n this episode, Brad Hancock, CEO, and Dr. Dan Kloster, Co-Founder of InFormed Consent, share insights into how their innovative digital platform is reshaping the informed consent process. They discuss empowering patients through educational videos while providing physicians with legal peace of mind—driving better outcomes, higher procedure adoption, and stronger doctor-patient relationships.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Exciting things are happening at Becker's Healthcare. Stay
ahead of industry trends with the new Becker's
CFO plus Revenue Cycle podcast,
your go to source for insights from top
healthcare finance leaders. Tune in wherever you get
your podcasts.
And don't miss the tenth annual health IT
plus digital health plus RCM conference, happening September
(00:22):
30 to 10/03/2025
in Chicago.
Join thousands of executives, engage with industry leaders,
and explore the future of health care innovation.
Learn more about our upcoming events at beckershospitalreview.com.
See you there.
This is Gracelyn Keller with the Becker's Health
Care podcast, and I'm excited today to be
(00:42):
joined by two health care leaders. First, we
have Brad Hancock, who is the CEO at
Informed Consent.
And we also have with us doctor Dan
Closter, who is a pain specialist and one
of the cofounders.
So thank you both for taking the time
to join me today, and I would love
to have you each take a moment to
introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit
(01:02):
more about your roles even further as we
get started.
No. No. I appreciate you having me on.
So, this is Dan, doctor Kwaster, and I'm
a pain specialist in Kansas City. But I'm
one of the cofounders of Informed Consent. And
one of the biggest reasons I did this,
unfortunately,
physicians get sued
for a bad outcome, not necessarily for neglect,
(01:24):
but if you have a bad outcome, a
patient is unhappy.
And so,
I was involved in a lawsuit,
for a known complication,
over a decade ago, and it was very
frustrating because all physicians assume that the, written
consent is of value, and we found that
it has
almost no value in a court of law.
(01:44):
So that was where my,
genesis of this came on
that I wanted to protect physicians
from known complications.
So that was the genesis,
but my cofounder who's not with us today,
doctor or Jason Penrod, he's a videographer photographer.
And we started making these videos, and we
(02:04):
found and Jason was very instrumental in saying
we need to have an educational
platform.
And that was probably the best thing we
did. So I got my goal of protecting
doctors, but Jason
was really the engine that made us,
very good videos
for educating patients to understand the procedures,
in all these specialties.
(02:26):
And and thank you. This is Brad Hancock.
And the only thing I wanted to add
is is,
doctor Kloster had this idea about improving the
the process for consenting patients and giving them
another resource. But one of our early investors
was a malpractice attorney based out of Kansas
City who has defended physician for forty years,
and he said, that's great that you're doing
that for the patients. How are you protecting
(02:48):
the physicians?
So our t our CTO came up with
this idea of using the front facing camera
to record the patient
as they're watching the video. So now we
create a digital record
that the patient was fully informed.
They're watching the video the whole time. If
they look away, the video stops, and it
just gives that physician peace of mind that
(03:08):
the patient was truly informed.
Yeah. And then I'll also just, tag on
to that. So one of the things when
we started,
showing what we had for this app and
the videos and whatnot, we are not taking
away the conversation with the patient. So the
doctor patient relationship still goes on,
very robustly, but we all know that some
(03:29):
are better explaining things than others, and that's
true, you know, whatever walk of life. Right?
So physicians as well.
And,
this really
makes a complete story for to add to
what the patient's discussion is for whatever
you know, whether it's a spine surgery or
whether it's an epidural.
And we have that,
that script written and recorded.
(03:51):
So the patient really has a good resource
now to take home with them and show
their friends and family and even themselves they
can view it multiple times.
Absolutely. Well, thank you for being here and
sharing that, window into informed consent. And I'd
love to start our discussion today
kind of talking about, you know, this idea
(04:12):
of informed consent is so important. And I
feel like it's a topic that has recently
got a lot of attention and,
patients are are more aware of it now.
So what are you currently seeing in this
space,
around this buzzword of informed consent?
Yeah. So, again, you know, we know the
lawsuits and,
things that go on. And, certainly, if you're
(04:33):
in the medical community, which we're talking to
and we're all knowledgeable
for is the verdicts are just getting higher
and higher. Right? We just seem to be
that, you know, whether they're trying to, you
know, make a statement to juries or whether
they're punishing the doctor or just that, you
know, millions doesn't seem to
resonate as much, and they're like, oh, it's
only 5,000,000, you know, only 10,000,000, only 50,000,000.
(04:56):
We see these crazy verdicts out there.
And so that's just one of the concerns
that we're trending in that these crazy verdicts
for
malpractice cases, but we also know that now
some of these,
cases are being funded by venture capital. Right?
So a lot of doctors don't even know
that that if you have
(05:17):
a a suit against you, it might be
funded by a venture capital that is taking
a percentage. So they're making sure that the
plaintiff side is you know, has all kinds
of money
to make sure that this case doesn't go
away. So that's kinda one a couple of
the concerns that I have as a practicing
physician.
Just like to to tag on that. I
(05:38):
think the other trend we're seeing is patients
are becoming much more vocal
about wanting a resource, you know, some type
of a video that they can watch. There
was a interesting study done by the British,
Society of Spine Surgeons
that found that fifteen percent of patients are
secretly recording
the conversation between themselves
and their physician, and that's actually legal in
(06:00):
39 states in The US.
And eighty percent of the patients in that
study
wanted a some type of a video resource
that they could share with family members and
and friends. And so we do see patients
starting to take a little bit more of
a demanding role in in making sure that
they truly understand all the aspects associated
with a proposed surgical procedure.
(06:23):
Absolutely. That makes so much sense. And, you
know, as somebody who is in the setting
of being a patient at times, that is
definitely something that I can relate to as
an individual in my own health care experiences.
And so kind of going off of that,
what are you most focused on and excited
about in this space? And looking into, you
know, short term and long term into the
(06:44):
future,
what are you kind of seeing as we
move toward the next six months, twelve months,
eighteen months?
Well, one of the best things for us,
a happy accident, back to my partner and
cofounder,
Jason Penrod,
is when we made these educational videos, I
had set out, like I've already said, to
protect the doctors, and we I think we've
(07:04):
done that very nicely.
But when we had these videos of the
procedure and, again, whether it's a spine procedure
or it's an epidural or a knee replacement,
just some examples,
patients really were engaged. And what happened in
that setting was they were less anxious.
They were more understanding. So you just said,
you know, we've all been patients. Right? But
you're not really understanding. You're a little overwhelmed
(07:26):
in the environment maybe. You don't know what
what questions to ask because you just don't
know what's being proposed.
So by having this video at home for
these patients and they can watch it multiple
times,
they're more accepting of the procedure. So being
a pain specialist, one of the things I
do is inflatable spinal cord stimulators.
And the national average
(07:46):
is less than twenty percent of patients adopt
the therapy because it is scary. Right? It's
an implantable device. They're not really understanding. It's
unique, and a lot of patients don't know
about it. My adoption rate is seventy percent.
So these patients
are comfortable with the discussion now, and they
know the good of it, the bad of
it, and they get comfortable enough that they
actually follow through with procedures that improve their
(08:08):
life. And so that's been really positive from
my standpoint. That's one of the things I'm
most proud about,
the app that we've developed.
To tag on to that,
we're actually starting to work with some medical
device companies that have
wonderful therapies
for for patients.
And yet to Dan's, doctor Kloster's point, in
(08:28):
some cases, less than twenty percent of the
patients that are identified as a candidate actually
end up getting the therapy.
So we're working with some medical device companies
now to do pilot programs where we go
out with our consent videos
and also other
patient education information
that we send to the patient to really
get them comfortable with the procedure.
And what we know is the more times
(08:50):
they watch these videos, their understanding goes up.
And as a result of that, anxiety levels
go down, making the patient much more likely
to agree to move forward with a procedure.
We've also focused on, you know, malpractice carriers
themselves. And,
I've obviously been using this app now for
the past couple of years. It's been,
(09:12):
you know, it's now robust enough that I'm
using it in my practice.
But I showed this to my malpractice carrier,
and they discounted me,
my carrier 5%,
for just using this product because they see
the value in this. So that's one of
our strategies,
going forward to,
really educate the malpractice carriers about what a
(09:34):
robust product that it this is
so they can, pass those savings on to
the physicians that are utilizing this.
100%.
I totally understand,
how that could be a very calming situation
for a patient, especially in a medical setting
where it is scary and sometimes you you
don't know what's going on. You don't know
(09:55):
what to expect fully. So I can totally
see how that would be a really great,
additional
support resource for patients.
And then my final question for you today
as we wrap up our conversation
is what advice would you two give to
evolving leaders, people who are in the health
care space who want to find themselves in
a position similar to you one day, whether
(10:15):
that be leading at a health care system
or becoming an entrepreneur, a founder, a CEO?
Yeah. I guess I can speak to my
own experience. Right? So I, you know, let
off that I had this idea because I
had a bad experience, and I've always been
a you know, someone who's like, whatever experience,
I wanna learn from it. Right? I wanna
improve on it. So one,
(10:36):
you know, that was the genesis, but, you
know, I'm passionate about it. I really, really
like educating my patients. And so I think
you have to find something that motivates you
and that you have an expertise in. And
so, you know, obviously, I'm a practicing physician,
so I understand informed consent. And I also
think that I understand why patients,
(10:58):
were concerned about things. And then from a
personal standpoint, I wanted to protect the position.
So it's I think it's really the motivation
and just being comfortable in the space. But
if you see a deficit, whatever you're working
in, and you have an idea,
you know, I think any founder will tell
you, you know, it's just,
being just really, you know,
(11:19):
sticking with that and just being really motivated
to improve
upon your idea.
One thing that I would add to that,
I think it's really important that that as
you go through your career,
you develop that that really broad network
of people. It's been amazing to me as
as, doctor Kloster and I have been on
this journey, the number of individuals that I've
(11:40):
reached out to from my past,
you know, ten, fifteen, twenty years that have
been willing to jump in and and help
us out or make introductions or just do
anything they can to to support us,
on this, on this, project that we're on.
So I think, somebody once said that your
biggest asset that you have is your network,
and I think that couldn't be truer as
(12:01):
we've seen in this case.
Awesome. Well, Brad and doctor Kloster, thanks so
much for joining me today on the Becker's
Healthcare podcast,
sharing more about informed consent and sharing your
ideas. I appreciate your time. Thank you, Grace.
Thank you so much. For the opportunity.
Appreciate it.
Exciting things are happening at Becker's Healthcare. Stay
ahead of industry trends with the new Becker's
CFO plus Revenue Cycle podcast,
your go to source for insights from top
healthcare finance leaders. Tune in wherever you get
your podcasts.
And don't miss the tenth annual health IT
plus digital health plus RCM conference, happening September
(00:22):
30 to 10/03/2025
in Chicago.
Join thousands of executives, engage with industry leaders,
and explore the future of health care innovation.
Learn more about our upcoming events at beckershospitalreview.com.
See you there.
This is Gracelyn Keller with the Becker's Health
Care podcast, and I'm excited today to be
(00:42):
joined by two health care leaders. First, we
have Brad Hancock, who is the CEO at
Informed Consent.
And we also have with us doctor Dan
Closter, who is a pain specialist and one
of the cofounders.
So thank you both for taking the time
to join me today, and I would love
to have you each take a moment to
introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit
(01:02):
more about your roles even further as we
get started.
No. No. I appreciate you having me on.
So, this is Dan, doctor Kwaster, and I'm
a pain specialist in Kansas City. But I'm
one of the cofounders of Informed Consent. And
one of the biggest reasons I did this,
unfortunately,
physicians get sued
for a bad outcome, not necessarily for neglect,
(01:24):
but if you have a bad outcome, a
patient is unhappy.
And so,
I was involved in a lawsuit,
for a known complication,
over a decade ago, and it was very
frustrating because all physicians assume that the, written
consent is of value, and we found that
it has
almost no value in a court of law.
(01:44):
So that was where my,
genesis of this came on
that I wanted to protect physicians
from known complications.
So that was the genesis,
but my cofounder who's not with us today,
doctor or Jason Penrod, he's a videographer photographer.
And we started making these videos, and we
(02:04):
found and Jason was very instrumental in saying
we need to have an educational
platform.
And that was probably the best thing we
did. So I got my goal of protecting
doctors, but Jason
was really the engine that made us,
very good videos
for educating patients to understand the procedures,
in all these specialties.
(02:26):
And and thank you. This is Brad Hancock.
And the only thing I wanted to add
is is,
doctor Kloster had this idea about improving the
the process for consenting patients and giving them
another resource. But one of our early investors
was a malpractice attorney based out of Kansas
City who has defended physician for forty years,
and he said, that's great that you're doing
that for the patients. How are you protecting
(02:48):
the physicians?
So our t our CTO came up with
this idea of using the front facing camera
to record the patient
as they're watching the video. So now we
create a digital record
that the patient was fully informed.
They're watching the video the whole time. If
they look away, the video stops, and it
just gives that physician peace of mind that
(03:08):
the patient was truly informed.
Yeah. And then I'll also just, tag on
to that. So one of the things when
we started,
showing what we had for this app and
the videos and whatnot, we are not taking
away the conversation with the patient. So the
doctor patient relationship still goes on,
very robustly, but we all know that some
(03:29):
are better explaining things than others, and that's
true, you know, whatever walk of life. Right?
So physicians as well.
And,
this really
makes a complete story for to add to
what the patient's discussion is for whatever
you know, whether it's a spine surgery or
whether it's an epidural.
And we have that,
that script written and recorded.
(03:51):
So the patient really has a good resource
now to take home with them and show
their friends and family and even themselves they
can view it multiple times.
Absolutely. Well, thank you for being here and
sharing that, window into informed consent. And I'd
love to start our discussion today
kind of talking about, you know, this idea
(04:12):
of informed consent is so important. And I
feel like it's a topic that has recently
got a lot of attention and,
patients are are more aware of it now.
So what are you currently seeing in this
space,
around this buzzword of informed consent?
Yeah. So, again, you know, we know the
lawsuits and,
things that go on. And, certainly, if you're
(04:33):
in the medical community, which we're talking to
and we're all knowledgeable
for is the verdicts are just getting higher
and higher. Right? We just seem to be
that, you know, whether they're trying to, you
know, make a statement to juries or whether
they're punishing the doctor or just that, you
know, millions doesn't seem to
resonate as much, and they're like, oh, it's
only 5,000,000, you know, only 10,000,000, only 50,000,000.
(04:56):
We see these crazy verdicts out there.
And so that's just one of the concerns
that we're trending in that these crazy verdicts
for
malpractice cases, but we also know that now
some of these,
cases are being funded by venture capital. Right?
So a lot of doctors don't even know
that that if you have
(05:17):
a a suit against you, it might be
funded by a venture capital that is taking
a percentage. So they're making sure that the
plaintiff side is you know, has all kinds
of money
to make sure that this case doesn't go
away. So that's kinda one a couple of
the concerns that I have as a practicing
physician.
Just like to to tag on that. I
(05:38):
think the other trend we're seeing is patients
are becoming much more vocal
about wanting a resource, you know, some type
of a video that they can watch. There
was a interesting study done by the British,
Society of Spine Surgeons
that found that fifteen percent of patients are
secretly recording
the conversation between themselves
and their physician, and that's actually legal in
(06:00):
39 states in The US.
And eighty percent of the patients in that
study
wanted a some type of a video resource
that they could share with family members and
and friends. And so we do see patients
starting to take a little bit more of
a demanding role in in making sure that
they truly understand all the aspects associated
with a proposed surgical procedure.
(06:23):
Absolutely. That makes so much sense. And, you
know, as somebody who is in the setting
of being a patient at times, that is
definitely something that I can relate to as
an individual in my own health care experiences.
And so kind of going off of that,
what are you most focused on and excited
about in this space? And looking into, you
know, short term and long term into the
(06:44):
future,
what are you kind of seeing as we
move toward the next six months, twelve months,
eighteen months?
Well, one of the best things for us,
a happy accident, back to my partner and
cofounder,
Jason Penrod,
is when we made these educational videos, I
had set out, like I've already said, to
protect the doctors, and we I think we've
(07:04):
done that very nicely.
But when we had these videos of the
procedure and, again, whether it's a spine procedure
or it's an epidural or a knee replacement,
just some examples,
patients really were engaged. And what happened in
that setting was they were less anxious.
They were more understanding. So you just said,
you know, we've all been patients. Right? But
you're not really understanding. You're a little overwhelmed
(07:26):
in the environment maybe. You don't know what
what questions to ask because you just don't
know what's being proposed.
So by having this video at home for
these patients and they can watch it multiple
times,
they're more accepting of the procedure. So being
a pain specialist, one of the things I
do is inflatable spinal cord stimulators.
And the national average
(07:46):
is less than twenty percent of patients adopt
the therapy because it is scary. Right? It's
an implantable device. They're not really understanding. It's
unique, and a lot of patients don't know
about it. My adoption rate is seventy percent.
So these patients
are comfortable with the discussion now, and they
know the good of it, the bad of
it, and they get comfortable enough that they
actually follow through with procedures that improve their
(08:08):
life. And so that's been really positive from
my standpoint. That's one of the things I'm
most proud about,
the app that we've developed.
To tag on to that,
we're actually starting to work with some medical
device companies that have
wonderful therapies
for for patients.
And yet to Dan's, doctor Kloster's point, in
(08:28):
some cases, less than twenty percent of the
patients that are identified as a candidate actually
end up getting the therapy.
So we're working with some medical device companies
now to do pilot programs where we go
out with our consent videos
and also other
patient education information
that we send to the patient to really
get them comfortable with the procedure.
And what we know is the more times
(08:50):
they watch these videos, their understanding goes up.
And as a result of that, anxiety levels
go down, making the patient much more likely
to agree to move forward with a procedure.
We've also focused on, you know, malpractice carriers
themselves. And,
I've obviously been using this app now for
the past couple of years. It's been,
(09:12):
you know, it's now robust enough that I'm
using it in my practice.
But I showed this to my malpractice carrier,
and they discounted me,
my carrier 5%,
for just using this product because they see
the value in this. So that's one of
our strategies,
going forward to,
really educate the malpractice carriers about what a
(09:34):
robust product that it this is
so they can, pass those savings on to
the physicians that are utilizing this.
100%.
I totally understand,
how that could be a very calming situation
for a patient, especially in a medical setting
where it is scary and sometimes you you
don't know what's going on. You don't know
(09:55):
what to expect fully. So I can totally
see how that would be a really great,
additional
support resource for patients.
And then my final question for you today
as we wrap up our conversation
is what advice would you two give to
evolving leaders, people who are in the health
care space who want to find themselves in
a position similar to you one day, whether
(10:15):
that be leading at a health care system
or becoming an entrepreneur, a founder, a CEO?
Yeah. I guess I can speak to my
own experience. Right? So I, you know, let
off that I had this idea because I
had a bad experience, and I've always been
a you know, someone who's like, whatever experience,
I wanna learn from it. Right? I wanna
improve on it. So one,
(10:36):
you know, that was the genesis, but, you
know, I'm passionate about it. I really, really
like educating my patients. And so I think
you have to find something that motivates you
and that you have an expertise in. And
so, you know, obviously, I'm a practicing physician,
so I understand informed consent. And I also
think that I understand why patients,
(10:58):
were concerned about things. And then from a
personal standpoint, I wanted to protect the position.
So it's I think it's really the motivation
and just being comfortable in the space. But
if you see a deficit, whatever you're working
in, and you have an idea,
you know, I think any founder will tell
you, you know, it's just,
being just really, you know,
(11:19):
sticking with that and just being really motivated
to improve
upon your idea.
One thing that I would add to that,
I think it's really important that that as
you go through your career,
you develop that that really broad network
of people. It's been amazing to me as
as, doctor Kloster and I have been on
this journey, the number of individuals that I've
(11:40):
reached out to from my past,
you know, ten, fifteen, twenty years that have
been willing to jump in and and help
us out or make introductions or just do
anything they can to to support us,
on this, on this, project that we're on.
So I think, somebody once said that your
biggest asset that you have is your network,
and I think that couldn't be truer as
(12:01):
we've seen in this case.
Awesome. Well, Brad and doctor Kloster, thanks so
much for joining me today on the Becker's
Healthcare podcast,
sharing more about informed consent and sharing your
ideas. I appreciate your time. Thank you, Grace.
Thank you so much. For the opportunity.
Appreciate it.
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