Andrew Dick:                     Hello, and welcome to the Healthcare Real Estate Advisor podcast. I’m Andrew Dick, and I’m an attorney with Hall Render. If you’ve been following real estate news over the past year, you might have noticed that co-working space is really hot right now. Companies like WeWork are creating trendy space for tech start-ups and small businesses looking for a place to call home. A recent article suggests that WeWork is now being valued at $35 billion. Today we’ll be talking about co-working space for healthcare professionals and its impact on healthcare real estate.

Andrew Dick:                    If you’ve worked in healthcare, you know that hospitals have provided co-working space for physicians for many years. Now, the space offered by WeShareMD is not your typical hospital co-working space. WeShare is different. It’s high end space within MOBs for healthcare providers to use on an ‘as needed’ basis. Before we jump into the business, I’d like to welcome our guest George Scopetta. George is the co-founder and CEO of WeShareMD and the Managing Partner and founder of Medicus Partner Group. George, thanks for joining me.

George Scopetta:             No. Thanks for having me.

Andrew Dick:                    George, before we start talking about your business, give us a little bit of background about yourself. Where did you grow up? And what did you want to be when you grew up?

George Scopetta:             So, I grew up in Miami, Florida, and when I was a kid I wanted to be an investment banker. And so, when I went to school, my focus was what I wanted to do. I kind of went the long way, in that I went to Law School and I ended up becoming a Tax Attorney and working as a Tax Attorney with Big Four for a couple of years and then I went into banking after that.

Andrew Dick:                    So, what was attractive about investment banking, and tax? What did you like about doing that kind of work?

George Scopetta:             I come from a family of entrepreneurs and of running businesses, and I always wanted to be in the corporate world. And so, that always attracted me because that was what my grandfather did; that’s what my dad did. And so that’s always what I wanted to do. Mainly because that’s what I saw growing up. And when I got into the corporate world, I realized I was very good at it, but I always wanted to do my own thing eventually.

Andrew Dick:                    So, you work in the corporate world for a number of years- in accounting and then in the banking industry, and at some point you met a physician, who ended up becoming your partner. Talk a little bit about that George.

George Scopetta:             Absolutely. I was in banking, I was turning around troubled financial institutions for private equity and we had sold our last bank. I was retained by the creditor committee of the holding company to basically, dissolve the rest of the holding company of the bank. And, at that time I was working from home. I had the opportunity to travel because I really didn’t have to be in an office every day, but I was still getting paid. And I came out to LA on vacation and my friend that I was visiting, had an investor event down in San Diego, so I decided to go with him because it sounded like a fun trip. And so I came down to San Diego and went to a baseball game as part of the investment conference, and I ran into a doctor- Dr Jean Schau. And we started talking and he started telling me about his office buildings that he had, and his ideas on lifestyle healthcare medicine, and how to integrate lifestyle medicine into the real estate. And I just thought it was the time, right after Obamacare was passed, and healthcare was a big issue at the time and I just thought it was a great idea.

George Scopetta:             I actually stayed a couple days extra, changed my travel plans and went and did some due diligence when I was here, and the more I looked at it, the more I liked the idea and the deal. And, so I ended up investing. And we started with one building at the time, and I took over the real estate company… well it wasn’t really a real estate company at the time, but it was like a guy that owned a building. And I made it a business. And we started medical office buildings here in San Diego. And we started with one and then we refinanced and bought another. Most of the stuff was value-add real estate. We bought 50% occupied buildings or 30% occupied buildings, turned them around, filled them, created value, created equity, and then moved on and bought another one with the equity that we built. And we’ve just built the business over the last couple of years.

George Scopetta:             WeShare came from that, in that James always had the idea for WeShare, and we’ve had it for the last three years, but we wanted to stabilize the real estate portfolio and get multiple locations out there. Because, the whole thing with the co-working space, it’s a good idea but if you just have one co-working space… the idea with the medical co-working space is really that we’re bringing the doctor to the patient. Not so much the co-working space aspect of it. And so I think that the real idea that we have, is that we’re creating a model with the multiple locations and the membership model that a doctor can basically, practice in any one of the locations, in any one of the markets that we have an office in. And I think that, that’s the attractive thing about our model versus just, “Okay, we’re just a normal co-working space. We’re gonna place one office in San Diego, open it up and people are gonna come, because it’s co-working.” It’s not that.

George Scopetta:             Our model’s more sophisticated in that, what we’re trying to do is change the way that doctors practice, because nowadays, you can’t… and I see it in my MOB business. You can’t really just plant a flag and hope that your patients are gonna come to you any more. That’s the one thing… I just spoke at a conference yesterday, and that’s the one thing that resonated with me from all the other conversations on the other panels, was everybody’s trying to figure out, how to bring medicine and healthcare to the patient in a different way. In that it’s home healthcare, concierge medicine, telemedicine… it’s all trying to bring the doctor over to the patient and not the patient to the hospital. And I think that, that’s what our model does, is it really allows a doctor to go and have access to different locations, to actually go out to the different patients. So, he’s traveling to the different locations, similar to concierge medicine, except they’re not going into the home, they’re practicing in an office that’s near the patient.

Andrew Dick:                    So, George, what does the model look like? I think some of our listeners will say, “Well, hospitals have had some type of co-working space for years, but it’s usually space in the back of a hospital, it’s really dated space… your model’s different. This is high-end space from what I can tell, and it’s space that a physician would think is very attractive, as well as a patient. So talk a little bit about the space- what it looks like when you walk in, and what makes it different from other options that are out there right now?

George Scopetta:             Oh, absolutely. I think that in all our MOB’s, in the real estate business, we always sought out to basically be the nicer option. We try to make the patient experience feel very comfortable. Our waiting rooms look like living rooms. They aren’t like the typical patient room, where it’s just a line of chairs and some old magazines from eight months ago. We try to make it look like a living room feel, with coffee and really nice plush leather couches that are comfortable. All the counter tops are granite counter tops, including in the patient rooms and everything like that. We try to make it look very comfortable, and one of the things that we do, is we have TV screens and stuff like that. Because really, when you walk in, you want the doctor to be the focus of everything, not WeShareMD. No one wants to know that they’re going to the doctor in a co-sharing space.

George Scopetta:             So we strive to put… when the doctor comes in and reserves the space for four or eight hours, we put his name on the TV screen behind the front desk and we try to make it look like it’s his office when he comes in and not like they’re coming in to a co-working space.

Andrew Dick:                    Okay. Talk a little bit about how the model works, George. You have a number of locations, how does a physician sign up to be a part of the co-working venture? Do they pay a membership fee and then pay for blocks of time? How does it work?

George Scopetta:             So, essentially, what ends up happening is any physician can go to our website and there’s a member log-in. You create a member log-in to our website and that member log-in will send you to our member site. It’s free to have a member log-in. We do have a couple of different options. We have a virtual office option, which allows you to use our address- our addresses of the different areas and to advertise this as the WeShare address as your office address. And that’s important to physicians because when they’re signing up and designating a location for their Med Mail, you have to have an address in an MOB. You can’t have your address as your house. You have to have an office, and so that’s super-important for doctors, because they can list this as the office that they practice in, and that’s $150 per month for the doctors.

George Scopetta:             Once they do that and they name WeShare as where they practice, they can rent rooms by… we have clinic blocks which are four hours, because that’s what typically what a clinic is. It’s usually a four hour clinic. So we have a morning clinic, an afternoon clinic and a evening clinic. And doctors can reserve four hours at a time, and they can log onto the site and all the scheduling is done online at the site. So if they log in, they can go schedule a clinic, click on the building that they want, click on the day, click on the time and then they pick if they want two offices, or one office, and a patient room, or two patient rooms. And then they check out and they pay. And you can pay with your credit card. So the doctors will actually get points now for paying for their space on their credit cards, if they want.

Andrew Dick:                    George, how far in advance, would a physician need to sign up for space?

George Scopetta:             They can sign up and reserve space within 24 hours of their next appointment.

Andrew Dick:                    And once they show up, George, I know that one issue that we run into with what we call timeshare clinics, over the years is some of the space needs to be turned over. So, if the physician’s there in the morning, and a different physician comes in, in the afternoon, I’m assuming that you have a receptionist, or a staff member that’s going to clean up the space and make sure it’s usable for the next user?

George Scopetta:             Yes, we have a receptionist, who’s… she’s not really a receptionist, she sits at the reception desk but she’s really the office manager of the office. And she’s there to greet you and the doctor when they come in. show them where their office is, show them where their space is and make sure that they’re comfortable and she or he is the presence at the front desk, that greets the patients when they come in, shows them what they need to do, and then when the doctor’s ready for them, she or he takes them back into the patient room for the doctor and sets them up. That person is also… after the four hours, is responsible for making sure the rooms are tidy and cleaned up and wiped down, so that when the next physician comes in, everything is perfect and as it should be in the different rooms.

Andrew Dick:                    George, what type of physician is ideal for this arrangement? Is there a certain type of specialty like dermatology, or primary care, or does it really run the gamut?

George Scopetta:             I think it really runs the gamut. I mean, everyone asks me this question and says, “Is this for specific doctor types?” And it’s “No.” We offer regular offices, and we offer a typical 10 x 10 examination room. And so, really, with the type of set up we have, it kind of accommodates… there are certain specialties, like super specialty that may need some specialized equipment that they can’t get into the space. But, it pretty much runs the gamut from everybody. So, I think it accommodates… the partner’s a doctor and he’s like, “This type of set up will accommodate pretty much 80% of all doctors out there.” And that’s what we strive for, is to accommodate everyone.

Andrew Dick:                    George, what about mid-level providers? In my world, we work with nurse practitioners and physician’s assistants. Could they rent space as well?

George Scopetta:             Absolutely. I don’t say that it’s just for doctors, I say it’s for healthcare professionals. I think that there are a number of nurse practitioners and other healthcare providers out there, that this space is attractive to. And we’re open for everyone, as long as they’re licensed to practice their craft.

Andrew Dick:                    And George, talk a little bit about add-on services that are available, so if a physician or a mid-level provider wants to lease some space, do they have the option to rent storage space or rent a nurse or a technician? What are the other add-on options?

George Scopetta:             Absolutely, so we have conference rooms in the space, so if you’re practicing telemedicine, we’re set up to actually do that. We have storage space in the space, including lockers… so you can lock up your equipment so you don’t have to lug it around from your house to the office. And we are going to start providing nurse practitioners or MA’s really, for an additional charge, so that doctors if they want the help of an MA for their clinic, they can rent that out for an additional charge as well. And we’re gonna continue adding other services. I think that we have a full McKesson account and so, if doctors want specific supplies and they want to order some specific items to have available when they come, I think that we’re gonna start doing that as well.

Andrew Dick:                    Well, that sounds great. It sounds like, when you set one of these clinics up George, there’s some risk that you’re taking. How do you know that physicians will continue to come back, because it sounds like it’s an arrangement between WeShare and the physician, or the healthcare provider. It’s really on-demand whenever the provider needs it. Is that right? And how do you make sure hat they come back? Is it the quality of the space and the services?

George Scopetta:             I think it’s the quality of space and the service. And that’s what I’m counting on. I think that we offer something that’s not available in the marketplace and not available to them. And so I really think that it’s sticky in the fact that they have the access to the multiple locations. They have the access to the really nice medical space, and the other options in the market, especially in the major metropolitan areas, are really bleak. And so I really think that we offer a tremendous service. And that’s what brings people back. I think what makes us attractive, is that there is no obligation. You don’t have to sign a five year lease. You don’t have to sign a 10 year lease, which nowadays with the changing healthcare system, you never know what’s gonna happen… the doctors don’t know what’s gonna happen, five, 10 years down the line. And to be committed and locked into a liability that long, that’s really tough. And to be locked into a liability in one location- make it or break it, that’s a tough proposition.

George Scopetta:             I think that what we offer them is a unique value. Because of the multiple locations and the high end space, that ‘re gonna come back. And that’s what I’m counting on.

Andrew Dick:                    George, how many locations do you have? Where are they at and what’s the plans for future growth around the country?

George Scopetta:             Absolutely. So, we currently have offices in Mirarmar- San Diego, UTC- La Jolla, Temecula- Antonides, and then we have two under construction right now which should be open by the end of the year in Oceanside and right on Tricity hospital campus, and in La Mesa on the Campus of Grossmont hospital. So we pretty much blanket all the major medical markets here, in San Diego. I think, in the future, we’re in the process of closing our seed round right now, and we’re in talks on expanding into Orange County, LA, San Francisco, and Seattle.

Andrew Dick:                    And George, will these new locations be in buildings you own, or a mixture of buildings you own and other space that you lease from unrelated landlord?

George Scopetta:             I think that the new locations are in spaces that we would negotiate with landlords.

Andrew Dick:                    Well George, this is a very interesting concept. I think it’s one that certainly will gain traction. How can folks learn more about you and your business?

George Scopetta:             Absolutely. They can go to the website at www.WeShareMD.com or they can look me up on Google- there’s a lot on there about me and my business. Or they can go to my real estate site at www.medicuspropertygroup.com if they want to learn more about my real estate business.

Andrew Dick:                    Well George, thanks for joining us today. We wish you and your company, the best in the future. And I want to thank our audience for listening to the podcast on your apple or android device, please subscribe to the podcast and leave feedback for us. We also publish a newsletter called the Healthcare Real Estate Adviser. To be added to the list, please email me at adick@hallrender.com. Thank you and please remember that the views expressed in this podcast are those of the participants only, and do not constitute legal advice.