Cory Pinegar is the Founder of Teem, a company that revolutionizes hiring by connecting optometric, dental, and veterinary practices with top-tier virtual assistants and remote staff from around the world. Under Cory’s leadership, Teem has grown to a global team of over 1,000 employees across 10-plus countries, and his previous company, CallForce, was named one of the fastest-growing privately held companies in the US by Inc. 500. Cory strives to solve real-world business problems with practical, often unsexy solutions, and is also a board member for the Parkinson’s Foundation and Verrific.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- [02:50] Cory Pinegar shares where the idea for Teem came from
- [05:09] Why Latin America and the Philippines are talent hotspots
- [06:23] How Teem ensures fair pay for virtual assistants
- [09:31] Daily administrative headaches virtual assistants can eliminate
- [13:30] Top three staffing struggles across healthcare industries
- [19:07] How unglamorous innovations drive long-term customer satisfaction
In this episode…
Running a modern optometric practice can feel like trying to win a game with too few players on the field. Could the key to growth be expanding your team beyond your four walls rather than cramming more into your existing team’s day?
According to Cory Pinegar, a founder who built and scaled teams across multiple countries, the answer lies in redefining what “in-office” really needs to mean. He explains that many of the most time-consuming responsibilities in a practice don’t require a physical presence, only the right training and accountability. When practices embrace a hybrid model and focus on outcomes instead of hallway visibility, they unlock both financial breathing room and operational momentum.
In this episode of the Cleinman Connect Podcast, Kim Carson is joined by Cory Pinegar, Founder of Teem, to discuss how virtual team members can elevate optometric practices. They explore building a hybrid workforce, solving staffing shortages, and maintaining HIPAA compliance with remote teams. Cory also shares advice on defining clear scoreboards so practices can measure what winning looks like.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Kevin Wilhelm on LinkedIn
- Marketing4ECPs
- Cleinman Performance Partners
- Cory Pinegar on LinkedIn
- Teem
- “Driving Growth in Independent Practices With Amanda Van Voris” on the Cleinman Connect Podcast
- “[Marketing] How Digital Awareness Ads Can Influence Your Patients of Tomorrow” with Tyler Kemp on the Cleinman Connect Podcast
Quotable Moments:
- “95% of people on this planet have good intentions, and they want to win.”
- “It’s then about getting on the team, getting aligned, and getting excited, and getting to do it.”
- “Because at the end of the day, if they’re busy but we’re not winning, it’s not sustainable.”
- “And so people know that they can build more of a hybrid staff today.”
- “As long as we are progressing forward, we are winning.”
Action Steps:
- Audit your practice’s daily tasks: Identifying which responsibilities actually require in-person interaction reveals opportunities to delegate administrative work to virtual team members.
- Define clear performance scoreboards for every role: Establishing measurable outcomes shifts focus from activity to results and ensures everyone understands what winning looks like.
- Address staffing challenges with a hybrid model: Blending in-office and remote team members expands your talent pool while maintaining operational continuity and cost control.
- Invest in structured onboarding and training: Providing consistent systems and expectations sets virtual team members up for long-term success and higher retention.
- Use real client questions to guide improvements: Listening to recurring concerns helps refine processes, strengthens communication, and builds trust with your team and patients.
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by Teem. They revolutionize the hiring of virtual assistants into optometric practices, swiftly identifying top talent while ensuring HIPAA compliance and cost effectiveness.
Their global approach delivers highly educated, English proficient team members. They make it simple and easy to hire virtual assistants and you can get more information at hireteem.com.
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Episode Transcript
Intro: 00:07
Welcome to the Cleinman Connect Podcast, where we discuss marketing, ownership, growth strategies, and everything else surrounding the business of optometry. Cleinman is Optometry’s trusted business partner for over 35 years.
Kim Carson: 00:28
Hello, I’m Kim Carson hosting Cory Pinegar, the Founder of Teem, on this episode of the Cleinman Connect Podcast. Past guests of this show include Amanda Van Voris, Senior Business Consultant for Cleinman, and most recently, Tyler Kemp, an Account Manager at Marketing4ECPs. Those episodes are available now at Cleinman.com. This episode is brought to you by Teem. They revolutionize the hiring of virtual assistants into optometric practices, swiftly identifying top talent while ensuring HIPAA compliance and cost effectiveness.
Their global approach delivers highly educated, English proficient team members. They make it simple and easy to hire virtual assistants and you can get more information at hireteem.com. I’m joined today by Cory Pinegar, Founder of Teem. He is passionate about solving real problems with practical, often unglamorous solutions. He is fortunate to be backed by an incredible team of a thousand plus individuals across ten plus countries.
And he’s here with us today. Thank you so much for joining the show.
Cory Pinegar: 01:28
Yeah, I appreciate you having me on. It’s a pleasure.
Kim Carson: 01:30
Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much for joining me. I would love to start off with just getting to know you a bit better. Can you tell me a bit about yourself, Cory?
Cory Pinegar: 01:38
Yeah, I am a 32 year old that lives in Salt Lake City, was born on the East Coast and abruptly moved to Utah during my teenage years. And my friends and family are here. I hate the cold. I would live in Hawaii if I could, if I could transplant my friends and family. But at the end of the day, I, you know, probably put myself into two categories I love my family and my friends and my relationships.
And I love business. I wish I was more athletic. Growing up is something I’m six two, so most people look at me and be like, oh yeah, you’re you probably play basketball. I couldn’t. I miss the whole backboard if I shoot a shot.
And I found years ago that I had a decent knack for business. And so my sport that I love playing competitively is business. And I want to go out there every day and make a difference, have fun doing it and feel like we’re winning games.
Kim Carson: 02:30
Yeah, a business three pointer, if you will. I was never a basketball person myself. I am not six two, but I’m actually six two.
Cory Pinegar: 02:39
Didn’t benefit me either. So we’re both hey. We’re here.
Kim Carson: 02:43
Well, amazing. Thank you so much. Where did the idea for Teem come from?
Cory Pinegar: 02:50
Teem was born out of a problem in my own business. So before that, I started my first business. Nine years ago now. I think nine years ago it was either 8 or 9 years ago on the dot, pretty much. And we had 300 plus people in our office in Salt Lake, Utah.
And this is like the heart of Covid. And so we are starting to struggle to staff and retain really good people. And I’m driving through in and out and other places, going home every night. And I’m like, oh, the wage went up from yesterday, the wage went up from yesterday. And it’s just harder to hire and retain really good people.
And so someone on our HR team brought up the idea of hiring internationally. And I’ll just be super honest that like my only experience with international labor to that point was like when I had to call Wells Fargo about my debit card when I was 17. And I’m like, this person doesn’t speak English. Am I losing my Social Security? And so I didn’t have a great perception.
But one of my favorite quotes in business is the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over and expecting a different result. we couldn’t staff our business in Salt Lake at the time and we were buying billboards. We were throwing up Facebook ads like we were doing everything we could to try to. It wasn’t working. And so I was like, you know what?
We have no other option. Let’s go hire two people. It’s a small number out of our, you know, 3 to 400 person team. And let’s see where it takes us. And we hired a guy named Daniel and a guy named Vinicius out of Brazil and Argentina.
And those two gentlemen changed my life in the way of realizing that there is wickedly talented, smart people everywhere in the globe. And when I realized that this radically transformed our business, I realized that most companies that are in the outsourcing bucket are like the apples, the T-Mobile’s, the Wells Fargo’s. Why not democratize access for the retail, healthcare, healthcare practice? And that’s where our team was born from.
Kim Carson: 04:56
Amazing. In your bio. I said ten plus countries. Where else are these people from? Like we have Argentina.
We have Brazil. Where? Where else could we get a virtual assistant from.
Cory Pinegar: 05:09
For a virtual assistant? Or really, a remote team member could be hired anywhere in the globe? Yeah, we predominantly are focused on Latin America because of the Spanish and English element. Latin America is also incredibly nice because it’s a very similar time zone to the normal hours of US practices. And then the second place that we hire from, in addition, is the Philippines.
There’s a lot of people who have worked for United or Cigna or these other large healthcare companies, and they have scribing backgrounds or they have insurance backgrounds. And so those two augmented realities give us the back office talent that we need, while at the same time giving the English and Spanish and kind of warm Latin America personality that connects really well with patients.
Kim Carson: 05:55
I want to maybe, like, dispel something. These are remote workers from other countries. How do you make sure that they are paid fairly? That they are, you know, just compensated accurately for what they’re doing? I think when a lot of people think about outsourcing, we think that maybe it is more of an advantage, exploitation, something or other.
So how does Teem work differently?
Cory Pinegar: 06:23
You said two things that are actually independent and true, and I want to dive into it instead of giving the answer. So you said there’s an advantage exploitation. And that’s probably the pretty way of saying something that in some reality is true. And what is what I’d call an arbitrage. Okay.
And what I mean by that is if I live in what’s it, New York City, it’s incredibly expensive to have staff members there because a shoebox apartment is thousands of dollars a month. If you live in Argentina or Brazil and you live in a smaller city or even these major metropolitan areas, your money goes farther. Lunch costs less, petrol costs less. And so what I think about is how do we help the practices develop a financial win? Because it is suffocating.
Rent costs more, software is costing more. Insurance ain’t paying out anything more. Over the last 20 years, relatively compared to inflation, it’s decreasing. If you look at Medicaid and, you know, Medicare statements and then how can we pay people really well in their home country? So in Brazil, we pay in the top 25% of the bell curve of earners for our most basic entry level role.
And at the end of the day, I’d encourage people to look into it for themselves. But I think data is what is what gives a the damning answer. And we had a month in late last year where we hired 98 new team members to our team over a 30 day period. How many applications do you think we sifted through? And keep in mind, we don’t run ads.
Kim Carson: 08:08
I mean, I’d have to.
Cory Pinegar: 08:10
I’m asking you a hardball question out of the middle of nowhere.
Kim Carson: 08:13
I’m like, well, 998 people. I’m like, you had. That’s at least a third of the applicants. So I’d say about 300 applications, 31,200. Wow.
Cory Pinegar: 08:23
And I really.
Kim Carson: 08:24
Shallow on that.
Cory Pinegar: 08:25
Hey, but you look at like, statistically, we’re generally hiring. We took hundreds of thousands of applications last year. Yeah. And we hired point two of point two of the percent of every application that was hired. What does that mean to me?
I’m an almost economics degree from BYU before I dropped out. But we can attract top tier talent because the base rate is so meaningful. So to go back to your earlier question, we can attract really good people with meaningful pay, but also develop the cost savings arbitrage that I think practices need to have today to compete.
Kim Carson: 09:03
Okay. Well thank you. Yeah, that really does answer my question. So once once you have these top performers, what exactly do they do. What like what does Teem put them in practices to do.
Cory Pinegar: 09:17
Really good question. So I’ll start with a concept. And I primarily at Teem serve as like our vision creator. I’m the worst implementer maker of the reality that you could ever think of.
Kim Carson: 09:28
The idea guy. We all have to have an idea guy.
Cory Pinegar: 09:31
And when I think about what we can do is when someone comes into a practice, a lot of the clinical things, if not most, require a in-person physical interaction. And I also believe checking into the front desk should be something generally that’s physically done. But there’s a lot of things at the front that don’t need in-person interaction. Answering the phone. Verifying patients.
Following up on patient billing. Scribing. If you’re listening to the doctor and typing into the EHR, do you need to be sitting there or could you just be listening to the audio? And so what we do at Teem is we help fill those business administrative tasks that often get left on the back burner because the practice is so chaotic. Checking people in, checking people out, rescheduling last minute.
A staff member is out for lunch. And so the primary roles we’re filling are inbound and outbound calls, insurance verifications, helping with revenue cycle management and scribing.
Kim Carson: 10:30
In taking a look through Teem’s website and all of your social media, I did notice that there was quite a few webinars that you offer. I don’t know if maybe I’m new to the virtual assistant game. I just don’t understand. You know, everything in the world. But why?
Why all these webinars? Like, it just. They don’t necessarily go hand in hand to me.
Cory Pinegar: 10:58
I, as our founder and owner, deeply believe in if we give. And you and I discussed this before we got on today, I deeply believe if we give education to the community that allows us to have a business that we will grow instead, like as part of that reciprocal relationship. And so we realize that we get to see thousands of practices every single day. And there’s questions people have. What do these people sound like?
How do you run a compliant business with HIPAA and remote workers? How are people changing with the cost crisis and the lack of insurance? And so we go out there with our unique lens, seeing practices working really well, working with some of your biggest roll ups, working with practices that have gone into bankruptcy, and then answering those questions from our lens to educate the market so that they can go out and make the best decisions for their practice.
Kim Carson: 11:54
Are all of these webinars for free? I didn’t actually check that.
Cory Pinegar: 11:57
These are this is our way of giving back.
Kim Carson: 11:59
And yeah.
Cory Pinegar: 12:00
You asked a really good question. Like what do we usually decide what we’re going at? We record all of our sales calls and we have tens of thousands of recorded calls. And we have the ability to query. What are some of the biggest concerns or questions that people are unsure about.
So what guides our content is we can go in there and not just look at, hey doctor, yesterday asked about how do we do X, Y or Z? We can go and say, what are the biggest fears or misconceptions of the market that we serve right now? And then we can craft additional educational content based on the hundreds of calls that we’re able to stack and record every single month.
Kim Carson: 12:39
Yeah. So you really take it from your client base to, to dictate what you’re going to educate. You should be talking.
Cory Pinegar: 12:45
About what they want to hear about.
Kim Carson: 12:46
Like, yeah.
Cory Pinegar: 12:47
If we’re just putting on random content, yeah, it’s going to get one like.
Kim Carson: 12:51
And.
Cory Pinegar: 12:51
I’d rather create content that is meeting people and meeting the market where they’re at. Doesn’t matter what we think, we’re not the consumer.
Kim Carson: 13:01
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Teem is you offer your services to like veterinary practices, eye care practices and dental clinics.
Cory Pinegar: 13:10
Yes.
Kim Carson: 13:12
Do you find that there’s a lot of crossover in those industries, like when you say.
Cory Pinegar: 13:16
Crossover, what do you mean?
Kim Carson: 13:18
Like with when you’re listening to these sales calls and you hear these repeated issues come up, are they the same across the industries or is there specific ones to veterinary or dental?
Cory Pinegar: 13:30
There is definitely things that are unique by every industry, and there’s a different buying persona by every industry. But I would more consider it like different flavored cupcakes. And you like red velvet? I like funfetti, my mom likes double dark chocolate and they’re all still made from water, flour, sugar, aches. These are independently owned, doctor led retail healthcare locations they all have in vet med.
You don’t really have insurance because most of cash pay well in dental. You don’t really have scribing because they’re clicking and annotating on a tooth. So there’s uniquenesses by industry. But the biggest themes that we see that are unanimous across the board is people know that they’re missing a ton of opportunity. Phone calls are going unanswered.
Re-activation calls are not being done. Insurance verifications aren’t being done. Second thing is, people know ever since Covid, it has been harder to hire and retain really good staff in the long term. And then the third is the cost crisis. Like Covid obviously caused crazy inflation, but insurance isn’t even matching.
And so people are realizing that, oh wait, with today’s modern technology, remote access, we’ve or other pieces of technology, I could pick up the phone somewhere else. And so people know that they can build more of a hybrid staff today. And I think that is those are kind of the three main buckets that virtual assistants can go into and help solve.
Kim Carson: 14:56
Just you said hybrid staff. So I feel like maybe the people listening would want to know if I were to work in mainland USA for Teem. What is your remote work policy?
Cory Pinegar: 15:11
What do you mean? Like, everybody’s remote?
Kim Carson: 15:13
Everybody’s remote. Do you have an office that you make people come collects mail? It was the first question I thought of when I was like, oh, I wonder if they make their if they have a building that employees have to come into.
Cory Pinegar: 15:26
No. And I’ll, I’ll talk a little bit about. I obviously have managed thousands of people in my career and have made really big mistakes, multi-million dollar individual mistakes, and had really good wins to when we got on air. We talked a little bit about how I love the game of business and when I think about leading and managing. As practitioners, it’s really easy to look down the hallway and see that Cory or Judy or, you know, whoever it is, is doing a really good job.
But at the end of the day, when you look down the hall, you’re looking at inputs. The game of sports is one based on the scoreboard. And what I like, that remote work makes me incredibly uncomfortable to do. But forces me to do is to say what is the win? Like, how many sales a month for each of our sales people is a great win.
What does retention look like for our customer success? Because at the end of the day, if they’re busy but we’re not winning, it’s not sustainable. And so what does remote work look like for me? It’s defining what the win is by the position, by the department, by the company, and then providing the tools, training and coaching to go out there and win. 95% of people on this planet have good intentions and they want to win.
It’s then about getting on the team, getting aligned and getting excited and getting to do it.
Kim Carson: 16:48
Amazing. What what would you say is how do you win every day? What is your barometer?
Cory Pinegar: 16:54
I don’t I don’t win every day. I’ll tell you that.
Kim Carson: 16:56
How do you try? How do you try to win every day?
Cory Pinegar: 16:59
As most people who are listening to this.
Are business owners, owning a business is a dumpster fire. And anyone who tells you we have a on paper, very successful business that grows and does, you know, tens of millions of dollars a year in revenue. It’s a dumpster fire every single day. For me, the win is whether it be winning an inch, winning a foot, or winning a mile by the day, by the week, by the year. As long as we are progressing forward, we are winning.
And there’s days where and months where we move an inch and there’s days where we move a mile. And I wish I could dictate and control that better. But the progress is actually the win.
Kim Carson: 17:39
I, I only actually have one more question for you, Cory. Before I ask it, I do want to point people to your website. Again, it was hireteem.com, so hireteem.com. Is there anywhere this isn’t the last question, but is there anything coming up that you guys are going to be at that you want to mention, or are there other ways for people to find you?
Cory Pinegar: 18:01
We are consistently on the road, so come say hi at any show. We’ll be at obviously Cleinman’s and annual show. They’ve been an amazing partner of ours for many years. We’re grateful to the community. And as you said, if people want more information here and now, our website is by far the best place to get that.
Kim Carson: 18:19
Amazing. Yeah, and thank you so much for being such a great sponsor. We were actually talking before the call about Tyler is the representative from Teem that comes out to our Cleinman network events, and he I’m not certain where he’s based out of, but if I had to take a guess, it would be Southern California. And he does love surfing. I don’t know if that’s true.
That’s just.
Cory Pinegar: 18:41
The.
Kim Carson: 18:41
Vibe that he.
Cory Pinegar: 18:42
Would.
Cory Pinegar: 18:43
Give the.
Cory Pinegar: 18:43
North Carolina.
Cory Pinegar: 18:45
Oh, I was way off. I hate to break it to you. We’re a couple.
Cory Pinegar: 18:49
Thousand miles across the US, but it was a great shot.
Kim Carson: 18:52
It’s honestly that’s the vibe he gives its surfer surfer dude.
Cory Pinegar: 18:54
It is very true.
Kim Carson: 18:57
Well thank you. So the final question I have for you is what would you say has maybe been the biggest innovation that Teem has accomplished in their history?
Cory Pinegar: 19:07
It’s a great question. You read something in my. You read something in my LinkedIn bio that I like deeply believe in. I am interested in the unsexy. If I could own New York’s trash picker upper service, I would. And my goal would be to run the best damn sanitation company out there. I love the idea of taking the unpretty or the unsexy, which is, you know, the BPO outsourcing staffing industry and making something that delivers better quality, a better reputation.
We’ve built great reporting technology and insights tools and amazing training. That’s very flexible. What am I most proud at? At the end of the day, is the ability to serve our customers for what they need in a quality, long term way. It’s not sexy, but at the end of the day, if you don’t pick the trash up in New York on a midsummer’s morning, it will smell horrendous.
And that’s where I’m proud to serve.
Kim Carson: 20:04
Amazing. Well, maybe I did. Actually, I lied a little bit. I have one last question too. I want to know what’s next. What’s next for Teem? What do you guys have in the works?
Cory Pinegar: 20:15
I, as an entrepreneur, believe in deep seated focus. And so we have no desire to go build and become a software company or to become a coaching or consulting company. It is the further refinement of what we do incredibly well. Clinicians are not, even though on paper they’re the full time CEO, they’re the full time clinician, and then they get the 30 minutes driving to work and the 30 minutes going home from work to run the practice. And so managing, running and leading people is hard.
And so we want to continue to develop reliable staff who are engaged in what they’re doing, provide world class training on what’s truly needed, and then make those results, that scoreboard of the game easily visible so that both sides can know they’re winning.
Kim Carson: 21:02
Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much for your insight and your time today. Cory. That is our show.
If you want to hear more of the podcast, you certainly can at Cleinman.com and wherever you like to listen. Thank you.
Outro: 21:18
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