As Senior Director of HyperIce’s PT & Chiropractic division, Eric Fernandez is passionate about helping clinics create successful programs for their patients. With 14 years of experience, he has driven the development of clinical research supporting the science behind recovery modalities as well as created innovative new ways these tools can be utilized to increase cash-based revenue, improve the patient experience, and increase new patient referrals among other benefits. He helps companies launch new products, take an existing product into a new market, or turn around an underperforming territory.
In this episode of TechTalk Podcast, Brad Cost, Dr. Jay Greenstein, and Eric Fernandez sit down to discuss:
The process of founding HyperIce and how it has grown over the years.
How to build a cash-based recovery program in your practice.
The incredible collaboration between Nike and HyperIce.
1:39 – HyperIce’s purpose. “I’m lucky enough to lead our rehab division at HyperIce, where I’m focused on supporting clinicians and helping people understand how to use our tools to get better outcomes for their patients. To help people move better. To reduce pain, inflammation, edema, etc. These are all FDA cleared medical devices that have some phenomenal research that Dr. Jay has helped with in the past. The tools are used best when they're in the hands of an educated clinician. In terms of HyperIce as an organization, we have been around since 2010 because of Anthony Katz. Most people know us for our percussion massage gun, but our very first product was a fancy ice compression wrap for your body designed for professional athletes. Anthony was a high school basketball coach and started thinking that there has to be a better way for athletes to ice their bodies. He's watching the NBA sidelines and seeing ice drip everywhere – it was a mess. Out of those origins, we blossomed into a hyper tech wellness company with percussion, compression and thermal products used by the world's best athletes. You'll see us on the sideline of every major sporting event but used extensively across healthcare as a whole. If you knew Normatech, it used to be a whole separate entity, but we merged in 2020. Together, we've been running with scissors, as I always say. A lot of great technology and a lot of fun. I’m excited to unpack where we are today across the health and wellness spheres.”
8:29 – First product of HyperIce to now! “The first was our ice compression wrap. Envision a really well-designed neoprene wrap for specific joints - your knee, your back, your elbow, etc. The innovation behind it, at the time, was a really well-designed air release valve that you could suck the air out of the ice package. It stayed colder longer, there wasn't leakage, and it conformed better to the body. No chips or electronics. It was really designed for athletes - Kobe Bryant was one of our first professional athletes to give us feedback. That was our humble beginning that sparked HyperIce to make that product. We've grown since then. Over the years, HyperIce has gone from an ice compression wrap to a vibrating foam roller to percussion guns.”
14:27 – Starting with step one. “The first misconception is that our products are just for athletes. All of our tools are FDA cleared medical devices with a variety of indications. They have been designed and continually evolved to work better in your hands and give you more utility. HyperIce was the first to design and patent a swappable head attachment to give clinicians and individuals all these different ways to treat different parts of the body. No matter who your patients are, these are for you. Regardless of how you're practicing, if the goal is outcome-based, we've got a ton of great literature and research. We've always got great pricing available and, if you reach out to us, we've got pricing well below our website with Black Friday deals and more. I'm proud that we've designed a whole suite of clinical education, courses, written protocols, access to the research, and live trainings. The tools are intuitive, but for you and your team to get the most out of them, we're going to over deliver on the education, so you feel safe and effective using them. That's always step one.”
17:35 - Building a cash-based recovery program in your practice. “It's really cool to see the evolution of recovery services, but let's just quickly back up in case somebody has no idea what I’m talking about. The Normatec compression system that you see being used by everyone under the sun are typically the centerpiece of a recovery wellness program built around HyperIce products. The Normatec retails for $800 to $1,500, depending on what you're buying. It's prohibited for many people to purchase for home use, but there's a lot of desire and awareness because you see it at Lifetime Fitness, Equinox, Delta Sky Lounge, Kaizo Health, etc. You can build a wellness service around any piece of equipment, but Normatec's the hook. It can be as small as a single Normatec impression system with a recliner set up in your waiting room or it can be an entire room dedicated to all of these modalities and services. There's not a right or wrong starting point - it's about what works for you. Reach out to our team and we can share what we've done with our partners, open up our pricing, and share visual examples. Then we need to figure out the infrastructure. Where's it going and what's going in the door? Then we're going to help you with rates. How much do you charge for it? Dollar per minute is a great rule of thumb, but we'll help you learn how to build packages for monthly wellness memberships and give you marketing materials. How do you build repeatable marketing funnels? Funnel them into your clinic so they can experience amazing hands-on care that your providers do. If you're doing that consistently, you can easily add 10 or more patients per month in a very repeatable, almost automated fashion.”
33:53 – Nike x HyperIce. “If you're not already following HyperIce, you're going to see some real cool stuff from us in 2025. I will leave that little teaser out there, but definitely stay tuned. A couple things are public, so I'll share them. We did a really cool release earlier this year around the Summer Olympics with Nike. We also have been secretly developing a couple of really cool bespoke products with Nike over the past three or so years. One is a really cool recovery shoe we designed. It's very futuristic looking and we're calling it the HyperBoot. It’s a wearable shoe with our Normatec compression technology and electric heat built into it. You get the heating elements we have with our Venom line and the compression line that Normatec's known for in a wearable shoe. At the same time, we developed a wearable vest that has our HyperIce X contrast therapy technology in it. It allows us to monitor an individual’s core body temperature, and we can either cool you or heat you up to a predetermined temperature. Nike wanted this heating and cooling vest. We wanted to build a shoe. We started working on it, but at some point, they took a very early prototype of this shoe to a meeting with some of their highest end athletes. The athletes refused to give it back and it changed the conversation. We soft-launched it around the Olympics, but we've had people offer 25 grand for us to ship them a pair. It’s never been done before and designing a product with Nike was our founder's dream. A huge behemoth of a brand versus a smaller, fairly nimble one. An athletic apparel versus a tech company. It's been an interesting merging, but really, really fun. We're not done yet. The best thing for us is always the feedback.”
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