So it might happen in Q4. Frankly, it’s really going to depend on the timing of when we get specific payments in here compared to how quickly we grow and how our expense base grows because we’re laying out the money effect for labor, for a lot of other things to our vendors in advance of what we get paid by the city. So we have that ongoing negative cash cycle as far as those programs go, whether it’s the city or whether some of our larger municipal or other customers. So I would expect that we’re sitting here early November. We’ve got about — is it six, seven weeks at the end of the year. It’s our expectation that we would be pretty well caught up by the end of the year, at least that’s our hope. It’s just something that is somewhat unpredictable given that we’re not the ones who actually pay ourselves.
And we are in discussion with the different finance departments — the different relevant finance departments on a daily — on a more daily basis at a bunch of different levels, whether it’s me, whether it’s Lee, whether it’s people within our finance or operating teams. So there’s a lot of dialoguing going on. I should point out, and this sort of ties a limit to something that I think David mentioned in the questions of four years, which is, any of the slowdown in the payment is not — none of the slowdown in payment is related in any way, shape or form to disputes. Nothing has been disputed in terms of the amounts that we’re charging, in terms of the categories in which we’re charging. It’s simply a matter of from time to time of asking for more backup, which we have and which we just have to send over in their way.
I think once we get on a pretty good cadence with them and a good payment rhythm with them, we will catch up pretty quickly. The schedule that we — I’m not going to share the strategic details, but we have shared a schedule with the city that lays out when we would expect to pay. And if they do keep it to that schedule on a month-by-month basis on a monthly invoice by monthly invoice basis, we would be largely caught up by the end of the year, which are typical, I’ll say, 60-day — 60 to 90-day lag from when the services are provided, which is normal for all of our contracts. So that would obviously have a big impact from what we see in Q4. I’m just a little bit low to make an estimate as to where the balance sheet is going to be come year-end because there’s just a lot of things that could move in that direction.
And what I would look for is just sort of an improvement, a reduction in the sales outstanding and other metrics that would indicate on the operating cash flow side, that is starting to catch up.
Mike Latimore: Okay, great. Thanks. And then in the second quarter, I know you signed up a select group of staffing agencies to contracts that were meant to maybe give them some more volume but also under favorable terms. Can you tell — I know — and I know this quarter, you’ve ramped up really quickly on this new deal, but can you tell us those contracts and the staffing agency relationships and the terms? Are they all being kind of met as expected, I guess, factoring in this kind of, rapid early?
Lee Bienstock: Yes. So Mike, absolutely. So we’re actually utilizing all of those contracts in full effect in Q2, Q3 and beyond, all those partners — we call them partners because they’re helping us scale tremendously. All of those partners, all those contracts are performing as expected. All of the negotiations and structuring of those contracts are actually well done. And so yes, we’re absolutely benefiting greatly from those in Q2 and Q3 and going through the rest of the year here.
Operator: Thank you. The next question we have comes from David Grossman from Stifel. Please go ahead.
David Grossman: Thank you. Good afternoon. I’m wondering, Lee, you spoke a little bit about your commercial business in your prepared remarks, and it sounds like you’re still at 73,000 lives with four payers, with roughly 60,000 lives assigned as of, I guess, now. Can you give us any better insight into how these pilots should ramp from a revenue perspective over the next 12 months? And any new business that may be in the pipeline to give us a sense of just how this business should scale over the next year or so?
Lee Bienstock: Yes. Absolutely, David. Happy to do so. So I think we look at that business — we look at a multitude of different metrics. The first is, as you mentioned, the number of patients that are being assigned to us. That number — I’d like to see that number growing. It is growing. It’s growing very much so. And so we’d like to see continued growth there. From there, I track and our team tracks sort of conversions, how many of those patients do we engage, do we go and provide the care gap, go into the home. And I’d like to see that number is going to also increase over time as our teams get more and more specialized, more and more trained, as we get more and more experience. And as we bring on more and more talent to our team, that number has also been going up In fact, last week, I was looking at a metric rise of the highest conversion since we started.
So that metric I’d like to see going up, and it is going up and I’m pleased with our progress there in terms of how many of the patients that are assigned to us engage with us. And obviously, we have a unique model where we don’t call the patients who come into our office, but rather we go to their home. And obviously, we are able to decrease the barriers of access and bring care to the patients that need it. Almost all of these patients have not seen their primary care provider in over one year. And many of them are chronically ill, almost all of them are chronically ill. And so, are in need of care gaps or need of intervention or in need of our services. So I look at assigned patients, I look at conversions. The other thing I look at, which I’m very pleased with that, I mentioned it on the call, is the number of care gaps, the breadth of services that we’re offering.
