Navigating Caregiving, Work, and Mental Health—Expert Insights with Dr. Madhavi Vemireddy

In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Madhavi Vemireddy, a powerhouse advocate for working caregivers and the Chief Executive Officer at Cleo. Dr. Vemireddy shares her personal caregiving journey—from navigating her son’s congenital heart disease and autism diagnosis to supporting aging parents—all while balancing a demanding career. We dive into the hidden struggles of working caregivers, the critical gaps in employer support, and how technology is stepping in to bridge the divide.

Are you a working caregiver feeling overwhelmed? Do you lead a team and want to create a more caregiver-friendly workplace? Tune in to hear Dr. Vemireddy’s expert insights on population health, caregiving burnout, and how employers can better support their invisible workforce. 

Episode Highlights:

[1:36] – Welcome to the show! Zack and Selma introduce this week’s guest.
[2:17] – Dr. Vemireddy’s personal journey as a caregiver to her son and parents.
[9:33] – The emotional and physical toll of caregiving while working full-time.
[11:54] – How Cleo is using technology and coaching to support caregivers.
[17:30] – Why caregiving is hidden in the workplace and what employers can do about it.
[25:09] – The mental health impact of caregiving and why it’s costing companies more than they realize.
[31:37] – Why Dr. Vemireddy left traditional medicine to focus on caregiver advocacy.
[36:51] – How employers can connect with Cleo to build a more caregiver-supportive workplace.

👩‍⚕️ About Dr. Madhavi Vemireddy

Madhavi Vemireddy, MD is the CEO of Cleo, having previously served as Chief Clinical Officer. A board-certified internal medicine physician, she has over 20 years of experience in clinical analytics, population health, and digital health solutions.

As a working caregiver herself, Dr. Vemireddy co-founded CareTribe, a company dedicated to supporting family caregivers, which was acquired by Cleo in 2022. She has held leadership roles at ActiveHealth Management and Aetna Care Management (CVS Health), designing evidence-based programs that serve over 22 million Americans.

📌 Links & Resources

💡 Connect with Dr. Madhavi Vemireddy:

🚀 Who will be the first employer to take action? Dr. Vemireddy is ready to help—schedule a free call today!
🔗 LinkedIn
🔗 Cleo – Supporting Working Caregivers

📖 Related Articles & Stories:
🔗 January 14th Edition of Working Caregivers-The Invisible Employees Newsletter
🔗 Mike George’s Story – Real Working Caregiver
🔗 Learn More About the Caregiver Nation Summit (Dec 3rd, 2024 Newsletter)

🎙️ More from the Podcast:
🔗 Episode 9: Jason Resendez on Caregiver Advocacy & Workplace Culture

🏛 Caregiver Advocacy & Resources:
🔗 National Alliance for Caregiving
🔗 National Alliance for Caregiving’s Caregiver Nation Summit
🔗 West Status – Supporting Women with Cancer
🔗 Connect with West Status Founder Haley Wyrsch
🔗 Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers

If you enjoyed this episode,

Transcript

Dr. Madhavi Vemireddy: 0:00

Where to even go to find that help. Because quite honestly, I think it takes a master level social worker to navigate all the county databases to say what's available to you, and that's part of the reason why we have master level social workers working on our team. But you just wait to the very end, when you get to that stage of burnout where you're like, I just you break down. And when you break down, you're like, I have no options. My only option is to take that leave of absence, or my only option is to quit work. If I can afford to do that financially, I'm going to quit work so I can focus full time on taking care of my loved ones, right? Which obviously, then you have the repercussions of financially being set back when in your own retirement savings and in what you're going to need to support your own caregiving journey. Did

Unknown: 0:54

you know that in 2020 there were 53 million caregivers in the United States, and by 2025, this number is expected to grow to 62, point 5,000,073% of these caregivers also have a job. They are called Working caregivers, and they are invisible because they don't talk about their caregiving challenges. Working caregivers, the invisible employees, is a podcast that will show you how to support working caregivers. Join Selma Archer and Zach demopoulos on the working caregivers the invisible employees podcast, as they show you how to support working caregivers. Good

Zack Demopoulos: 1:36

morning, good afternoon, good evening. From wherever you are listening to our podcast, the working caregivers, the invisible employees. We thank you for tuning in. We've got a great show today, Selma, how are you? I'm Zach dimapos, by the way, and

Selma Archer: 1:52

I'm Selma Archer, and I am doing fantastic here in California.

Zack Demopoulos: 1:56

Yeah. Is it warmed up, at least for you, just a little bit

Selma Archer: 2:00

it has, it has warmed up. You know, it came out of the 30s a couple days ago. So awesome, nice and toasty now.

Zack Demopoulos: 2:10

Awesome, awesome. Well, we've got a super guest today. So Selma, why don't you introduce our guest? And let's get into it.

Selma Archer: 2:18

Absolutely we have with us. Dr mafi vime Ready, whom we met at care, caregiver nation a few months ago. So we are so excited to have her as our guest today. Welcome. Dr Vima ready. Thank

Dr. Madhavi Vemireddy: 2:37

you. Thank you for having

Zack Demopoulos: 2:38

me. Welcome. Welcome. And can we say that you're our first physician on our podcast. So yeah,

Dr. Madhavi Vemireddy: 2:44

that's amazing. Yay. Thanks for being

Zack Demopoulos: 2:47

here. Thank you so much for being here. So

Selma Archer: 2:50

we'll get started. Well, basically, we'd like to just give you a warm up question, and that is, tell us a little bit about the area that you're from.

Dr. Madhavi Vemireddy: 2:59

Yes, well, I am in the Bay Area. I live in the Bay Area now, so halfway between San Francisco and San Jose, it's actually where my side of the family lives. I have two younger sisters and my parents all within a 40 minute drive of where I am. I moved here only five years ago, and prior to that, I was in New York City. So I lived in New York City for over 20 years. My husband is born and raised New Yorker, and so I essentially wanted to move back to California to be closer to family, especially with my two boys and and now I get to see you know my parents more often than than what I did when I was living in New York City. So one of the best part of living here for me

Selma Archer: 3:49

that's wonderful. I can share that because I am married to a born and raised New Yorker as well.

Dr. Madhavi Vemireddy: 3:57

How that is Thelma, yeah,

Selma Archer: 4:00

it can get a little challenging, right? Easy, easy,

Zack Demopoulos: 4:03

easy. I live in New Jersey, folks. That's close enough. It's getting a little close here. Let's move on. Yes,

Selma Archer: 4:09

that's a whole different podcast. Yeah, yeah. So let's, let's get started. As Zach says maybe you could share with us just a little bit about your personal care experience. You know who you care for and what maybe are some of the challenges that you encounter as a working caregiver. Yes,

Dr. Madhavi Vemireddy: 4:29

so I have two boys. I have a 14 year old and a 10 year old, and my eldest was born prematurely and was diagnosed at with congenital heart disease at birth, and so I usually say, I've been an active caregiver for him since, you know, the day he was born and the first year of his life, first nine months, we were struggling. We had no he wasn't gaining weight. He missed a. All his developmental milestones essentially had failure to thrive, and no one could figure out why. And it was really Jeff and I, my husband, Jeff and I, trying to find the right experts, get get a diagnosis and realize that he needed open heart surgery at nine months, thankfully. And he was, you know, only weighed nine pounds at nine months. So he was a tiny little boy, and thankfully, the surgery fixed the heart problem and allowed him to start gaining weight and start meeting his developmental milestones. He was sitting up at 15 months, he was walking at two years, and so we thought we were on the path of catching him up, but he wasn't talking. And so at age five, we did a neuropsychiatric evaluation, and that's when we were told that he was on the autism spectrum and that he needed to be in an ABA based school setting, both Jeff and I were like, What are we talking about here? We just went through this whole, you know, traumatic journey with him, and now you're telling us there's something else happening. And this is not really, you know, because we just felt like it was related to what he had been through. And so at age 14, he is minimally speaking. He has, still has significant motor delays. We still are working on his communication and, you know, sensory regulation, and it's, it's challenging. It's challenging to have a 14 year old child who can't express his needs, and he feels that frustration, and he's going through puberty now, and so there's a lot of changes that are happening within them. And you know, it's been hard for us, because we are, you know, really trying to put together the best plan for him, right, the best set of therapies. And you know, our goal is to get him to independence, and and, and we're trying to figure out, how do we get him there? And so right now, my current fight I, you know, us fellow caregivers. We're all warriors, so constantly advocating for our loved ones. So my current fight is, you know, next year he or later this year, he goes to high school, and they're not going to put the special needs program is not planning to put him in a diploma track, because he's minimally speaking, and they feel that he really should be in an independent living track, and so we're fighting that because I know that he is intelligent. I know that he comprehends everything. It is a issue with expression, and it's an issue with motor planning. And you know, my perspective is, it is, you know, the system's job, the educational system's job to help him get a diploma, to help him go to college, and that is our goal for him. So, you know, it's hard navigating all of that while you're working full time, right? It's not a simple, you know, set of tasks, and you don't even know what to expect, you know, you know in the next few months, right? And what new things could appear. And so that's where, like, when the journey is constantly evolving and things are progressing might be in a good way or a bad way, you just feel like you're on this roller coaster while you're working full time, right, and taking care of your other child and yourself, and so that's where the day to day challenges come in, right? Because I've got this very fine balance, and any one thing happens, yes, I can get tipped over. You know, last summer, my dad ended up in the emergency room because he got really dizzy, couldn't walk. They thought he was having a stroke. And I had a, you know, leave everything, drive, you know, 45 minutes to go see him. And was going back and forth for over a couple weeks. And I just felt that like that impact on my physical health, on my emotional health and so, you know, luckily, we got him home, and he's independent now, but I know it's like a matter of time, right? You know where, where he's going to need more support.

Selma Archer: 9:34

Well, thank you so much for sharing that, and you're not alone. We have heard parents talk about similar experiences with with children that are special needs and and navigating the school systems, particularly So just continue your continue your journey, and continue your fight.

Zack Demopoulos: 9:54

Doctor vime, ready. I'm just sitting here just in awe, as well as just emotionally. Just, just, just, I don't know, I don't know how to describe it. Just when you, when you were talking about a nine month old having open heart surgery is is enough for anyone to handle. And then on top of that, what you're dealing with now that he's 14 is incredible. I don't even think you're a sandwich generation. You're actually a double club sandwich, I guess, with all the needs that you're going through, and so I feel

Dr. Madhavi Vemireddy: 10:24

like a panini. At times, a panini. Oh, my

Zack Demopoulos: 10:27

goodness, oh, my god,

Selma Archer: 10:29

smash Yeah, yeah. So so

Zack Demopoulos: 10:31

thank you also. Someone said, Thank you for sharing that story, for being vulnerable, and sharing that with us. We really appreciate it. We do talk about, when we say caregiving, we talk about children with special needs, we talk about older adults. We talk about spouses and siblings. In fact, I just want to mention to our listeners and viewers that our newsletter on January 14 had Mike George as the real working caregiver, and he tells a story about Ben Dr bemoretti, if you haven't read his story, you should. His son doesn't speak a word. He went through college using technology, which is absolutely incredible. So we will have prayers and hope that you'll get what you can through the school system. I got a feeling you're going to get it, so hopefully it'll come through. But I would like to just change gears for a second. You know some and I did meet you at the at the great national alliance for caregiving Summit, which, again, readers and listeners, you can learn more about that in our newsletter on December, in December 3, we had a large section of our newsletter talking about that, and we we got a chance to meet you there. It was an amazing conference. It was someone eyes first time. Can you tell us a little bit about why you chose to be there? And then also, what were your takeaways from it?

Dr. Madhavi Vemireddy: 11:54

Yeah, no. Great question. So Cleo is part of the National Alliance of caregiving members, part of their membership. So right now, I participate in their cancer care collaborative workshops, really looking at, how do we support family caregivers of a cancer patient in our health care system today? Because that's a gap, right? We really are focused on supporting the patient with the best treatment plan, but we don't think about the caregiver and what their needs are. You know, during that journey, and having you know, both my husband and my sister diagnosed with cancer in the last I'd say 10 years like this is near and dear to my heart as well, where I've had to be a caregiver, supporting them during their journey. So part of the national caregiver summit, the first day was a workshop meeting for the Cancer Care Collaborative that I participated in, but then I was also asked to speak at the summit, really talking about technology and how technology can be used to support family caregivers, really across commercial and Medicare payers and so really highlighting the work that we're doing at Clio to provide that coaching support, that care navigation support across various complex care journeys. Because obviously you shouldn't be going through the caregiving journey alone, right? And there's so much need to have access to the right experts, but also to the right digital support, because there's information we could be providing to you in real time based on the needs that you have, right? And so how do we really build out technology to support these needs across these different care journeys. And I just, I love the mission of NAC. I actually had Jason Resendez present to our customer advisory board talking about their mission, talking about the caregiving landscape and what employers can do to, really, you know, drive more awareness. I mean, if you think about, you know, clio's customers, especially our customers that have been with us for a number of years now. You know, they're huge thought leaders, right? They recognized early on that there are employees were in various caregiving roles. Especially they have a multi generational workforce. They have folks going through the pregnancy journey, parenting, caregiving for an elder, loved one, and many of them are going through multiple care journeys at once, and realized that, you know, they need to support these needs so that a individuals can stay in the workforce, especially women, that they are not facing the burnout and emotional well being strain from caregiving while working and all you know, and obviously there's the productivity impact right and improving productivity by making sure that they have the right support in place. Jason. And I would say message was, talk about it more right, raise the awareness on the importance of having a caregiving solution to support families across these various journeys, because it's only going to grow over time. We know that. We know our sandwich generation is going to grow with the aging population. I just love getting in a room with so many individuals across various industries that are all you know, share the same mission of just creating a better society and better healthcare ecosystem that is aimed at better supporting family caregivers. It was amazing event. That was my first time too. I know it's not going to be my last time, but I really loved it. And it was, you know, and I got to hang out with Selma on Capitol Hill, yes, waiting for the Older Americans Act,

Selma Archer: 15:55

which was, that was fantastic. Yeah, that

Dr. Madhavi Vemireddy: 15:57

was a great experience. Loved it.

Zack Demopoulos: 15:59

Yeah, I've just again. Listeners, viewers, please be sure to check out the newsletter where we talk about it, and also podcast episode number nine, we did have Jason rezandez as a guest so you can learn more about the leadership. Thank you, Dr vimeting, thank you. On behalf of all families impacted by cancer, I actually had just a shout out to Haley. I'm gonna chop up her last name, but Haley, who is the founder of a company that she created called West status. And because of the conversations that she was having with women with cancer, who are also mothers, who are also working, are also trying to deal with all kinds of things in their lives, in addition to the cancer, she decided to form a company to help them with like, like a concierge, to help them with insurances and things like that. So your work is is certainly appreciated tremendously. But thank you. Thanks for sharing that.

Selma Archer: 16:53

Yeah, absolutely yes. I know when we had that day on the hill, you and I had a great conversation around the work that you do at Clio, and it's just so fascinating the work that you do, because you actually work on both sides of the coin. You support working caregivers as well as employers. So for the audience, for audiences purposes, could you just express a little bit about what it is that Clio does in those areas and in terms of supporting both the working caregivers as well as their employers. Yeah,

Dr. Madhavi Vemireddy: 17:31

absolutely. So Clio, you know, I think what's unique to Clio is we take a population health approach to supporting families really, across all life stages. So pregnancy, parenting, caregiving for an adult or older, adult loved one. What does that mean? So that means we're really thinking about, no matter where you are in your care journey you could be early on. We all have parents, but are we all? Are we having the conversations with their parents right now around what matters to them? Do that will do they have their essential legal documents in place. Where are they you know? Or what are those early warning signs that your parents may need help, right? Are there mobility concerns? Are there concerns about dementia? Are they taking their medications? What are their medications. There's so many things that we need to be better prepared about, because unfortunately, most of the times we end up caregiving for a parent in an emergency situation they're in in the ER, and then all of a sudden, all these questions start getting thrown at you, and you're not ready for it. You're not prepared, right? So there's part of it is early in the journey. We want everyone to understand about long term care around healthy aging, but we also want to support those that are caregiving for a loved one, and that could be for very specific needs, whether that's your parent has dementia, Parkinson's, heart failure, cancer diagnosis, or you have a child on the with neuro divergence or a cancer diagnosis. So, you know, we built out these evidence based pathways that are called life paths. So we have over 40 life paths that we have developed so that we can provide that very targeted education and resources around okay, what are the things that you need to know about for your loved one, specific care journey that they're on, so that you are empowered right to advocate for them, so that you can help drive better health outcomes for them. The buyer is employers, so that they're offering the service to their working caregivers, their employee caregivers. But we also sell it into health plans, both on the commercial front as well as on the Medicare front. We're actually about to launch our first Medicare Advantage customer where we are providing the service directly to the Medicare. Care member, but we're identifying who are the caregivers taking care of them, right? And so that we can not only support the MA member directly, but we're also supporting their family in that journey. So really taking that family centered care approach, because quite honestly, we believe services should be free for family caregivers, right? There is so much health impact here, physical health, emotional health, social isolation, that there is cost savings back to the at risk entity, whether that is the employer or whether that is the employer, like just how today, you know health plans have population health programs, because the goal is, let's identify those high risk individuals, let's deliver the right interventions. Let's drive improvement and key outcomes that will then drive cost savings. Well, that same model has to be applied to family caregivers, because we have this huge population. I mean, you all know about the RAND study, and they estimate that we're at 100 million caregivers of adults who are taking care of someone that's ill or wounded or injured, and that's 40% of this country today. And we think about how the population is aging, and in the next five years, we're going to go up to, you know, 77 million adults, 65 plus. So, you know, we know caregivers, the number of caregivers are going to grow proportionately to that, and the number of sandwich generation caregivers are going to grow in the next five years alone. And so here you have this significant segment of our population that's not being supported by the care delivery system that are not being supported by the health plant programs. Is a huge gap. I mean, I'm beginning to hear like specific programs that are being built, maybe in specific areas like cancer, where they're doing some emotional well being support for the cancer caregivers. But it's not at scale. It's not where it needs to be. And this is what we're trying to change with respect to our ecosystem. And you know, obviously where we see significant value, for example, I think one of the biggest challenges we have today is that caregiving is hidden, right? Many people don't share it with their managers, because that's like raising your hand and saying, Hey, I'm distracted. I have a lot going on, right? I may need to miss days of work or leaving early, or while I'm at work, I have to research various resources for my loved one. And so it's hidden from that perspective, there's a lack of awareness that you're what you're doing is even caregiving. So that's also a big area of education and awareness that we help drive. And then you don't see it on the claim line. The health plans don't see it as a top cost driver. Your employer doesn't see it as a top cost driver. So what they see it as, oh, this is the place to have this is this is a value to our employees. But what they don't see is like, Oh, this is actually costing us a lot of money, because if it showed up on a claim line, like cancer, musculoskeletal, mental health, guess what? You'd have more employers putting in programs to say, oh, we need a solution to help mitigate that cost. And today, because it's all hidden, the productivity cost is hidden, the health care cost is hidden. You don't even know how many people in your workforce are actually in these caregiving it's all hidden. This is the problem we have, and so we're trying to raise that awareness to say, well, let's use that actually. Stepping back, this is the primary reason why Clio launched the Family Health Index, who said we need to bring more analytics so that we can identify the various risks that families have, so that we can go back to the employer and share in aggregate, oh, you have over a third of your families at higher risk for burnout. Last year alone, we found 60% of our families that took the Family Health Index fail a PHQ four. That means they have really symptoms of depression anxiety, and if you don't address the root cause of that mental health strain, they're going to go on to develop a diagnosis right in addition to leaving the workforce, what I love is a study that Blue Cross Blue Shield Association did in 2020 where they looked at their database, they found 7 million caregivers, close to 7 million caregivers, and they identified caregivers as someone that's taking care of a dependent, found that they had 26% worse health outcomes, much higher rate of hyper. Mentioned much higher rate of depression tobacco use compared to benchmarks, this huge health risk here that no one is seeing.

Zack Demopoulos: 25:09

There's so much to unpack there that we would need about five podcasts. Can we just clone you 50 times and send you to every state and talk to all the municipalities about this? That's incredible. Kudos to you for what you're doing with the Medicare Advantage program and also identifying caregivers through the care recipient. That's brilliant. I love that. I think that's what we need to do more. You're using the word hidden Selma, and I like the word invisible. It means the same thing, but I love it. I love it. But Dr van Moretti, and I think I saw this in one of your LinkedIn posts, and I really recommend everyone listening and viewing to to follow Dr Bima Reddy, she has some really amazing posts, not those typical billboard motivational pitches that she really gives you some good content, not that there's anything wrong with those, but one of your posts, I remember reading, and you made such a valid point that employers sometimes don't know a thing about the caregiver status of their employee until maybe they ask for a leave of absence or start asking questions about paid time off. And you kind of already hinted towards a little bit of that. But can you share a little more as to why you think that is, and what can an invisible or hidden employee do more so that their employer can, could, could be on, on the on the lookout for their needs. Yes,

Dr. Madhavi Vemireddy: 26:25

you know, I think the biggest challenge we the other challenge. We have a lot of challenges here that we just talked about, but I think we've got a lot of opportunities also to solve for these challenges. But one of the challenges we have, and I've seen it quite honestly, even in my own personal journey, is that when you're caregiving for a loved one, especially when it's a multi year journey, and you are working full time, guess what happens? You put yourself last on your to do list, right? And because you're not you, you're powering through. You're doing what you need to do for work. You're thinking about your children, your spouse, your other family members that you take care of, and what, what you know that day, that week, what needs to get coordinated, done. And the only reason, like for me, the way I make sure that I prioritize myself care is by signing up for a race. I sign up for half marathons every every three months, because then I'm like, oh, all of a sudden that starts bubbling up higher on my to do list. Oh, I gotta train for that race and and so I exercise, and that allows me to find time to exercise, which significantly helps with my emotional well being, because I see what happens when I don't I, I, you know, you start getting, you know, sad, and you're like, oh my god, completely overwhelmed, and you feel that sense of burnout, of like, I can't do it all right. And so this is the challenge where caregivers are not they don't know that help exists and they don't, and in some places like where to even go to find that help, because quite honestly, I think it takes a master level social worker to navigate all the county databases to say what's available to you, and that's part of the reason why we have master level social workers working on our on our team. But you just wait to the very end, when you get to that stage of burnout where you're like, I just you break down. And when you break down, you're like, I have no options. My only option is to take that leave of absence, or my only option is to quit work. If I can afford to do that financially, I'm going to quit work so I can focus full time on taking care of my loved ones, right, which obviously, then you have the repercussions of financially being set back, when in your own retirement savings and in your own you know what you're going to need to support your own caregiving journey. But so that's the problem. I think it's primarily especially if your leadership is not talking about it, then it's like taboo. I mean, just think about like the journey we've gone through over the years, like mental health, like you didn't talk about mental health and workplace. Now we do. We weren't talking about menopause in the workplace. Now, in some places, we are right. And same thing, we're not talking about caregiving in the workplace and how this is a universal journey. I mean, I love Rosalind Carter's quote, and I know, you know it well, right? It's like everyone's going to go through this. If you haven't gone through it, it's it's coming, be prepared, it's coming. So I feel like that's the biggest challenge. People are not comfortable talking about it, because it has to. It has to start from the top. You have to have your leaders being vulnerable. Talk. Talking about the challenges of caregiving while working, talking about the programs that they have put in place, the benefits they have put in place so that they're not going through these journeys alone, right? Because then it's like, oh, now I can talk about it. Now I can share that with my manager. Now my manager knows, oh, there is actually programs that we have, benefits, that we have that can support you. So the manager is now armed with the toolkit of like, here's what you know, here's what, how we can help right, flexible work arrangements, paid leave of absence, other support systems. And so I think that's the that's why we're seeing that significant increase in mental health leave of absence that's happening over the last, you know, couple of years. It's because of this burnout, significant burnout, yeah,

Zack Demopoulos: 30:52

and to be fair, and I've been on both sides of the coin. I've been a manager and I've been in HR, we do need to prepare our managers. We can't just put them out there and say, Hey, have these conversations, we do need to prepare them so absolutely.

Selma Archer: 31:03

So I know when we met, we had all day to chat, you know, about caregiving and about legal. You know, from my perspective and how they came together. And one of the one of the questions that that sticks in my mind, that I asked you that day was so, why did you leave the traditional practice of medicine and go into this caregiving space? And how do you what? Why do you continue with that? And what gives you joy about this work? And I love your response. So can you just share? So

Dr. Madhavi Vemireddy: 31:37

I completed my residency, and I got after I completed my residency, I was recruited into at that time digital health. It was before digital health was really a coin term, right? But I was brought in to essentially build out evidence based analytics to help drive better care for patients, right and help patients advocate for themselves. The company was founded by a cardiologist, Lonnie Reisman, so it always had that strong clinical foundation of just understanding, like the healthcare system today, right? And this probably still true in many respects. But like you know, physicians only had access to the data within their four walls you learn the most of, you know, medicine during your training, and then once you leave training, it's up to you to stay up to date with the latest evidence based care. And so we were seeing a significant amount of you know, gaps in care that were happening because of that. And so basically, I stayed with that company for 18 years because I loved the mission. We were helping to drive better care for patients and really arming physicians with information about their patients that they didn't have access to. It is because of my caregiving journey that I took my population health lens that I, you know, essentially, have been working on for those 18 years, and said, Wait a second, we're not touching the caregiver. I'm the caregiver here. Nobody's reaching out to me to ask how I am doing? Nobody did, right? It took my first session with my Cleo guide, quite honestly, when I joined the company, when I told her my my story, she said, Oh my gosh, you went through a very traumatic experience. How are you doing? Nope, right? My Wow. My OB didn't ask me that when I had my second child. My, you know, PCP didn't ask me that question. I didn't have a health plan reaching out to me to say, how are you? No. And so I was lucky, though, in my journey and that I had managers that were empathetic. They knew what we had gone through. They knew, you know, I was with this company for 18 years, so do whatever you need. We're here for you. And that gave me the confidence to stay in the workforce, because at one point I almost said I actually had a new CEO come in. I had reported into the CEO. It was like day two, and this was literally one week before my eldest zombie was going to have his open heart surgery, and he comes in as the new CEO. And you know, my job is to tell him everything that's going on about the company and give him deep dives and all of our capabilities and our outcomes, and my first conversation with him was that I don't know if I'm going to come back. I you know, this is what happened with my son. I don't know what's going to happen after the open heart surgery. If it goes well, then yes. I'll, you know, my plan would be to come back, but if it doesn't go well, then I will not come back. And it was a hard conversation. It was my first conversation with my new boss, but I just had to lay it out there to say, I don't know what's happening right now, right? And my family is my number one priority. And you know what? He got teary eyed, and he said, You do whatever you need to do. You take whatever time you need to take. So I been blessed to have bosses where I could have this conversation with and who have been empathetic and compassionate and have allowed me to have my caregiving moments right and and figure out how I balance that with work. And so it's a long winded answer to your question, Salma, but it is my experience being a caregiver combined with the professional experience of building analytics and population health programs and then seeing that gap from my own personal experience with the healthcare system, and saying we've got to go fix that. And we have the tools, we have the framework, they just haven't been applied to this population, and that's what we are set out to do. And that's my mission. That's my mission for the rest of my career, is to fix this problem

Selma Archer: 36:22

so so we should mention here that not only did you come back, but you are now the CEO of Clio. That's So bravo. That's a that's an excellent journey that you've had. Bravo. Thank

Zack Demopoulos: 36:35

you so much for sharing that. That's awesome. I

Dr. Madhavi Vemireddy: 36:38

feel like we could do this all day, all day. Oh, coffee, absolutely.

Selma Archer: 36:44

I still have more questions, but, but we'll save them for another time.

Dr. Madhavi Vemireddy: 36:48

We can plan a part two. I am definitely that would

Selma Archer: 36:51

be absolutely, that would be great. Meanwhile, how can employers find you, if they're in search of, you know, support from an organization like Clio,

Dr. Madhavi Vemireddy: 37:01

you can go to Clio. We're at Hi clio.com There's ways to connect with our team. Obviously, you can connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm happy to have conversations with anyone that's interested in wanting to, you know, drive meaningful improvement and impact to their caregivers, whether it's on the payer side or on the employer side. I think we need to come at it at all angles to fix this problem

Selma Archer: 37:31

absolutely 100% Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us today. We have had such a great time listening to your wonderful insights and your experience and and being a caregiver, as you've said throughout the conversation, makes a total difference the journey that you've had as a caregiver, because you're on the inside working from the inside out, so that makes a total difference. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for accepting our invitation, of course.

Dr. Madhavi Vemireddy: 38:00

Thank you for having me. Thank

Zack Demopoulos: 38:01

you. Dr Vim, ready. Thank you so much. And you know what? Some I'm gonna do another challenge. You know how I like to do that? So some of our listeners out there, we have employers, HR, managers, leaders. Here's my challenge, or our challenge to you who will be the first person to have a no obligation conversation with Dr Vim, ready? I mean, like Selma just say you're not going to find someone who can handle all the four negative impacts of caregiving, physical physician you got emotional, mental and financial challenge to who will be the first person to reach out. Just have a conversation with Dr vim ready on how maybe you as an employer can do a little bit more to support working caregivers. Thank you so much that they've been ready. It's been awesome. Thank you.

Unknown: 38:46

Thank you for tuning in. Be sure to catch new episodes of working caregivers, the invisible employees podcast every other Tuesday. Please also visit our website, invisible employee advocates.com to subscribe to our newsletter, purchase our book and learn more about how we can help you strengthen your workplace to become more supportive of working caregivers you.