Speaker 1: Episode four oh seven, Identifying healthcare over billing with Scott's Beranza.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to
Speaker 2: save money, embrace simplicity and life. Here your hosts Jen
Speaker 2: and Jill.
Speaker 1: Mmm, welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen,
Speaker 1: my name is Jill, and we got a sexy little
Speaker 1: episode for you today about medical healthcare over billing.
Speaker 3: So it's too hot to handle.
Speaker 1: It's so hot, it's spicy. I know you guys are
Speaker 1: gonna love it. It is. Actually, this is a topic
Speaker 1: that is worth your time to know, and it's also
Speaker 1: worth your time to know when it's not worth your time.
Speaker 1: So we're we're really excited to chat with Scott. And
Speaker 1: he's a he's a CEO of health, and you don't
Speaker 1: always know what you're getting with CEO. Sometimes they know
Speaker 1: how to run a business, but they don't know all
Speaker 1: about the service that they're running. But Scott was very knowledgeable.
Speaker 1: So you're gonna get a lot out of this episode.
Speaker 3: I have come across my own medical billing issues, so
Speaker 3: anytime we're able to talk about this, it feels like
Speaker 3: true tangible helpful resources just for me. I hope that
Speaker 3: that's the case for you guys as well. And yeah,
Speaker 3: Scott's really helpful and also just a lot of commiserating.
Speaker 3: If you find yourself tuning into this episode and you're
Speaker 3: just like this is so much, there's that for you
Speaker 3: too in this episode. Also side note, Scott is in
Speaker 3: Tennessee and there was a hurricane no no sorry for
Speaker 3: tornado warning happening, so as we get closer to the
Speaker 3: bill of the week, you might hear some sounds that
Speaker 3: our editors can't remove. We decided not to end it
Speaker 3: with Scott, but to let the winds blow as the will,
Speaker 3: and we will power through.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let the winds blow as they will.
Speaker 3: But first are forewarned.
Speaker 1: But first, this episode is brought to you by tubes,
Speaker 1: tiny little tubes they put in your child's ear because
Speaker 1: they keep getting ear infections and the doctor won't give
Speaker 1: you any more antibiotics because you dried all of them
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Speaker 1: savings account like ciit CIT's savings connect account is currently
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Speaker 1: only does their surgeries in a hospital. We'll talk about
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Speaker 1: you should definitely ask where they do their tube surgeries
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Speaker 1: that are expensive, and you should say for them.
Speaker 3: Speaking of a lot of commiserating in this epper information
Speaker 3: while also complaining about her own experiences.
Speaker 1: Nobody's perfect. Some people get stressed and make stress based
Speaker 1: financial decisions, but if you're making eighty percent of your
Speaker 1: decisions out of a place of health, then the twenty
Speaker 1: percent that are made out of stress are not as impactful.
Speaker 1: There you go, Bam, that's the episode. Got the see
Speaker 1: you next week. I'm just kidding. If you are interested
Speaker 1: in more healthcare related content. Episode three point fifty eight,
Speaker 1: Jill and I share our personal experiences with healthcare sharing
Speaker 1: because we both use healthcare sharing instead of insurance. It's
Speaker 1: a really whatever works for you thing. And if you
Speaker 1: don't know if it'll work for you. Episode three fifty
Speaker 1: eight is the one to listen to. Episode two thirty
Speaker 1: Negotiating medical Bills with Doctor Vergie Bright Ellington is also
Speaker 1: kind of required less for this podcast. That's one of
Speaker 1: our most popular episodes. Doctor Virgie is a doctor and
Speaker 1: patient advocate. She wants you to spend as little for
Speaker 1: her services as a doctor as possible. And so this
Speaker 1: is all about negotiating your medical bill. Super super useful
Speaker 1: episode two thirty and so today's is with Scott'speranza, the
Speaker 1: CEO of Healthloc. Healthfloc is a like a cutting edge
Speaker 1: disruptor in healthcare billing and fraud protection, and as the
Speaker 1: chairman and CEO of Healthlock's parent company in Assist, he's
Speaker 1: led both companies to audit over half a billion dollars
Speaker 1: in medical claims and saved members more than one hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty million dollars over the past decade through all
Speaker 1: the innovative technology and monitoring Healthlock is coming up with.
Speaker 1: So we are sure that you're going to get some
Speaker 1: useful information out of this one.
Speaker 3: Let's do it.
Speaker 1: Scott, Welcome to Frugal Friends. This is going to be
Speaker 1: a good episode. I know this is going to be
Speaker 1: one that people ask about and talk about, because our
Speaker 1: last medical bill episode was one that people asked about
Speaker 1: and talked about for a long time. So we're super
Speaker 1: excited to have you here.
Speaker 4: Well, it's great to be here. I appreciate it. And yeah,
Speaker 4: we all have medical bills, so of course we're all
Speaker 4: going to encounter that wonderful healthcare system that we have,
Speaker 4: which is fantastic, but boy, those bills can be a
Speaker 4: real pain.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm so glad that you're here. It's one of
Speaker 3: those episodes where if it's not front of mine, people
Speaker 3: will just keep scrolling. But for those tuning in, there's
Speaker 3: a real reason that they're here and can bring a
Speaker 3: lot of uncertainty and anxiety and just financial frustration. So
Speaker 3: from your perspective and the work that you've done, can
Speaker 3: you kind of outline for us what you've seen are
Speaker 3: some of the most common medical billing errors.
Speaker 4: Sure, and you know, even before we jump into that,
Speaker 4: you just said the word anxiety, and most people don't
Speaker 4: know that one, especially pre COVID, a large medical bill
Speaker 4: was the number one anxiety for American consumers more than
Speaker 4: like losing my job or the economy, and so forth,
Speaker 4: and that has shifted a little bit. But the number
Speaker 4: one stress financially or as at least to healthcare is
Speaker 4: the out of pocket expenses that you pay, not your premiums,
Speaker 4: but you're out of pocket expenses. And so those are
Speaker 4: the things that we look at. So when you think
Speaker 4: about what does overbilling look like, it's you know, look first,
Speaker 4: the statistics say at all there were forty percent or
Speaker 4: more of medical bills have errors. It could be a
Speaker 4: coding error, it could be a duplicate service, it could
Speaker 4: be a balance bill. There's all these different things that
Speaker 4: can occur, but the statistics say that we're kind of
Speaker 4: set up for it. The most glaring one is a
Speaker 4: denial of benefits, so where my insurance just says we're
Speaker 4: not going to pay this bill, and of course you
Speaker 4: owe one hundred percent of that out of pocket expense.
Speaker 4: And about twenty percent of Americans more going to get
Speaker 4: a denied bill this year, a denial of service from
Speaker 4: their carrier. As twenty percent, that's all that's a major
Speaker 4: part of the market. There's like forty million denied claims
Speaker 4: a year, So you've got this, you know, kind of
Speaker 4: think of it like the tax based system. So we
Speaker 4: have you know, accountants and tax advisors and specialists that
Speaker 4: every year look at our financials, look at the laws,
Speaker 4: the codes, all the parameters that it takes to do
Speaker 4: your taxes, and that expert then deciphers what potentially you
Speaker 4: owe in taxes or of course you're recouped. Well, the
Speaker 4: medical code language, this CPD cpt ICD ten coding language,
Speaker 4: actually has one hundred thousand lines of code. It's almost
Speaker 4: more complex than the tax system as it relates to
Speaker 4: the legalities. And so you have all these codes that
Speaker 4: then represent an a line item task, which then represents
Speaker 4: a financial dollar amount. And then all these codes come
Speaker 4: together and they create the actual bill that's adjudicated with
Speaker 4: the carrier, and then of course whatever you might owe.
Speaker 4: And the third parbaty statistics say that they're three hundred
Speaker 4: and fifty three and twenty five billion dollars lost every
Speaker 4: year from overbilling in fraud. It's a major problem and
Speaker 4: it affects all of us.
Speaker 3: Wow, yeah, that is anxiety.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: When it's a medical bill, so you're doing something that
Speaker 3: you aimed at health. I want to repair something that's
Speaker 3: broken or fix something that's going on. That comes with
Speaker 3: its own anxieties, and then to feel like you're up
Speaker 3: against the system that can feel so just mysterious. All
Speaker 3: the CPT codes in the ICD ten that you're listing out,
Speaker 3: it's like, do we have to be experts on this?
Speaker 4: Well, it's not the only service I can think about
Speaker 4: where we don't know what we're going to pay before
Speaker 4: we get our service. Yeah, and this is by the way,
Speaker 4: for medical dental vision RX. Right, So all those things
Speaker 4: are healthcare expenses. But of course we might go to
Speaker 4: the drug store and we think we're going to get
Speaker 4: a fifteen dollars you know, copay for RX, and all
Speaker 4: of a sudden they want to charge seven hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty dollars. What happened here? And now I'm stuck in
Speaker 4: line and I've got this big bill and it's stressful,
Speaker 4: and you just never know what's going to happen because
Speaker 4: it's a complex system. And again, especially when it relates
Speaker 4: to adjudicating gets assurance. So judication is that word that says,
Speaker 4: you know, an occurrence, a medical occurrence, medical dental vision RX,
Speaker 4: an occurrences, a healthcare occurrence has happened, and I have
Speaker 4: insurance and so someone's going to go bill my insurance
Speaker 4: company first and say, well, how much money is the
Speaker 4: insurance company going to pay me for the service, And
Speaker 4: everybody's got a different price, everyone's got different negotiated rates.
Speaker 4: And then that claim gets adjudicated. And then I received
Speaker 4: that wonderful thing called an explanation of benefits in EOB,
Speaker 4: and that EOB basically says, this is not an invoice,
Speaker 4: but this is potentially what you owe. And then of
Speaker 4: course you've got the doctor, provider lab whatever it might be,
Speaker 4: actual invoice. A lot of times those don't match. And
Speaker 4: of course what we're finding is that there are errors,
Speaker 4: unfortunately that are made, whether they're simple, complex, whether they're
Speaker 4: nefarious or just simple mistakes. All those things we see.
Speaker 4: And we've now saved well over one hundred and thirty
Speaker 4: million dollars for our customer base. And we have stories
Speaker 4: after stories of people maybe literally save them from bankruptcies
Speaker 4: because sixty six percent of all bankruptcies in the United
Speaker 4: States are due to medical bills. So it's not something
Speaker 4: that's actually getting better, it's actually getting worse.
Speaker 1: Wow. So in addition to the denial of benefits, what
Speaker 1: are would you say the top over billing errors that
Speaker 1: you see, like most often with people.
Speaker 4: Sure, so the first thing would be just a charge
Speaker 4: that's outrageous, right, So, like you know, a bill that
Speaker 4: might be one hundred and two hundred, three hundred percent
Speaker 4: over what we see is market value. Your MRI might
Speaker 4: be the simplest, right, Some MRIs might be a five
Speaker 4: hundred dollars, some are one thousand, some are twenty five hundred.
Speaker 4: Why what's the reason for the price difference? If there
Speaker 4: was something specific that was that you received in the
Speaker 4: MRI that caused that, that's one thing, But for the
Speaker 4: most part those are there's a lot of parody now
Speaker 4: with MRIs. So if we see a bill that comes
Speaker 4: in at three percent over our market price, that's going
Speaker 4: to get flagged. That's a common overcharge. You have things
Speaker 4: like a duplicate service where one doctor came in and said, hey,
Speaker 4: how you doing, and then another doctor came in a
Speaker 4: while later and said, hey, how are you doing? And
Speaker 4: there's two doctor codes on there for visits. That could
Speaker 4: equate to, of course a much larger bill. When did
Speaker 4: I check into the emergency room, that's a big deal, right,
Speaker 4: So if I check in before a certain period of time,
Speaker 4: in my twenty four hours. Those changes, those change the rates.
Speaker 4: There's things called upcoding. I go into an urgent care
Speaker 4: and I need a band aid for my cut, but
Speaker 4: they market as level five, which means my neck is
Speaker 4: profusely bleeding, and these are the codes that they use.
Speaker 4: And of course what you're seeing in the news today,
Speaker 4: this is a very common, unfortunate practice from the providers
Speaker 4: and even the carriers. We've seen with Change Healthcare and
Speaker 4: the UHC debacle data breach is a lot of billing
Speaker 4: issues now are being exposed for fraudulent billing potentially. So
Speaker 4: you know, the system is a good system, so I
Speaker 4: want to make sure that that's clear. I love our system.
Speaker 4: We're a supporter of the US based healthcare system. I
Speaker 4: think it's the best in the world for a thousand reasons.
Speaker 4: But it's complex. It's a six trillion dollar industry segment,
Speaker 4: one of our largest, and there's a lot of moving
Speaker 4: parts and everybody gets care and for the most part,
Speaker 4: our care is super good, but that billing can be
Speaker 4: super complex, unfortunately fraudulent. The latest statistics is there's one
Speaker 4: hundred and seventy one million patient records breached last year.
Speaker 4: The year prior there was about sixty million. The year
Speaker 4: prior to that there was I think about twenty million.
Speaker 4: Year prior to that was just a few million. So
Speaker 4: the thieves have really moved over to healthcare and taken
Speaker 4: it by storm. And a fraudulent bill which is also
Speaker 4: a balance bill. So one of the other keys is
Speaker 4: if you get a bill, your eob says you owe
Speaker 4: one hundred dollars and you get a bill for five
Speaker 4: hundred dollars, or you were never supposed to get a
Speaker 4: bill and you got a bill, Well what is that?
Speaker 4: And I've got some examples on that. So balance bills upcoding,
Speaker 4: denial of benefits obviously something that is just completely out
Speaker 4: of whack as far as the pricing is concerned. These
Speaker 4: are the things that a consumer needs to have awareness
Speaker 4: around so they can protect themselves in their pocketbooks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was looking at this list in preparation for
Speaker 1: this episode, and it was I there were things on
Speaker 1: there that I had no idea as much as I
Speaker 1: will will look at itemized bills and stuff for when
Speaker 1: I take my kids to the doctor, like they're just
Speaker 1: things like the time you check into a hospital, whether
Speaker 1: they charge it is a twenty four hour or if
Speaker 1: they're just tacking on fifteen minutes here and there. Like
Speaker 1: I realized, like there's a lot of cooks in the
Speaker 1: kitchen when it comes to healthcare, and it just takes
Speaker 1: like one or two bad eggs to like really do
Speaker 1: some destructive damage.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, you hear the stories about you know,
Speaker 4: the thousand dollars aspirin that from a hospital or of
Speaker 4: course we just talked about the time you check in
Speaker 4: emergency care and so forth, and certainly you know hospital
Speaker 4: care is going to create potentially the largest bills. But
Speaker 4: you know, the average American spends I think it's about
Speaker 4: six thousand dollars ab out of pocket expenses. Now, some people,
Speaker 4: you know, go, well, I'm not sick, and they don't
Speaker 4: plan for an expense, and so you know, maybe they
Speaker 4: spend zero last year, but how do you know you're
Speaker 4: not going to spend ten twenty thousand this year. We
Speaker 4: don't know when we're going to have that medical care.
Speaker 4: And the statistics also say this not just hospital bills.
Speaker 4: The problem is really pervasive. It's from the drugs, you know,
Speaker 4: it's your labs, it's the doctor visits that all of
Speaker 4: a sudden you know, I went in for my my
Speaker 4: my preventive maintenance, and that was supposed to be zero charge,
Speaker 4: and then all of a sudden, I got a four
Speaker 4: an dollar bill from the labs. What happened? Yeah, it
Speaker 4: may be for your best it might be for your
Speaker 4: best care. But if you didn't approve that, that's a problem.
Speaker 4: And that's a surprise bill. That probably is an unplanned expense.
Speaker 4: And these are the things that add up and then
Speaker 4: of course, for a large percentage of folks, they end
Speaker 4: up in bankruptcy.
Speaker 1: So where do we find these errors? Where do we
Speaker 1: go to look for them? And how are they hard
Speaker 1: to recognize? How do we even recognize them?
Speaker 4: Well, you know, I came from the software space, and
Speaker 4: so so me coming into the healthcare space ten years ago,
Speaker 4: I was really eyes wide open and going, well, it's
Speaker 4: got to be pretty simple and straightforward, right, analytics and
Speaker 4: billing and codes and right, this thing's got to be
Speaker 4: pretty simple. Well it's not. And even from my perspective,
Speaker 4: and we have lots of doctors and nurses as clients
Speaker 4: as well, like they're in the industry, and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I get confused too, And so sure, first of all,
Speaker 4: you've got to be able to understand medical terms to
Speaker 4: a certain extent. You've got to understand what kind of
Speaker 4: care am I getting, what kind of service is that producing?
Speaker 4: And then of course you've got to know the codes.
Speaker 4: So how do you know the codes? How do you
Speaker 4: tell if a code like our analytics show codes that
Speaker 4: either shouldn't be there or should be there, those are flags.
Speaker 4: How does the average consumer do that? It's very, very difficult,
Speaker 4: and so what you want to be able to do
Speaker 4: is really trust your provider up front and ask as
Speaker 4: much as possible what they think this is going to cost.
Speaker 4: They will have a difficult time answering that because again
Speaker 4: it could be well, we don't know exactly what kind
Speaker 4: of carr you're going to receive. We don't have your
Speaker 4: insurance in front of us, we don't know the negotiated rates.
Speaker 4: We don't know in the end if you're going to
Speaker 4: need lab A, lab B or lab C, So we
Speaker 4: can't tell you. But it might cost anywhere between five
Speaker 4: hundred dollars and one thousand dollars, and certainly try to
Speaker 4: get as much upfront as possible. The other thing is
Speaker 4: don't pay upfront. So we recommend to our customers that
Speaker 4: you know, let this let the process play out both
Speaker 4: with the provider, the carrier, and us quite frankly, in
Speaker 4: our service, because there could be things that of data
Speaker 4: is missing, an analytic catches an error, a denial becomes
Speaker 4: a partial denial, or potentially gets overturned because it's just
Speaker 4: a lacking of information. So the average consumer really has
Speaker 4: a tough place here. I mentioned those claim denials. So
Speaker 4: twenty percent of Americans are going to get a denied claim,
Speaker 4: only one percent are appealed, only one percent, and of
Speaker 4: that two out of three people lose. Our success rate
Speaker 4: is sixty eight percent. Why well, because it would be like,
Speaker 4: you know, as an average amateur, if I had a
Speaker 4: dispute and went to court and said, hey, judge, this
Speaker 4: just seems like too much money, can you please have
Speaker 4: them pay? I would lose. But we're able to go
Speaker 4: and say, hey, these are the codes that were used,
Speaker 4: these are the codes that should have been used, this
Speaker 4: is the average pricing, and this is why this charge
Speaker 4: was not only too expensive, but that benefit should have
Speaker 4: been covered by insurance. And here's the other cases that
Speaker 4: we've done that we've been a part of. To go
Speaker 4: ahead and affirm that this is a benefit that should
Speaker 4: actually be approved and paid for by your insurance. How
Speaker 4: does the average consumer do that? You know, that's a
Speaker 4: tall order. So we're really caught. Whether you're the CEO
Speaker 4: of a company down you are in the same boat,
Speaker 4: or a doctor and nurse. Like we talked about, you're
Speaker 4: in a complex system. From a billing perspective, you're in
Speaker 4: the best care in the world. You're going to get
Speaker 4: to the right serve to the right doctor of the
Speaker 4: right place. But there could be a lot of complexity
Speaker 4: on the billing side that we just don't have the
Speaker 4: skill sets to manage.
Speaker 3: It. Sounds like calling as much as you can ahead
Speaker 3: of time to get some of those estimates is kind
Speaker 3: of an utmost important for an individual to be able
Speaker 3: to kind of compare and contrast versus just receiving the bill.
Speaker 3: On the back end, you might not know what you're
Speaker 3: even looking at, what's standard costs? Should I have expected
Speaker 3: this or not? And that might be where some people
Speaker 3: even can get tripped up, like I guess I have
Speaker 3: to pay it because I didn't even know what the
Speaker 3: cost might have been. I didn't check beforehand.
Speaker 4: And there's things they call them price transparency tools. It's
Speaker 4: kind of Expedia online, right, So we go to an
Speaker 4: Expedia online. We can buy our flights, our hotel. Because
Speaker 4: it's very standardized, I can understand the quality and I
Speaker 4: can understand the location. So tools like that are coming,
Speaker 4: but only about one percent of folks use those, and
Speaker 4: they don't cover all things. Again, go back to the hospital.
Speaker 4: If I'm going from you know, in an emergency situation
Speaker 4: to a hospital, how do I know upfront via an
Speaker 4: Expedia what I'd have to pay for that hospital care.
Speaker 4: So those those tools and systems will never be able
Speaker 4: to manage healthcare pre costs if you will are pre
Speaker 4: payments in Expedia does for travel.
Speaker 3: I recently came upon this. The there is a law
Speaker 3: that medical facilities are required to have price transparency somewhere
Speaker 3: on their website. Not everybody is in compliance with that.
Speaker 3: There is a deadline for coming into compliance with it,
Speaker 3: and a lot of it is based on self pay rates.
Speaker 3: And I had to dig the website did not want
Speaker 3: me to find it, but eventually I found it. Uh,
Speaker 3: and even there was a website I was able to use,
Speaker 3: at least for Florida, being able to kind of type
Speaker 3: in the zip code and what are kind of the
Speaker 3: standard amounts for the standard types of procedures within the
Speaker 3: county that I live in, within the state that I
Speaker 3: live in. And personally I found that really helpful just
Speaker 3: to kind of get my head around what can I
Speaker 3: expect to be paying for certain things. But of course,
Speaker 3: as you're describing, that's only if you have the luxury
Speaker 3: of knowing what's coming versus an unexpected emergency situation, and
Speaker 3: you can't be calling ahead, you are kind of stuck
Speaker 3: with the bill on the back end.
Speaker 4: Yeah, legislatively, you know, the word transparency has definitely been
Speaker 4: in the news for the last four or five years,
Speaker 4: six years and having you know, providers post their prices,
Speaker 4: having carriers post their negotiated rates. There's no surprise bill
Speaker 4: act that came out, of course, and that was trying
Speaker 4: to mitigate a much larger problem. There's holes in that,
Speaker 4: of course, and there's also issues with the process. You know,
Speaker 4: it's eight nine, ten months behind, and you know, so yes,
Speaker 4: you know, there seems to be more show me more
Speaker 4: so I can navigate better. But as you mentioned, right,
Speaker 4: where is it on the website? What does it really mean?
Speaker 4: There could be a thousand light items on there, and
Speaker 4: I supposedly I've got to try to find out what
Speaker 4: my care is going to be and then that price point.
Speaker 4: It's very, very difficult, and I don't think it's going
Speaker 4: to be answered by one technical solution for the consumer
Speaker 4: to be empowered to then say, Okay, I'm in control
Speaker 4: of all this now I feel comfortable. It's just too complex.
Speaker 3: So if we do find an error, if we do
Speaker 3: believe this seems like more than what it should be,
Speaker 3: we've been able to kind of call ahead, we're comparing
Speaker 3: the back and forth or it's post emergency situation, But
Speaker 3: it looks like they are trying to tack on too much.
Speaker 3: What can we do? What are our steps to be
Speaker 3: able to dispute some of those medical over billing errors.
Speaker 4: Well, of course, if you've got a denial of benefit,
Speaker 4: your insurance company is not going to pay for either
Speaker 4: partial or are full of the care that you've got,
Speaker 4: then you definitely want to do an appeal. That appeal
Speaker 4: process is very specific to the carrier. So a UHC
Speaker 4: versus an anthem you know is going to versus a
Speaker 4: blue cross are going to have different forms, policies, procedures
Speaker 4: to go ahead and do the appeal. So do you
Speaker 4: have to learn that classically? You may have to go
Speaker 4: through too for six different levels of denial and then
Speaker 4: reappeal in order to get approvals. And we've got some
Speaker 4: famous cases of actually some pretty famous people. We also
Speaker 4: have a lot of actors, directors, producers, clients and so
Speaker 4: you know, some of the folks get surgeries. We had
Speaker 4: one that was pre approved for one hundred thousand dollars,
Speaker 4: pre approved, got the surgery, came back and then all
Speaker 4: of a sudden they turned around and said no, we're
Speaker 4: going to deny that that servicedred thousand. And it took
Speaker 4: us over a year and I think it was six
Speaker 4: or seven appeals to finally get that overturned. So the
Speaker 4: appealed process definitely, and then it's a matter if you've
Speaker 4: got to work with your your provider first. So they're
Speaker 4: the ones that are controlling you're at a pocket cost.
Speaker 4: They're the ones that are going to be delivering to
Speaker 4: you a bill. They're also the ones that have the
Speaker 4: collection agencies after you. And fifty three percent of all
Speaker 4: credit issues are medical related, so they're going to put
Speaker 4: a lot of pressure on you to pay that bill.
Speaker 4: But work with them to really explain why this is
Speaker 4: a why, how did you get this charge, how was
Speaker 4: this fee produced, what's the reason my insurance company isn't
Speaker 4: paying How much did my insurance company pay to the provider.
Speaker 4: That's a really key question. If I had a thousand
Speaker 4: dollars bill and my provider paid six hundred dollars and
Speaker 4: my balance bill was five hundred dollars, obviously there's something
Speaker 4: wrong there. And so those are the things that you've
Speaker 4: got to kind of break down what these charges are
Speaker 4: and then ultimately go back to the carrier if you
Speaker 4: feel Look, I went in there. This is a classic case.
Speaker 4: So you know, we had twins and every six weeks
Speaker 4: we had to go get a sonogram. My wife did,
Speaker 4: and so we'd go get the sonogram and we it
Speaker 4: was like a twelve dollars charge, and the insurance company
Speaker 4: would would pay a thousand, and then we get a
Speaker 4: bill for two hundred dollars and you know, healthloc would
Speaker 4: say no, that you don't owe that two hundred dollars,
Speaker 4: and literally the billing companies say, oh, we're so sorry,
Speaker 4: it's an error, we'll fix it. Six weeks later, we
Speaker 4: go and what happens the exact same two hundred dollars
Speaker 4: dollars bill and so at that point, you know Helthcock
Speaker 4: would report that that is something that we would consider fraudulent.
Speaker 4: That's a billing company taking advantage of balance billing and ooop,
Speaker 4: I'm so sorry. And if twenty thirty forty percent of
Speaker 4: people pay that two hundred dollars, that's free money to
Speaker 4: the billing company. By the way, the billiing company is
Speaker 4: paid by a percentage of revenue they collect for the
Speaker 4: doctor or hospital, so they're motivated for maximum dollars of
Speaker 4: course collected. And the doctors and hospitals just look at
Speaker 4: their balances and say, oh, fantastic, I got paid. I
Speaker 4: can pay the bills this this month. But they're not
Speaker 4: necessarily the ones that are doing the balance billings, these
Speaker 4: third party billing companies that are really at fault in
Speaker 4: this whole process. So work with those three things, right,
Speaker 4: the appeals process, your provider and breaking down those charges,
Speaker 4: and then back to the carrier if you feel like
Speaker 4: there's something suspicious happening or consistent happening with your provider,
Speaker 4: and they can also provide pressure and police them as well.
Speaker 3: I think that's one of the things for me in
Speaker 3: even knowing who do I go to with this, because
Speaker 3: the system does feel so large and complex. It's who's
Speaker 3: the right person to call? And sometimes I can find
Speaker 3: myself getting bounced around. No, that's an insurance issue. No,
Speaker 3: that's your provider issue. No, that's a you issue. And
Speaker 3: that can take so much time. You have to have
Speaker 3: so much stamina. But it's helpful to hear, you say,
Speaker 3: beginning with the provider getting as much information as possible
Speaker 3: and really digging in is the place to start. That's helpful.
Speaker 3: And are we primarily talking with the billing department of
Speaker 3: the medical provider?
Speaker 4: Well, and that's also you know, part of it too,
Speaker 4: is that when you call the doctor's office for schedule appointment,
Speaker 4: you're talking to somebody that's working in the doctor's office
Speaker 4: most of the time, with not all the times these
Speaker 4: billing companies are working outside of the physical office. They
Speaker 4: might be managing dozens and dozens of doctors, and so
Speaker 4: that's a different number, it's a different person. It's a
Speaker 4: different person every time you call in. And so anytime
Speaker 4: that a person you know, in our world, we hear stories.
Speaker 4: You know. Part of the value is just I don't
Speaker 4: have to do that. I don't have to spend the
Speaker 4: time to call forget that I might not even know
Speaker 4: what to say because I don't have the expertise, But
Speaker 4: just that time it takes of being on hold and
Speaker 4: getting the right person and walking through the process and
Speaker 4: asking all the right questions. And yeah, it's a third party.
Speaker 4: I would say probably about seventy to eighty percent of Gosh,
Speaker 4: there's a million plus practitioners out there, plus the hospitals
Speaker 4: and so forth. You're talking about a lot of workforce.
Speaker 4: Most of those use an outsourced billing company, and so
Speaker 4: you are working with that third party.
Speaker 1: So is it important. I know when we were we
Speaker 1: did our last negotiating like Bills episode, I didn't realize
Speaker 1: how important getting an itemized bill was because they don't
Speaker 1: send you the itemized bill, right, They just send you
Speaker 1: this is the money you owe or it says this
Speaker 1: is not a bill, this is just theoretical money that
Speaker 1: you might Oh, who knows, Like, how do we get
Speaker 1: an itemized bill? And are there any things that we
Speaker 1: should be looking on that bill specifically for?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you know, an itemized bill is super important. Again,
Speaker 4: when you're going to a hospital stay, you know, you're
Speaker 4: talking about the complexity times ten to twenty versus obviously
Speaker 4: a primary care physician or a lab. Even if you're
Speaker 4: in some level of chronic care, there could be a
Speaker 4: consistency that gets created you go to a hospital for
Speaker 4: some kind of issue, urgent or not. And I don't
Speaker 4: think many people know that most of the staff that
Speaker 4: works at a hospital is outsourced. They're not necessarily paid
Speaker 4: by the company of the hospital. They are a part
Speaker 4: of potentially ten fifteen different companies and service providers. Some
Speaker 4: of those doctors are on staff at the hospital, but
Speaker 4: a lot of the support, the support staff is not.
Speaker 4: That creates billing complexity, and that's why it's hard to know.
Speaker 4: Sometimes get an itemized bill because they're aggregating the billing
Speaker 4: from lots of third parties that are at that hospital.
Speaker 4: But so for sure at a hospital, absolutely get the
Speaker 4: itemized bill. You know, we've talked about things that if
Speaker 4: you don't see something that you recognize, you got to
Speaker 4: ask a question to figure out, well, what was that
Speaker 4: service like, what occurred for that line item, what's the
Speaker 4: reason these prices look expensive? And again, if you look
Speaker 4: up those prices and you get a national average you're
Speaker 4: equipped to then go ahead and have a little more
Speaker 4: substance when you're speaking to somebody. That's again hard to do.
Speaker 4: And then of course if you've got you know, any
Speaker 4: type of questions, you can go in and actually see
Speaker 4: an advocate at a hospital. You go into the into
Speaker 4: the doctor's office and sit down with one of the folks.
Speaker 4: Obviously that's a lot of time, and just have them
Speaker 4: continue to explain what's the reason for these costs. Unfortunately,
Speaker 4: the equation is time and expertise. You know, the more
Speaker 4: time I put into something, the better questions I can ask,
Speaker 4: the better questions I ask, the better I can uncover
Speaker 4: what really the problem or issue is. But there's only
Speaker 4: so much limitation I can do. If I was, you know,
Speaker 4: not a trained lawyer, time and effort is only going
Speaker 4: to get me so far, and so having specialists help
Speaker 4: us is really the only solution that we can see
Speaker 4: that's really going to make a difference in people's outcomes
Speaker 4: over the long term.
Speaker 1: Specifically, Yeah, it's unfortunately, but it's it's unfortunate, but I
Speaker 1: do agree it's so complex, and it is intentionally designed
Speaker 1: to be complex. So that leads us to our last question.
Speaker 1: So like, what does healthlock do to help patients through
Speaker 1: this process? And how could people get it for free?
Speaker 4: So so health Dock's a digital platform that actually manages
Speaker 4: all of your medical bills for you. So this is
Speaker 4: technology that only we have and so we call it.
Speaker 4: We sync with your carriers, let's say it's Anthem. You
Speaker 4: enroll our platform then syncs with the anthem let's say platform,
Speaker 4: and now we're automatically retrieving the explanation of benefits. We're
Speaker 4: looking at the charges through our analytics. This is all
Speaker 4: automated half a billion dollars of claim processing to create
Speaker 4: these proprietary analytics to then tell you good to pay.
Speaker 4: So you get a verified check mark that says, hey,
Speaker 4: pay that four and a dollars and confidence because against
Speaker 4: your insurance market prices, we don't see any fraud, there
Speaker 4: were any medical data breaches at this in the last year.
Speaker 4: Go ahead and pay that bill with confidence, or we
Speaker 4: flag it because the analytics are saying something's not right.
Speaker 4: The price is too much, the coding isn't matching up correctly,
Speaker 4: there's codes that it shouldn't shouldn't necessarily be in this
Speaker 4: and then of course you had to denial the benefits,
Speaker 4: and you know, we of course go through and supply
Speaker 4: the appeal for you do we do all the resolution
Speaker 4: and again that's where we get this. You know, sixty
Speaker 4: eight percent of the time we're successful in those appeals.
Speaker 4: So so health foc is really a one stop shop.
Speaker 4: We actually break it up into savings, control and privacy.
Speaker 4: So of course we want to save you money and
Speaker 4: that's where we're you know, every day we're seeing savings
Speaker 4: and again over this one hundred and thirty million dollars
Speaker 4: to date. But then it also controls right peace of mind.
Speaker 4: People don't have to go and call the doctor or
Speaker 4: the carrier, the billing company. They just need to look
Speaker 4: and see what health Fox says as far as verified
Speaker 4: or flag right. And so what we see from our
Speaker 4: folks is that they just wait for us to tell
Speaker 4: them when to pay. And that's what we meant about
Speaker 4: not paying the bill up front. Let health foc go
Speaker 4: ahead and go through it's potted and ensure that that
Speaker 4: transaction is accurate, correct, and fail, and then go ahead
Speaker 4: and pay the bill. And then we also have the
Speaker 4: only twenty four to seven monitoring of doctors and facilities
Speaker 4: and labs and so forth. For data breaches, hippo violations,
Speaker 4: malware attacks, and so you know, as this crime is increasing,
Speaker 4: we have solutions for medical identity theft. Obviously, we talked
Speaker 4: about the fraud, medical fraud and this monitoring of your
Speaker 4: privacy to ensure that your doctors are abiding abiding by
Speaker 4: HIPPA one hundred percent, and that's becoming a really important
Speaker 4: issue for folks. So privacy control in savings, that's what
Speaker 4: health foc delivers. And we've got some really nice you know, references,
Speaker 4: case studies and all those kinds of things. But people
Speaker 4: just love the fact that it gives them peace of mind.
Speaker 4: I just wait for health fac to tell me what
Speaker 4: to do.
Speaker 3: That's beautiful. There are two things in this life that
Speaker 3: I constantly say I wish someone else could do this
Speaker 3: for me. The first is cook. I want someone else
Speaker 3: to just cook all my by else for me, nutritious
Speaker 3: food that's and then fight all my battles, primarily with
Speaker 3: medicalels because it does take so much time, energy, stamina,
Speaker 3: know how time and I often bemoan how do people
Speaker 3: have time for this? How do they even know where
Speaker 3: to begin? And to have a resource like this that
Speaker 3: is doing a lot of that for you not just
Speaker 3: identifying it but also kind of getting into the weeds
Speaker 3: on how do we rectify it?
Speaker 4: Is amazing and yeah, it's been a great journey. So
Speaker 4: we started with the high net worth entertainment space. I
Speaker 4: started the company in Los Angeles and now in Nashville.
Speaker 4: We've got you know, offices Phoenix, Nashville, whatever it might be,
Speaker 4: Los Angeles, and we have thousands of actors, directors, producers.
Speaker 4: You know, let's say that high net worth folks that
Speaker 4: have been enjoying our services for years. You know, we've
Speaker 4: got names that everybody would know. We've saved ten twenty
Speaker 4: thousand men's one hundred thousand of our case. We just
Speaker 4: save someone over two hundred thousand dollars. Health loc is
Speaker 4: the ability to take this to the masses. And so
Speaker 4: with our relationship now with MasterCard and other third party
Speaker 4: you know, large names that are coming. We're now able
Speaker 4: to get this service out to the masses and for everybody,
Speaker 4: regardless of your economic status, to be able to be
Speaker 4: protected by health LOOC. And we use that word protected
Speaker 4: because we think if you're getting overcharged, that's that's a
Speaker 4: that's a that's a protection that you need somebody standing
Speaker 4: in the gap to make sure that your finances are protected.
Speaker 4: And yes, medical identity, theft and fraud and those kind
Speaker 4: of things we resolve as well, but we're there to
Speaker 4: protect your pocketbook. And so health foc for the masses
Speaker 4: now has been just really exciting and fulfilling.
Speaker 3: That's amazing. So how can people access it? If it
Speaker 3: is becoming more accessible for the masses? You mentioned MasterCard,
Speaker 3: Can you say more about that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, sure, so health doc dot com right, so, you know,
Speaker 4: health and at l ock dot com and you can
Speaker 4: have your account set up. It takes just a few minutes.
Speaker 4: We actually sink and download up to the last two
Speaker 4: years of your medical bills first from the carrier, and
Speaker 4: we'll verify all those. The analytics will go through and say, hey,
Speaker 4: you spent this month the last two years. That's an
Speaker 4: eye opener. A lot of folks don't really realize what
Speaker 4: they spent out of pocket. And then these are all
Speaker 4: the ones that were verified. Those were good to pay.
Speaker 4: But you've got some flags, and most people have flags.
Speaker 4: We actually send this really nice automated you know, forty
Speaker 4: five second video that says, now, hey, Jill, you had
Speaker 4: you know, twenty five claims that were in the system.
Speaker 4: We verified twenty of those five were flagged. Here's what
Speaker 4: the five flag are. Go ahead and would you like
Speaker 4: us to open up a case and so we can
Speaker 4: go backwards and recover lost money. It was very exciting
Speaker 4: for our foots.
Speaker 3: Yeah, love lost money finding it again.
Speaker 4: And then of course when you go to the doctor
Speaker 4: and you might forget about us, right, might be six months,
Speaker 4: twelve months down the road. Remember we're monitoring that automatically.
Speaker 4: So we tell you, hey, Jill, by the way, you
Speaker 4: to the doctor that five a dollar bill, verify pay it?
Speaker 4: Or Jen that thousand dollars bill we flagged it. You
Speaker 4: want us to try to lower it. So we're always
Speaker 4: behind the scenes looking out for you automatically. You're not
Speaker 4: taking a picture of your bill and sending it over
Speaker 4: to us. So I remember, I got this service called
Speaker 4: the health Flock that I'm paying for. Let me go
Speaker 4: ahead and send it in. Now, this is all automated
Speaker 4: and it's all there leveraging technology, so you can have
Speaker 4: your peace of mind. Dot Com now when you go there,
Speaker 4: give a master card. MasterCard just did a press release
Speaker 4: and we're now available to all sixty million MasterCard holders
Speaker 4: in the United States and you can go in. You
Speaker 4: get a freedom only ninety day trial, but you get
Speaker 4: fraud remediation protection and remediation for life. So if there's
Speaker 4: a bill like this balance bill, or some a billion
Speaker 4: company stole your information and used it to create bills
Speaker 4: and that ended up on your medical record, or a
Speaker 4: bill was produced that went unpaid because renewed existed and
Speaker 4: that ended up on your credit report, health doc takes
Speaker 4: care and resolves all that for you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and as a.
Speaker 4: Master Card cardholder, you get that benefit for life. So
Speaker 4: it's been a very very exciting relationship with us and
Speaker 4: a way for us to be able to now tell
Speaker 4: the masses. It's a solution out there for a very
Speaker 4: complex problem and it's really simple and easy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you just go literally, I'm on the website and
Speaker 1: if you are a master cardholder, you just put in
Speaker 1: and get it and you get that on and so
Speaker 1: if you have a master Card in your wallet, this
Speaker 1: is this is where to go. Right now, you already have.
Speaker 3: Healthlock searching for credit cards. This did help, This could
Speaker 3: help the discussion on that one.
Speaker 4: The master Card partner with health loc is they saw
Speaker 4: that there just isn't a really pervasive, ubiquitous healthcare service offering,
Speaker 4: and when they saw ours, they were just like, this
Speaker 4: is fantastic. They spent a year vetting us for security,
Speaker 4: all of our analytics, and then of course came out
Speaker 4: with work we're going with health flock, and now we're
Speaker 4: offering it to their sixty million cardiolders the United States,
Speaker 4: So it's very exciting for us.
Speaker 3: Peripheral question, do you have to have traditional medical insurance
Speaker 3: or would healthlock work with like a medical sharing plan?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Great, great question. So I've got a very good
Speaker 4: friend Gary who has a health share and he, you know,
Speaker 4: just normally waits for the health share to go ahead
Speaker 4: and either you know, tell him that it's okay to
Speaker 4: pay or he's responsible for those first dollars out and
Speaker 4: signed up for healthlock, and in his particular case of
Speaker 4: a health share, he did have to take a picture
Speaker 4: and submit it. We have that in our app. So
Speaker 4: if there's no carrier connection, we have almost three hundred
Speaker 4: carrier connections and there's about three hundred and ten I
Speaker 4: think total carriers, so we can automate the health shares.
Speaker 4: We're working on that automation. But you could say, did
Speaker 4: you hear that yeah, lightning. Oh wow, it's okay, there's
Speaker 4: just tornado warnings here. So for the health share or
Speaker 4: if you don't have insurance, you know, the people who
Speaker 4: don't have insurance are the most vulnerable. They've got no
Speaker 4: no coverage at all. So in that case, sign up
Speaker 4: for health falk. You can't automatically connect in because you
Speaker 4: don't have insurance or have else share, but you can
Speaker 4: still take a picture that invoice, send it in to
Speaker 4: us and we'll do the same audit. And Gary saved
Speaker 4: thirty five hundred dollars and so that was really exciting
Speaker 4: and it really opened up the health share world to
Speaker 4: us that we think is very important.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. You know what else is opening up worlds.
Speaker 3: And is super important and usually is done for us,
Speaker 3: which is my favorite. Yeah, the mill of the week.
Speaker 2: That's right, it's time for the best minute of your
Speaker 2: entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name
Speaker 2: is Williams. Maybe you paid off your mortgage, maybe your
Speaker 2: car died and you're happy to not have to pay
Speaker 2: that bill anymore. That's bills, Buffalo bills, Bill Clinton, this
Speaker 2: is the bill of the week.
Speaker 4: Well, we better her even get to the bill. The
Speaker 4: week because the lights are about to go out of there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, god, it really quickly. Every week we
Speaker 1: invite our guests and we yell at them and ask
Speaker 1: them to share their bill with us, and we can't
Speaker 1: wait to hear yours.
Speaker 4: Well, So I was thinking about this, and there's a
Speaker 4: gal that's thirty six years old named Jessica, and she,
Speaker 4: you know, very healthy, really had never had a big occurrence,
Speaker 4: had a little bit of you know something on her
Speaker 4: head when the doctor said, the insurance is going to
Speaker 4: take care of it, and of course she got a
Speaker 4: thirty five, three thousand dollars balance bill and hell flock
Speaker 4: of course flagged it. And by the way, it wasn't
Speaker 4: just the fact that she got that bill. That's a
Speaker 4: big bill for her. So in her income bracket, three
Speaker 4: thousand dollars of unplanned expense was a big bill. And
Speaker 4: so her panic first time really experiencing the healthcare system. Obviously,
Speaker 4: now she's getting married and she's going to experience with
Speaker 4: kids the true healthcare system, but for her it was
Speaker 4: that first time. And so I can't tell you how
Speaker 4: happy she was because she had health walk and we
Speaker 4: resolved that issue for her because it was an unfair
Speaker 4: balance bill went to zero and she couldn't be more happy. So,
Speaker 4: Jessica's thirty six years old, you know, just starting a
Speaker 4: family health doc obviously provided that benefit for her. As
Speaker 4: you go into more care, unfortunately, you are going to
Speaker 4: get that magical word bill and health DOOC can help
Speaker 4: you with aull your bills.
Speaker 3: That's beautiful, that's great, just really helping people and then
Speaker 3: plugging healthlock. I mean, well done, Scott, well done. If
Speaker 3: you all, if you all listening, have a bill that
Speaker 3: you want to submit, If you're like Jessica who didn't
Speaker 3: end up needing to pay her medical bill anymore because
Speaker 3: of resources available to her, or your name is Bill
Speaker 3: and you're just out here living life, call Local Friends
Speaker 3: podcast dot com slash Bill, leave us your bill, and
Speaker 3: now it's time for the lightning around.
Speaker 4: Pow boy with perfect lightning happening.
Speaker 1: I know we should have just waited for the lightning
Speaker 1: in the background.
Speaker 4: Oh it's gone, it's coming, all right.
Speaker 1: So Scott, this is our vulnerability round and we want
Speaker 1: to know. We're all going to answer have you been
Speaker 1: over billed? And what ye was it? Or what did
Speaker 1: you do about it?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Sorry, of course we get that. We had the
Speaker 4: twins with the sonograms where we got balance build every time.
Speaker 4: As you know, you know, I'm only thirty five, but
Speaker 4: I look fifty, so of course, you know, I've always
Speaker 4: got something happening, and I'm extically fifty, you know. So
Speaker 4: I actually went in for a dental appointment. Dentists are
Speaker 4: wonderful people, and you don't get much benefit. And there's
Speaker 4: something big, which is your dentist not submitting the bill
Speaker 4: the claim to your insurance, your dental insurance, because they
Speaker 4: want maximum dollars. They don't want, you know, five hundred
Speaker 4: dollars for that crown, they want fifteen hundred dollars for
Speaker 4: that crown. And so it was, oh, you know, here's
Speaker 4: your bill, and we're like, wow, you know, hell Fox
Speaker 4: said this. This doesn't look right because it's the same
Speaker 4: price as the bill. Oh, we forgot to submit it
Speaker 4: to insurance. So that was my latest was a dental bill.
Speaker 1: Actually wow we forgot Yeah for good wow, yep.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 3: Jill. So I am the person who calls ahead of time. Thankfully,
Speaker 3: I have not yet had an experience of an emergency
Speaker 3: in my adulthood, at least, or I've been surprised by
Speaker 3: a bill. I am very very diligent to shop around,
Speaker 3: get good faith estimates and make sure that the bills
Speaker 3: are in line with the good faith estimate. But that
Speaker 3: did happen to me recently where I was quoted something astronomical.
Speaker 3: I had to have a procedure done that required anesthesia
Speaker 3: that was going to be done in the hospital, and
Speaker 3: the hospital just for the hospital component. Because through this
Speaker 3: process I learned the hospital bills separate from anesthesia bill,
Speaker 3: separate from surgeon, and none of them know what each
Speaker 3: other's going to bill. They're all totally on different islands,
Speaker 3: so three different places you have to call, and just
Speaker 3: the hospital just to rent their room for an hour
Speaker 3: was going to try and charge me thirty three thousand
Speaker 3: dollars and that just sounded like way too much for
Speaker 3: a fifteen minute procedure. So I ended up being able
Speaker 3: to shop around and find a place that would only
Speaker 3: charge twenty five hundred dollars for the hour to rent.
Speaker 3: That that's my story of how I handled the possible
Speaker 3: over bill or what I would have deemed too large
Speaker 3: a bill.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so worth it to call it is. This
Speaker 1: is one of those things where it is worth it.
Speaker 1: If you don't have time to call and negotiate your phone,
Speaker 1: your internet, your insurance, this is this is worth the money.
Speaker 3: I think of the time, it was shocking to be
Speaker 3: and you pointed this out already, Scott. How how much
Speaker 3: of a disparity there can be even within a geographic
Speaker 3: location on pricing. I mean these these places were ten
Speaker 3: miles away from each other. One wanted thirty three thousand,
Speaker 3: another wanted twenty five hundred. So yeah, I mean you
Speaker 3: can shop around. It's not just one price everywhere.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Unfortunately, Jill, that's just common. It is in you know,
Speaker 4: there's sometimes there's good reasons for that and sometimes there aren't.
Speaker 4: And that's the quality choice. Right, So we're talking about price.
Speaker 4: You may have wanted debt thirty three thousand. Maybe it
Speaker 4: was open heart surgery you're going to have, and it's like,
Speaker 4: you know, I'll pay for that, right.
Speaker 3: Open heart searcher.
Speaker 1: Out and I want Tom.
Speaker 4: In and out with AI these days?
Speaker 3: Right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, for me, I was Bill, Well, my son was
Speaker 1: billed accidentally for a test they were testing for RSV,
Speaker 1: not for flu. We already knew he did not have flu,
Speaker 1: but when they were running the test. They accidentally ran
Speaker 1: both because it's just like common. So when they gave
Speaker 1: me the results of the tests that were negative, they said,
Speaker 1: oh and we all so we also tested for flu. Uh,
Speaker 1: We're not going to make you pay for it. That
Speaker 1: was an accident on their part. So I get the bill,
Speaker 1: and the bill the test for the flu test is
Speaker 1: on there, so I just like go and I'm in
Speaker 1: the office for a visit and billing is right there,
Speaker 1: so it was really easy. She just came out and
Speaker 1: was I was like, hey, they told me that they
Speaker 1: weren't going to bill for this, that it was the
Speaker 1: test was an accident, and she's like okay, So she
Speaker 1: took it off and I didn't have to pay for it.
Speaker 1: So that one was very easy. But it came because
Speaker 1: I paid attention to the itemized bill because instead of
Speaker 1: just paying it, so like Scott, when you say don't
Speaker 1: pay up front or don't pay without like taking a
Speaker 1: look at stuff, like, don't do it. When we we
Speaker 1: had to get tubes in Alice's ears, they wanted me
Speaker 1: to pay a thousand dollars up front and I'm like no,
Speaker 1: and she's like, oh, okay, how much can you pay?
Speaker 1: And I was like, I will pay five hundred because
Speaker 1: I that's that's what I want to pay. And they
Speaker 1: were and they there was nothing they could do, so
Speaker 1: that's all I paid. So you have, especially with a
Speaker 1: system that this this flippy floppy with pricing.
Speaker 3: Yeahpy flippy flappy. That's our take on medical yea in
Speaker 3: the United States.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, Scott, thank you so much for coming
Speaker 1: on before the tornado comes for you. Can you tell
Speaker 1: us where where to get more information on healthlock.
Speaker 4: Yeah again healthalk dot com. Obviously we're on all the
Speaker 4: social media as well, but health doc dot com really
Speaker 4: has has got videos on there, people with their testimonials.
Speaker 4: It's got some, you know, easy to understand videos of
Speaker 4: how the process works and privacy control and savings. The
Speaker 4: The onboarding takes us a few minutes and uh, hey,
Speaker 4: let's go see if we can find you some lost money.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 3: Perfect, Thanks so much, Scott.
Speaker 4: Thank you guys, really appreciate it. Thanks Jael, Thanks Jen.
Speaker 1: All right, sweet, thank you so much. That was really great.
Speaker 1: And after we got off of recording with Scott, he
Speaker 1: also said, because I had mention like this and like
Speaker 1: identity theft, like if your identity gets stolen, like reclaiming
Speaker 1: it will take you days of your life, just like
Speaker 1: negotiating over billing days of your life. Those are the
Speaker 1: two resources that really might be worth your money to
Speaker 1: pay for services that do that for you. And he
Speaker 1: said that, and I didn't know this. Healthoc actually has
Speaker 1: a you can add on to it. Their premium service
Speaker 1: thirty bucks a month, and it includes financial theft protection
Speaker 1: like that, which is cheaper than all the other places
Speaker 1: that do that for you. And I think MasterCard users
Speaker 1: get a free ninety day trial of that premium service,
Speaker 1: so double check they get a ninety day free of
Speaker 1: some kind of premium offer in addition to the general
Speaker 1: free service that all MasterCard users get.
Speaker 3: There's not a lot of subscriptions that I'm out here
Speaker 3: think and we should all be having, but ones that
Speaker 3: save you thousands of dollars. Yeah, and hours of time
Speaker 3: with very real potential risks. Yeah, it is some peace
Speaker 3: of mind for sure. Yeah. We're not even we're not
Speaker 3: sponsored them.
Speaker 1: After we got off the call, we're like, should we
Speaker 1: be having them give us money?
Speaker 3: Like because they're not. And I was like, should we ask?
Speaker 3: We're not very good at that, We're not, So you
Speaker 3: just truly believe in bringing you products and services that
Speaker 3: are gonna be helpful to you. And this one we
Speaker 3: do genuinely believe in, which we think helps bring you
Speaker 3: more authentic content. We just are gonna have to figure
Speaker 3: out how to.
Speaker 1: Get we can. Yeah, well this this book is available
Speaker 1: for pre orders. So and so we're gonna we're gonna
Speaker 1: really need some people to show up. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening.
Speaker 3: Yes, and we love reading your reviews. That is a
Speaker 3: way that you can support us. Again, not monetarily, just
Speaker 3: like right us. We're gonna even.
Speaker 1: Pay some bills eventually.
Speaker 3: That helps. But we like this one from Canadian les
Speaker 3: LETTI you will not be bored saving money. Sounds boring, right,
Speaker 3: Not true. The Frugal Friends podcast turns financial responsibility into
Speaker 3: something that is fun. So often I am trying to
Speaker 3: find podcasts about personal finance and can't bear to make
Speaker 3: myself listen to the whole thing as it's so boring.
Speaker 3: The Frugal Friends podcast is so fun and makes me
Speaker 3: laugh all while learning new ways to be a better
Speaker 3: steward of my money. And I feel like I have
Speaker 3: two new friends. Thanks guys for everything. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: Kadians Canadian los LETTI. We are your friends. Thank you.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad that we're not boring you, that you're
Speaker 3: listening and leaving reviews. If you also feel not bored
Speaker 3: and do you enjoy listening, leave us, leave us a review.
Speaker 3: It does help us and it doesn't cost you money.
Speaker 1: Yes, we'll see you next time. By Friends is produced
Speaker 1: by Eric Sirianni.
Speaker 3: Jen. This has nothing to do with the podcast episode Fantastic.
Speaker 3: So I went on a deep cleaning ram page recently,
Speaker 3: typical as one does and normal. One of the things
Speaker 3: that I decided to clean because I haven't in a
Speaker 3: couple of years, is the very thick mattress pad that
Speaker 3: we have because when we first bought a mattress, I
Speaker 3: found it to be not very comfy, and rather than
Speaker 3: getting a totally new mattress, I got a thick mattress
Speaker 3: pad to put on top of it. But it cannot
Speaker 3: fit in our washing machine. So I finally decided, even
Speaker 3: though it's quite cumbersome and annoying and time consuming to do,
Speaker 3: to take it to the laundrymat to wash it. So
Speaker 3: we did that and then Eric put it in that
Speaker 3: he was responsible for like finishing up drying it and
Speaker 3: bringing it back home. So he did that and thought
Speaker 3: it was just damp, so he brought it home, thinking,
Speaker 3: I don't need to put it into the dryer at
Speaker 3: the laundry maat one more time. It's just a little damp.
Speaker 3: We'll let it dry out at home. So we did.
Speaker 3: We laid it all out, and by the time we're
Speaker 3: ready for bed, still not quite dry. So then we're like, well,
Speaker 3: maybe we could shove it into our dryer for just
Speaker 3: like a couple of minutes, because while it couldn't fit
Speaker 3: into our washing machine, it could fit into our dryer.
Speaker 3: So we do that, and then I start to smell something. No, yeah,
Speaker 3: it was still too bulky, and there is a heating
Speaker 3: element in our dryer. Our dryer's pretty old, so it
Speaker 3: got too shoved and pressed up against the heating element
Speaker 3: that it started to burn it. I quickly removed it.
Speaker 3: It was only in for about five minutes. And now
Speaker 3: me wanting everything to be clean and nice and take
Speaker 3: care of my stuff because that's the good thing to
Speaker 3: do and that's the way we do things. Now leans
Speaker 3: me with this like scrunched up spot because like it
Speaker 3: kind of melted the fibers.
Speaker 1: Where it is the spot it's it's.
Speaker 3: On my side of the bed, but kind of like
Speaker 3: lower and off to the left, like my left thigh
Speaker 3: would potentially be touching it. But I did put the
Speaker 3: sheets back on, and I can't notice it. It's not
Speaker 3: perceivable to my body. But man, was that frustrating because
Speaker 3: here I am trying to wash something make it last longer,
Speaker 3: and I kind of ruined it but didn't ruin it
Speaker 3: enough to have to buy something new, and thankfully I
Speaker 3: can just cover it up with a sheet. But I
Speaker 3: just changed my sheets again recently, and it's this like
Speaker 3: reminder of my effort to take care of things and
Speaker 3: it not going well, but not giving myself permission to
Speaker 3: just replace it because it doesn't actually need to be replaced,
Speaker 3: and it's a decent practice for me. I don't love it,
Speaker 3: but this like living and imperfection and being content with
Speaker 3: my failures and living with them. It's like this deep
Speaker 3: rooted metaphor for wow, every time I change my sheets,
Speaker 3: and it really does bother mood, but we're going to
Speaker 3: live with it.
Speaker 1: Everything in your house is so pristine and sterile. I'm
Speaker 1: so now you know it's not.
Speaker 3: I've got a dirty little secret. And it looks dirty.
Speaker 3: It looks like this brown smudge used fibers.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 3: I'm so sorry. Are you sorry or do you love it?
Speaker 3: You are beaming over here?
Speaker 1: Do you hate it for you?
Speaker 3: Ah? Wow