how in studying for my anesthesia oral boards, I really came down to the understanding of looking at things in a three dimensional way. And it's sort of like if you can imagine like a soccer ball of, you know, made out of just dots, like a computer image of a soccer ball where all the dots are connected, and then you start to see it how it all intersects. And so when you're taking care of a patient, you have to think about one thing because this impacts this, but you have to think about the other side of that. Well, what are the unintended consequences? If I do this, it will affect this, which change that and alter this. So I started to think about not just anesthesia, but I thought about everything in a systems based approach that everything interacts with one another. We don't live in a vacuum and that is included in business. What I knew was that Cellarian needed to grow and it was a timing piece and wherever we put our attention it grows and that's the biggest challenge I think in parallel entrepreneurs is making sure that our energies are in the right place at the right time and knowing when to switch those and I think that's really key because if you put all your energy in one thing something else is going to wither.

And so it's important to know when to keep switching places. I knew it was time to leave my practice.

Although the practice was thriving and it still is doing really well, I'm just not a part of that. But it was time for me to go as I was not in alignment with my partners. Their vision was very different from mine. And as I was watching Cellarian grow, I knew Cellarian needed my attention full time. And so...

I sold my shares in the company and went full-time with Cellarian. And my chief operating officer, Mike Lu is an amazing guy. He was a McKinsey consultant, healthcare consultant, MBA for years and had worked in the healthcare space. He actually is the guy when we talk about finding the right people, he was the right person. We have really great complimentary skillsets and he turned around our clinical practice.

He built infrastructure and systems and processes to make the medical practice succeed. When I left, he left with me He's my chief operating officer with Cellarian. And it's a really wonderful complimentary skill sets that we have.

Mark Cleveland (16:13)
These are important partnerships that you're describing. is the market reacting to Cellarian?

Michael Sprintz (16:19)
The market's reacting well. Our product is very sticky, which is nice. Now again, it's a niche market. We're the diagnostic lab space, the clinical lab space. And our first product was with drug testing, but it's a platform technology. We're now working on automating medical necessity documentation for molecular testing, like COVID tests and UTIs and respiratory and GI and... all these other acronyms for all the different disease states. And then from there, we've got a pipeline that goes to genetics and oncology. anything really that you need medical necessity documentation for, we can do that.

Mark Cleveland (16:56)
What do you think your total addressable market is?

Michael Sprintz (16:58)
The market in just drug testing alone in the US is a $4.2 billion market.

But as we're expanding, we're looking at really a much larger market. And I think part of it depends on as the market changes and as denials and prior auth requests increase, that's really going to dictate where things go.

Mark Cleveland (17:19)
You're on path for 10 million in performance, if I remember correctly. So you're hitting on all cylinders. How is it working in terms of capital raise or

Michael Sprintz (17:25)
Yeah.

Mark Cleveland (17:33)
you know, getting people to see the vision. How are you doing that?

Michael Sprintz (17:37)
It's interesting because we've been around for a little bit and we have a number of angel investors and we're at this place and I love how we describe it. We're not a startup. We're an upstart. We're there and we have a product. It's in the market. We have paying customers and it's sticky and they stay. But, we're aiming towards hitting our target ARR. At this point right now, we're looking to raise a million dollars in growth capital to get us to that next step that cash flow positive. We're ramping the product's well proven out and then look for another raise where we would actually put in a significant amount of money to really blow it up and stamp it out.

Mark Cleveland (18:15)
It's a classic software land expand and market share grab approach. So what are some of the lessons that you've learned? Like what's been the most difficult thing for you to try to be operating in parallel with?

Michael Sprintz (18:20)
Yeah.

I think the most important thing is believing in while still reading the

If we have to pivot, we pivot. We've had customers who have said, hey, look, this is really great, but can you do this? And that turned into what we now have is we automate an entire clinical note.

Essentially it's like a physician is writing the note, but it's unique for that patient. And that came out of a conversation with one of our customers.

Mark Cleveland (18:56)
How are the doctors who see you as a peer reacting to this software? I mean, are they throwing money at you and, and, just standing up in line or are they requiring some sort of proof, you know, prove to me that, know, that I got a problem because I got a problem.

Michael Sprintz (19:12)
Yes, actually, that's a great question. Selling to the labs with the business people present is really helpful because they understand the business model. And especially being a doctor selling to another doctor, inevitably with some there's going to be some ego friction. And that's that's challenging to overcome because then we're talking about feelings. We're not talking about facts and data. And the facts and the data show that we can improve your bottom line by 30%. We can do that. We've priced our product to be just a couple of bucks a report. It's the most cost effective audit insurance you could have. But when you start to talk with doctors, and we talk about compliance and we talk about risk. And most people, it's not just doctors, but most of us say it will not happen to me. I'm doing fine. It won't happen to me. But the other, I won't get audited.

Mark Cleveland (20:03)
And what is the it that won't happen to me?

Auditing?

Michael Sprintz (20:08)
For instance, our clinical lab that I had, we got audited by Medicare. And we used our software and we sent it in and they ended the audit. We recouped our money and the audit ended. And for us, that was the best litmus test we ever could have had for Cellarian. And that happened early and we're like, yeah, this is real.

And since then, we've had other clients who have gone through audits. And they're smaller. That's the other thing. People in the health care space think that only the big labs get audited. And that's not true anymore.

Anyone can get audited. And so what we have found is that we made it simple and easy for them to respond with the right documentation for the audit. And our current client they have a lawyer, but the lawyer is like, you got everything you need, you're good. You don't need me. And that was wonderful for us.

I think initially the response had been, wait a minute, you can't do that. That's not real. And of course, when you're first to market and you have something that is novel and innovative, people aren't gonna believe it at first.

And we're now starting to see the traction where the labs are starting to talk to other labs and like, look, we, I want to introduce you to someone. Cause I think they need what you have. And that's how it's begun.

Mark Cleveland (21:14)
Mm-hmm.

Word of mouth and having customers finance your growth, the two most important things: the one, two punch of business growth.

Michael Sprintz (21:23)
Yeah, it's really great.

Mark Cleveland (21:25)
So what are you doing that you're having the most fun with?

Michael Sprintz (21:27)
It's the creative part of it. It's interesting. I'm not so I am not an artist by any stretch of the imagination. So when we talk about creativity for me, it's thinking of solutions. You know, when, as we talked earlier, thinking in three dimensionally and from a systems approach, it's always about how can I take what I've learned in everything else and apply it in this different market or this different problem, and solve it. And so I'm always thinking that way. How can we do this better? How can we make this easier? And our CTO, Ian Williamson, who I've worked with for years, it all started with he didn't speak medicine and I didn't speak code. And we came up with a solution that we would call Legos, and that was, of course, not the building block. But essentially, we created a way of coding that was agile and fast and rapidly adaptable, and it worked in a way that he didn't need to be a doctor. I didn't need to be a software developer. But we were able to communicate with a common language. that kind of creativity spawned all of our feature development, having those conversations. That piece I love. And then the other piece that I love is actually talking to potential customers. They'll ask me all sorts of questions. And it's wonderful to be able to help them see things that they haven't been able to see before. And I think that's a key thing in the, especially the lab spaces. Sometimes people don't know how much money they're leaving on the table.

And that's one of the things that we can help. And hey, look, use our product. Let's compare before and after. And we'll show you. And it's like, holy crap, I didn't realize how much money I was leaving on the table.

Mark Cleveland (23:07)
So you've got alignment, you've got languages. you mentioned AI. So let me dive into the AI question. How is AI impacting your business and enabling your solution? And what do you think AI is going to do with this industry?

Michael Sprintz (23:20)
Well, I think AI is really good at certain things right now, right? Certain rote tests. I know that there's a lot of AI and ambient scribes within, within healthcare. And I think that AI will help with speeding up automation. And I think that it's absolutely essential that you bring AI in in some form or fashion. For our company, for Cellarian, leveraging AI will help us to develop new product lines faster and more efficiently. But the thing to remember, to, though, is the biggest problem that we have with AI especially in something that has to do with patient care and compliance, is the problem of hallucinations and inaccuracies. And that's a huge problem. I've done a lot of consulting for companies, and what I find is that people will build something, and then they bring in this expert later.

For us, we built it originally with someone with deep domain expertise. I understood the customer. I understood the product. I understood the testing. I understood every aspect of it. And it was built on that solid foundation of understanding clinical medicine, why I order a test, and all the different reasons. And then what AI now does is AI helps enhance our efficiency, our operational efficiency. It helps our development timelines, and it helps our growth. But it's an enhancement. And I think that's really the key thing is understanding where to leverage it and not expecting it to do everything. Because if you expect it to do everything, especially if you're audited, you're in big trouble.

Mark Cleveland (24:48)
So what's best advice you've gotten when it came to starting a new company?

Michael Sprintz (24:52)
So I have one of my mentors and a member of our board, Richard Holcomb, who you also know is a brilliant serial and parallel entrepreneur, very, very successful. And I remember he had. Absolutely! Just an amazing human being all the way around. And I remember he had this conversation. He had the be careful what you wish for conversation with me. And it was

Mark Cleveland (25:02)
He's most definitely a parallel entrepreneur.

Michael Sprintz (25:14)
truly so on point. And he's like, look, you're going to get some investors, you're going to get money, you're going to grow. And that's all great. And then as investors come in, you are going to have other people that are that you are responsible towards and that have input. And so you have to understand that. And then you also need to understand that the product that you create will most likely not be the product that you end up selling your company for.

I didn't understand it at first because actually our whole first idea, even before the automation part of medical testing was for prescription drug monitoring and creating a visual graphic format. And ultimately that didn't succeed. But that was foundations for what we created now and even the pivots that we've made and I've laughed with Richard about that since then was that his point is like the markets going to tell you what it wants you need to put it out there and you need to put out something that they don't know they need but then they're going to ask, this is great, but can you do this or can you do that?

And my willingness to listen and pivot where we needed to pivot was really instrumental in helping us navigate the market as it grew and changed.

Mark Cleveland (26:23)
That sounds like the Steve Jobs quote, you know, customers don't know what they want until you show it to them.

Michael Sprintz (26:28)
Yep. And then they'll tell you they want more. And that's great. It's absolutely great. That's why we get new features and new product lines.

Mark Cleveland (26:30)
Which is a good thing.

So how has this experience been for a doctor? I mean, I'm curious because this level of training that you had to go through, do you miss it? Do you miss that activity? Do you miss that part of your professional life?

Michael Sprintz (26:56)
I loved practicing anesthesia and I was really good. I am really good, but I really loved it and enjoyed it. I enjoyed being in the operating room. It's like a clubhouse where you close the door and the only thing that you care about is that patient. When a surgery goes well, it is like a symphony where everyone's in alignment and you're all in flow. When that occurs, it's just beautiful, it really is. So there are pieces that I miss with that, but I've been drinking from the fire hose on the business side for over 10 years and it's unsettling and it's stressful and it's exciting as hell, and interesting and always changing, so for me, I love that as much as well. I miss seeing my patients and engaging in that way where it's a very authentic engagement with a patient in a room, really talking about real things. And I love that. I absolutely.

Mark Cleveland (27:47)
Is that a transferable skill? Is that you're talking now to other business operators, clinical lab operators, doctors that own labs, and they're your patient now.

Michael Sprintz (27:57)
Yes, absolutely. And it's very true. And what you just talked about, it's a core part of who I am. My words and my actions have to meet my insides and my outsides. So when I am meeting or talking with people, whether I'm sitting here talking with you on a podcast, or I'm talking with a patient in a room, or I'm talking with a potential customer who is a lab owner.

I show up as I am.

It's about being authentic and showing up in an authentic way and being direct about things.

I think that that's really important because there's not a lot of that these days. And just doing what we say, keeping our word, our word matters, matters a lot.

Mark Cleveland (28:32)
So what have you thought about that you would like to do, but you can't? Is there something that you have like a vision out there that the technology is not ready? Michael's not ready. What is this next ring you're going to grab for? What does it look like?

Michael Sprintz (28:52)
I love helping people see beyond where they're at. And I think that that's really key. I still do see patients one day a week for addiction medicine because that matters to me. But I think helping people see the world in a broader scope, especially in, leveraging our technology here, how can I help providers show up in a way for their customers or their patients that gives them more time to do that.

You one of the things I love about what our current product does, I like to call it kind of subversive teaching, where if we're creating medical necessity and the providers are reviewing it, they're also learning as well and they're reading it and it's consistent with what they were thinking, but they never really wrote it down. And so it helps to solidify, why am I doing what I'm doing? It helps better patient care. And I think anything that we can do to help providers show up and deliver better care in a more authentic way, despite all the restrictions that we have in the healthcare space, then I've really succeeded.

Mark Cleveland (29:53)
We talked before about the restrictions in the healthcare space and that there's a bad actor here and there that forces a policy change. And then all of a sudden there's a lot of peanut butter in the process. It's all designed around stopping one actor from taking advantage of the system really and people.

How did this get so far out of control?

Michael Sprintz (30:14)
The reality is that the way healthcare has evolved from the business side of it, there's a misalignment of interests and incentives on everyone's part.

And there are bad actors on the provider side, and there are bad actors on the payer side. And so policies are created to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse in the healthcare space, and that's appropriate.

And it's necessary because there is fraud, waste and abuse. The unintended consequence of a pendulum swinging too far in any direction is the damage, the collateral damage and the unintended consequences of the patients and the providers that get hurt or neglected as a result of that. And for us, as I said, with drug testing, it's a necessary part of good clinical medicine in identifying a substance use problem early. Let's say you had diabetes and I was prescribing insulin for you, but I never checked your glucose or your hemoglobin A1C and I kept increasing your insulin and you're like, well, no, I think it's working fine or I don't think it's working as well, but I'm not checking anything to confirm that it would be malpractice. And so if I am prescribing a drug that when used appropriately in an appropriate patient, for an appropriate condition, need to be monitoring them because some of the side effects of addiction and overdose and memory impairment and all the other side effects and consequences that can happen from prescribing drugs that are good in a certain circumstance with a certain patient. And if I'm not doing that, that's a problem. And so for us, creating a tool that will help support appropriate clinical testing but doesn't support inappropriate clinical testing was our goal.

And the other problem is health care is such a complicated business, it's complicated clinically and it's complicated economically. And as new technologies come in all the time, that's advancing science and advancing medicine and patient care and outcomes, trying to change policy and policy changes slower than technology advances and reimbursement trails even behind that. Everyone wants to deliver good care that improves outcomes and do it in a cost effective way, but make a profit as well because everyone needs to win. It can't just be the payers and it can't just be the providers.

And it can't just be the patients, it needs to be everyone. And finding that balance is probably one of the biggest challenges I can see in healthcare right now, is this misalignment of incentives that makes a win-win-win situation very challenging.

Mark Cleveland (32:45)
I know that being a CEO of a software company can be quite stressful. And I'm sure that being CEO of a pain clinic and being a doctor can be quite stressful, but I don't get the sense that you carry a lot of stress, Michael. So what are your coping skills?

Michael Sprintz (33:02)
I've had a lot of therapy.

So one of the best things for me was understanding what I had control over and what I don't. And boundaries are really important, too. If there are things that I have control over, I'll do what I can to do that. And if there's things that I can't control, I have to, you know, I learn to be OK and I learn to just - how I respond to things I don't have control over matters. And I absolutely get stressed out of my mind sometimes. Like, of course. But when I come home, I have an amazing relationship with my wife. She's my best friend and my soulmate, and she gets it. And she gets me. So for me coming home, I've got one son at home now still who's 14, and they're amazing. He's great. And so when I come home, my home is safe.

Mark Cleveland (33:30)
Ha

Michael Sprintz (33:52)
You know, and it usually takes me a little bit to kind of wind down from the day. So I'll I'll talk with my ... This happened, this happened, this happened. And then it's like, OK, and then we're done.

But one of the things that we agreed to was that I need to be present when we're together, then it's essential that we're present here.

Mark Cleveland (34:13)
You're talking about presence. Is there a actual tool set or a hack, an approach to time management that you found has been effective for you?

Michael Sprintz (34:23)
I think for myself, blocking out time and making commitments on when I'm going to stop, because sometimes that's challenging for me, especially if I'm in flow or I'm in a groove, I could keep going. So sometimes I do need to stop. I used to, I used to go to bed at eight o'clock, wake up at midnight, work until four in the morning, sleep another couple of hours and get up. And I was doing that for years. But it it was killing me. And that was something that I've shifted to be as effective as I can. For myself, I also take a 10 or 20 minute nap during the day.

Right around one or two o'clock. And that has really helped It gives me another burst of energy later on in the day that really best thing that I can say though from a life hack is communicate. when you talk about work-life balance and things like that communication is the most essential thing. Because if you let someone know where you're at and what's going on, they can respond appropriately. And what I have found is that most people appreciate you telling them, hey, look, this is what's going on. So if I'm going to be late one night, I call them, hey, look, this is what's going on. I'm going to be like, all right, cool, no problem. Rather than not communicating.

Mark Cleveland (35:28)
Absolutely.

We've had conversations about life and death. You in your role as an anesthesiologist and in that surgery center when it didn't go well or in this world where we know that some people just can't cope with their addictions and they pass, you must have been around a lot of death. How has that informed you? How has that made you a better human? How has that affected you?

Michael Sprintz (35:56)
I have an immense amount of gratitude for the life that I have. And I've learned to appreciate it in the moment, not after I've lost it. I have overdosed, but survived. I've done stupid things. I've seen patients die of the dumbest things, falling downstairs, like things you're like, well, everyone does that.

And then I've seen people survive some of the craziest stuff, like how did they live? And part of that left me with a conclusion of when it's your time, it's your time, but don't do something stupid that's gonna make it early. You know, that.

Mark Cleveland (36:31)
Don't accelerate that checkbook.

Michael Sprintz (36:33)
Absolutely. But one of the things that I came to the conclusion of, and this really was straight out of recovery. I survived a lot of things that I have heard other people dying from. And I understood and knew I was being given a chance. And I knew that if I got that chance ever to go back and practice medicine, I wasn't going to blow it. And I was going to do something meaningful.

I also know I can't save anyone. I am not God. What I can do, though, is I can show up and be there. And when someone shows up in my office and I've had this conversation with patients where they're like, I don't really know how I got here, you know, blah, blah, blah, or I'm really glad that I got here. And, you know, after a conversation and and, you know, most of my response is like, look, I don't know either, but we're both here. And if you show up, I'm willing to show up and I'll do whatever I can to help you. But if you don't want to show up and you don't want to do anything okay, I, I understand where my limits are. But my responsibility is to show up and do the best that I can in any situation to help someone. And they will either do their part and show up and help or they won't. And the outcome will be what it will be.

But that helps me really sleep at night too.

Mark Cleveland (37:44)
What is your North Star?

Michael Sprintz (37:46)
Connection. Authenticity. Resilience. Growth. There's lessons in everything. I have often said, my greatest gifts have all been wrapped in pain, but the important thing for me is to learn from it and to do the next right thing. I mean, really, it's about that. wherever I'm at, what's the next right thing to do?

Mark Cleveland (38:06)
So how do you make that decision? It seems like everybody can say, well, let's do the right thing.

Michael Sprintz (38:11)
And the right thing or the correct thing is really dictated by our internal conscious and compass and morals and that internal part. I always used to say when I'm making my clinical decisions, if I'm doing what's best for the patient, I never worry about what I'd ever say on the

The question is, what's in the best, highest good for myself and whoever I'm engaged with in this situation? And how can I show up in a way that's authentic with who I am?

For instance, I was asked, to take on a job as a medical director for a place that...

I knew that that required a commitment of time and that because the patients need that and the company needed that. And I said, look, I can't in good conscience, take this position. It has nothing to do with the money. I'd love to have the money. That's great. Fine. But the reality is I can't because I wouldn't be able to show up in a way that you would need me there and the patients would need me there. And he's like, "well, that's exactly why we want you.

Because you think like that." But it's really about if I can't deliver on what is expected of me, I don't say that I can. And I think that's important.

Mark Cleveland (39:17)
That's a great discipline. Do what you say you're going to do and then don't do what you can't do. Woe to he who takes on the responsibility and is not capable of delivering.

Michael Sprintz (39:21)
and tell them.

Saying no respectfully when it's authentic and where your heart's in the right place is usually received pretty well. But it's hard to do sometimes.

Mark Cleveland (39:37)
What are you most excited about these days in the marketplace that you're swimming in technology, the rapid advances of medical science itself? What are you most hopeful about?

Michael Sprintz (39:48)
I've always loved technology. I have always loved being on the cutting edge of stuff. I mean, when I was doing, we were doing nanotech, which back then it was called biomedical nanotechnology. And then it's nanomedicine, this and that. And I was just floored. I always love seeing how new technologies can change and advance outcomes and solutions and that creativity that comes with it is just amazing. So with that comes a lot of uncertainty, but for me there's so much excitement and possibility in uncertainty. That's where all the magic happens is in the unknown, you know?

Mark Cleveland (40:24)
I was talking to a guest the other day, we were discussing the restraints of software systems and how are they designed in ways that are siloed and what is the change that's coming? And he was asking me about adaptability and about, you know, how I valued the future. And I said, "I value more what I have done that I no longer have to do than I do what I'm about to do." And we had an interesting conversation about that. Things that we can see in our rear view mirror, those dots that connect and that we've funded and that we know there's a return on investment. We can either delegate that. We can measure it for sure. And we can predict the future. And then our creative nature, at least for me, I know I want to go out and do something that hasn't been done. And I need to stop doing something in order to create the space for me to go do something new that I can't really figure out yet because it hasn't,

I haven't done it for sure, and I don't know what the outcome is going to be.

Michael Sprintz (41:25)
Yeah.

Yeah, and it enables you to appreciate everything that you've done that is the foundation for whatever it is that you're going to do. And, you know, it's interesting that you say that, one of the things I didn't do in the past was actually appreciate what I've accomplished.

I didn't give myself credit for the things that I've accomplished. And I've beaten the odds a number of times on a number of different things, but just was like, oh yeah, you know, that's just what you do. And what's the next thing? What's the next thing? And I never paused to do that. And I do that now and I appreciate those things that I've done in the past that I may not be doing now.

And you reminded me of a book that I recently read called A Life of Meaning by James a Jungian psychoanalyst and he's written a number of books. They're phenomenal. I would highly recommend it when you're starting to talk about growth from the inside out.

In this book, he was talking about in our older years, you know, after retirement. And they've done a number of studies that that really showed that the people who were happiest at the end stages of life, the people that were at most peace and had a measure of joy and satisfaction in their lives were the ones that took risks.

Not necessarily the ones who succeeded in everything, but the ones who took the risks. And that the ones who didn't take risks and the ones that always played it safe had the most anxiety and fear of death.

Mark Cleveland (42:52)
How do you personalize that?

Michael Sprintz (42:56)
I just turned 54 last week. And for myself, you know, over the last, thank you very much. And I had my first cardiac cath a year before that, you know, which was the same year that my dad had his second heart attack and a bypass.

Mark Cleveland (43:00)
Happy birthday.

Michael Sprintz (43:09)
It really brought up that concept of death.

When it's time, whenever it is that I die, I wanna look back and go, you know, I took chances. I told the people who I care about that I care about them. I never want anything left unsaid. And over the last couple of years,

I've been very conscious about letting my parents know I love them and I care about them and I'm proud of them as well. I still ask my wife to marry me every day. And it's about letting people know we care about them in that moment. If I'm on my deathbed, what will I wish I have done or said? And then my goal is to do those things before I'm sitting there on my deathbed. Cause that sucks.

Yeah, regret. Nothing sucks worse than regret.

Mark Cleveland (43:56)
You talked about a book earlier. What's on your nightstand? What's next?

Michael Sprintz (43:59)
It's actually going to be another book by by James Hollis called Living Living with Dust. But, you know, on my nightstand, I've read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. I don't know if you've ever read that.

Mark Cleveland (44:09)
Absolutely.

Francisco Gonzalez, earlier in the season, talked a lot about how that book changed his life.

Michael Sprintz (44:15)
I've read it again. And again, the little nuggets of life lessons and advice were really powerful for me.

Mark Cleveland (44:23)
So I've been involved in a lot of these interviews and I rarely have anybody say to me, know, Good to Great by Jim Collins changed my life or right? And I have this gigantic library of books that I've read from The Innovator's Dilemma to the E myth. The ones that have changed my life have been the ones that spoke to my heart, that

Michael Sprintz (44:33)
you

Mark Cleveland (44:47)
identified me with humanity and helped explain why I feel some way that I feel and how I can let go of that too. And then go solve problems. It's like training and business structure and learning how to be a doctor, these are things that are problem solving skills, but humanity skills, the ones that get us, think the farthest are the ones that you find in a book like The Alchemist.

Michael Sprintz (44:58)
Yeah.

Yeah, they're the ones that matter. I remember with medical school learning the language of medicine took two years to just learn the language. But learning a language doesn't teach you how to have a meaningful conversation with someone.

That's another level. I could name off a couple of business books, you know, and actually I love Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss about negotiating. It was fabulous book. But business is just one piece of who we are as entrepreneurs or as humans. Right. Our work is one piece. I'm so much more than just a doctor, just an entrepreneur, just a software person, or just a husband, or just a father, or ... I'm all of these things, and then even something more. I think that those books that really touch us and make us really connect with ourselves and think about who we are and what we want to be and what we stand for and how we can grow.

If I can really embrace, if it resonates with me and internalizes, it will be reflected in how I show up in business, and how I make decisions in business and how I interact with customers and clients and vendors. And all of those things matter because who we are as people, what we stand for as a person, our values, what matters to us is exactly how we're going to show up in business and other relationships. And so I think that I agree with you. Those books that really expand our concepts of who we are and help us to grow. Because we're either growing or we're withering.

Mark Cleveland (46:50)
So Michael, if you could talk to your younger self, what would you say?

Michael Sprintz (46:54)
It'll be OK. Just trust yourself.

Because I realized growing up, I didn't hear that. No one ever told me it was gonna be okay. I had very loving parents, but that wasn't that piece of it. And I didn't realize how bad, I just needed the reassurance of like, it'll be okay, trust yourself. And...

I remind myself that all the time because especially as an entrepreneur, and we take all these risks and we jump into it. And everyone thought I was crazy starting my own practice in pain and addiction. Like, what the hell are you doing? And then I'm talking about a software company and they're like, you don't know anything about running a software company and, and it'll be okay. And I need to trust myself because this is what I feel in my gut is what I need to do next.

And so now as an adult, what I've learned is to give myself and to give that little boy the things that he needed that still does. Because again, if we don't work through stuff, it will come out sideways as adult. And so, yeah.

Mark Cleveland (48:02)
I've looked at this before in what I would call shadow work.

Michael Sprintz (48:08)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Cleveland (48:11)
Mistakes that I've made at different points in my life, the part that I have not forgiven myself for, the shame of something, this fear and this reaction and this moment in time in which I did something, whatever that is, I leave a little piece of my light behind and I move on down the trail. And I've come to appreciate that the six-year-old boy that's afraid

Michael Sprintz (48:29)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Cleveland (48:39)
The eight year old boy that just got beat up on the playground, the 15 year old kid that did something really crazy, stupid, you know, and no one knows even right now. know, The types of things that we have done to ourselves or we've imagined or lived in fear from and they are a part of our shadow. They still are a piece of us. They still are us.

Michael Sprintz (48:48)
You

Mark Cleveland (49:04)
If we go back in time to talk to ourselves and meet us where we have left ourselves behind and integrate, pull that shadow or pull that little piece of light back into me and love it unconditionally, because that's all that six-year-old wanted to be was loved. And then next thing you know, he's he's living in a little bit of fear. I don't know. The shadow work.

For me, that word just applies. It's just been something that helps me. Does it resonate with you?

Michael Sprintz (49:34)
Absolutely. The importance of embracing and accepting the dark parts of ourselves, the ugly parts, the things that are not pretty.

That for me was so vital in my growth and building self-love and self-esteem, which enabled me to let go of shame and guilt from the past, from whatever, was key where if I couldn't embrace my shadows. And shadows, it's not that I'm a bad person, it's that we all have parts of ourselves that we don't like, that are unsavory. Why? Because we're human, and it's part of that.

And embracing that shadow and loving it unconditionally, like you said. That is so essential and vital to being able to love others. You loving ourselves is probably one of the hardest things. Someone had told me once, they're like, look, you know, if I spoke to anyone else the way I talked to myself, I'd kick their ass. You know?

Mark Cleveland (50:29)
Yeah, yeah, we are ruthless judges of ourselves. Oh my gosh, what the heck?

Michael Sprintz (50:31)
Absolutely. And unlearning that is really key. And I remembered something too that I had heard that I just, I loved. And it related to the shadow and it was forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past.

And that was huge for me. You know, where, OK, whatever the past was is the past. And owning it and embracing it, and it's a part of who we are. It's what makes us who we are today. But forgiving ourselves for things we can't change, and then choosing differently now, moving forward. Like, all right, here I am.

Mark Cleveland (51:13)
Yeah.

Michael Sprintz (51:13)
How do I not do that again? Okay. Without necessarily destroying ourselves for something that we did in the past.

Mark Cleveland (51:22)
Without the judgment, right? So as a leader in multiple companies and multiple organizations, you in the surgery center, you in the pain center as an entrepreneur, you as the software company leader now, you know, me as I'm looking out at life and I see something that just irritates me to death, you know, I'm like,

Michael Sprintz (51:25)
Yeah.

Mark Cleveland (51:46)
cannot believe I'm watching this dude do this thing or whatever. And I have calmed down over time and learned that, you know, that is a mirror. Somebody is holding up a mirror for me. Something that I see and dislike in others is usually something that I see and dislike in myself. And it might not be how I behave today.

But it sure could be how I behaved 10 years ago or 15 or 20 years ago. And I have not forgiven myself for

I just think, wow, where can I search inside myself that that mirror is pointing me to and then just go love on that old mark, but wherever I find him.

Michael Sprintz (52:20)
That's incredibly healthy. really is the other thing. You you've spotted it, you got it. And yeah, that other person, they are exactly who they are, doing what they're doing, which is of course, you know, triggering something in me. And if I can find that and love that part.

Mark Cleveland (52:25)
Yes.

Michael Sprintz (52:37)
You know, self-compassion is really huge because that enables us to have some empathy and compassion for others as well.

Mark Cleveland (52:44)
What is your what is your relationship to art and music as a parallel entrepreneur?

Michael Sprintz (52:47)
I have no artistic ability. Let me be clear about that. That said, I love art. And for me, art is something that I can't tell you exactly why this or that or like an art history person or someone who's really educated in that.

But I know what I like and I appreciate it. And I like seeing interesting creative things. I like mixed media. I like how someone can think about something and create something so amazing.

Mark Cleveland (53:20)
I think this is back to the three dimensional part of humanity where we're connecting the dots in depth and height and distance. Maybe over time, sort of when you've been in that situation where you've lost time, has that ever happened to you where time just stands still? And what is the circumstance for you when that happens?

Michael Sprintz (53:38)
There's a few moments. They've written books on it, the concept of flow when we're in that in that perfect moment where time really does stop.

The first time I told my wife I loved her.

And we were in the Dominican Republic and we were walking on the beach and there was a dog and a goat playing. You know, was like one of those things where you see it and you're like, huh? You know, and then we just kind of kept on walking and we sat and I remember, you know, I told her and I said, I love you. And she looked at me and she's like, I've known that for a while, you've been showing me that for a long time. And it was it was if the world shifted in that moment. And we both felt it like in that moment, everything had changed. And that was 10 years ago. And it's still there. But we both know we were like.

Remember that? Yep, absolutely, the dog and the goat on the beach. Absolutely. And so yeah, there are those moments. And I've had times even just with work where if I'm in that flow and I'm just creating where things just come and everything else goes away. And I love those moments.

Mark Cleveland (54:37)
Remember the dog and the goat on the beach? I still love you, baby.

Yeah, I, my wife gave me a gift for Christmas that I will never forget. And I will be forever grateful for. She gave me a, what's called a a Bhavana.

Michael Sprintz (55:07)
Okay.

Mark Cleveland (55:08)
B-H-A-V-A-N-A. Anyway, it's a Sanskrit word for, and a friend of mine who's a very accomplished parallel entrepreneur who was born in India. He was trying to explain to me what the word Bhavana means. And he said, well, it's not like a dictionary explanation. It's more like a thesaurus. And so we'll maybe put the link down in the show notes so people can find it. But this Bhavana is her interpretation

Michael Sprintz (55:29)
Hmm.

Mark Cleveland (55:40)
of me. So this is a reflection of who I am and what I'm calling into the world and how I am approaching the world and what I value and how I deliver value. It's like a five minute full on full motion video. And I have been sitting with that since Christmas. And I just thought, you know, just just really with a few of my closest friends, I want to share my Bhavana. And it is something that I'm putting in motion and calling in for 2025. We learned about it from a friend of mine, another business partner who had said casually, you know, I've just finished 24, my 24 Bhavana, I've accomplished everything that I set about to be, which is interesting. And I'm in flow and we're talking about flow in my Bhavana, it was all about pulling the paddle out

Michael Sprintz (56:19)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Cleveland (56:35)
and going ahead and letting the canoe adjust and go with the flow of the universe. And the more I let go, the more things line up and the greater the scenery. And I wonder if we can't be in flow more often, if we can't let go of whatever it is that's bothering our mind. I am not my mind. Right. I am something that observes and I'm curious, you you talked about flow and your eyes get bright and we both lean into the camera and we're going, yes, I want to be in flow.

Michael Sprintz (57:09)
You, Yeah, you know, I agree. And first of all, thank you for sharing that. That is wonderful. I've not heard of a Bhavana before, but now I'm actually, I will be looking that up. And, but your statement about could we be in flow more? I believe absolutely.

I believe that it's possible. I believe that I'm my greatest limitation to being in flow and being present in every moment. And I'm in agreement when you started talking about letting go, man, that that struck me really hard because I early on in my recovery, I remember I was just struggling with something.

You know, and my first sponsor looked at me and he just starts laughing. He's got this big belly laugh, you know, and he's like, man, you can stop struggling any time you want.

Mark Cleveland (58:05)
You could just set it down.

Michael Sprintz (58:07)
Like, and it was, He made it sound so easy and yet exactly what you're saying when we drop the oars. It really brings up the idea of my false belief that I can control all the outcomes. And I can't.

My job is to show up, do the best that I can in that moment and make the best decisions with the information I have and then let it go, just like what you're talking about and trust that however it unfolds is going to be okay.

And when something doesn't work out, you so when we talk about challenges in business, I mean, I have absolutely struggled at times in the business as I'm sure pretty much most any entrepreneur has of, the nights you're staying up figuring out how am going to make payroll and how I'm going to do this and, know, all of those pieces. And yet it has always worked out.

Mark Cleveland (59:01)
I had a friend one time say, you know, something cliche, I'm sure we've all heard this, you know, everything will work out in the end and if it hasn't, it's not the end.

Michael Sprintz (59:11)
Doug, my best friend, he has this line that I constantly reiterate. There is nothing so unimportant as the score at half.

Mark Cleveland (59:24)
Well, we're at the end of the game right now. I want to say how much of a pleasure, Michael, it has been to spend this time with you We started with some of the struggles. We moved into some of the lessons and now we're talking about flow. What a great way to end this episode. Thank you for joining me today.

Michael Sprintz (59:27)
Mark, thank you so much. It's just been fantastic. I really appreciate it.