Episode 4: Never Stress Over Medical Bills Again: Class is In Session with Marshall Allen (Part 2)

Healthcare Solutions

Tune in for part 2 of the conversation with investigative healthcare journalist Marshall Allen and Cristy Gupton in the world of medical bills and Marshall’s path through the industry

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

02:25 On last week's episode

03:00 Marshall's new book "Never Pay the First Bill: and other ways to fight the healthcare system and win" will be available June 22 (earlier than expected)! It's a step-by-step guide to coaching employees on how to save money in today's confusing and opaque healthcare system.

03:45 Introducing Professor Allen! Now conducting employee education meetings for your employees who have a vested interest in keeping your health plan sustainable for decades to come.

04:52 Remember, health plan dollars are ALL employee dollars! That's why there's a fiduciary duty in the first place. We need "woke" employers. If employers don't wake up, Marshall's book can at least help employees.

07:45 Since healthcare is considered employee money, employees will need to go through their own awakening. Employees will need to learn how paying reasonable charges for healthcare is helping them on all levels.

09:29 Dr. Eric Bricker, get to know his daily video teachings at AHealthcareZ, he describes our healthcare system as a national crisis and calls out price gouging.

10:44 The government is not going to help change the healthcare system. We're on our own and that's OK. Marshall's book helps us learn how to fix our own problems.

11:18 One in six Americans are dealing with medical debt collectors which is shameful since we spend twice as much as most other countries.

12:30 The supercharged, overly inflated starting prices only exist to game the system and let's not mince words...that's dishonest! and it's discriminatory!

14:00 Why do we accept the age discrimination of charging more to employees with health insurance more than what's charged to Medicare patients

14:15 Marilyn Bartlett's new work with NASHP is giving states a Medicare cost analysis so that they can see that a hospital's medicare revenue is adequately covering their costs (not that they want you to know that).

14:47 A local hospital's director of managed care even admitted to me that they rely on employer-sponsored plans to cover what they report as their loss on Medicare business. Truth is, they make plenty of money on Medicare and they way they gouge employers for the same services needs to be exposed.

15:30 Medicare rates are established in the first place by hospitals who self-report what it costs them to do a procedure. Using the NASHP hospital cost tool local communities can hold their hospital accountable for what they are charging.

17:43 The real payers--the employers in those communities can use that tool to establish prospective cost agreements with their local hospitals about what their employees will be charged if they seek care locally.

18:35 Does Marshall Allen ever lose? Does he have to give up without getting the story?

20:30 BUT! One story Marshall wrote about ended up influencing lawmakers and has fingerprints on the last major piece of legislation from the Trump Administration--The Consolidated Appropriations Act. Among other things, it requires insurance brokers to disclose their compensation to their clients.

24:30 Disclosing my revenue to my clients is not a new thing for me (I've been doing it since 2017), but now that it's required I'm thinking of it as a new opportunity to show my clients the expense side of my balance sheet; thereby showing them how I reinvest the revenue I earn into the services that help their health plan operate more efficiently than others.

27:27 What's a day in the life of Marshall Allen?

29:50 Go to www.marshallallen.com and place a bulk order for his employee education series that goes along with his new book.

31:14 Connect with Marshall on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter

31:40 Thank you! #letsfixhealthcare, www.custombenefits.work