Latest / Get Real with Jim Weiss / Family Reach, with CEO Carla Tardif and Iron Chef Ming Tsai

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Family Reach, with CEO Carla Tardif and Iron Chef Ming Tsai · Get Real with Jim Weiss

0:09
Speaker 1: I'm Jim Weiss, chairman and founder of Real Chemistry, and
0:12
Speaker 1: this is the Get Real with the Chairman podcast. In
0:19
Speaker 1: this episode, I'm speaking with Karla Tardi, CEO of Family
0:23
Speaker 1: Reach and iron Chef ming PSI, founder of Mings Bang's
0:27
Speaker 1: TV host and restaurant tour, who is also an active
0:31
Speaker 1: member of their board. Family Reach provides financial assistance to
0:35
Speaker 1: families facing cancer by covering costs such as rent, mortgage, utilities,
0:41
Speaker 1: and transportation. They're committed to building a healthcare system where
0:45
Speaker 1: no family must choose between health and home. Carla, who's
0:49
Speaker 1: also a Syracuse alum just like me, is a two
0:53
Speaker 1: time breast cancer survivor member of the White House Cancer Moonshot.
0:58
Speaker 1: Under her leadership, Family Reach has grown its network from
1:02
Speaker 1: five East Coast hospital partnerships some more than one thousand
1:05
Speaker 1: top tier partnerships nationwide.
1:08
Speaker 2: Maine has raised over eleven.
1:10
Speaker 1: Million dollars for them to date, and is the host
1:13
Speaker 1: of their signature then Cooking Live, which occurred in May
1:17
Speaker 1: in Boston.
1:18
Speaker 2: I'm honored to share their commitment to making an.
1:20
Speaker 1: Impact on the lives of those affected by cancer with
1:24
Speaker 1: my audience.
1:26
Speaker 2: So thanks for doing this with me.
1:28
Speaker 1: We'll see on your website, Carl, I read one in
1:31
Speaker 1: three families can't afford their basic needs during cancer treatment.
1:36
Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about what is family Reach
1:40
Speaker 1: and when and how did it start.
1:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, so family Reach has been around for twenty eight
1:43
Speaker 3: years addressing health equity and Jim. As you know, twenty
1:47
Speaker 3: eight years ago, ten years ago, health equity weren't even
1:50
Speaker 3: in the same sentence together. So I'm here to say
1:53
Speaker 3: this is not a new problem. We've been doing this
1:55
Speaker 3: for almost three decades. And the reality it's math. People
1:59
Speaker 3: are diagnosed with cancer, people have jobs, many living paycheck
2:03
Speaker 3: to paycheck. People have families and busy lives. People have
2:08
Speaker 3: bills coming into their home every month, just like you
2:11
Speaker 3: and I. But when cancer strikes the family, work often
2:15
Speaker 3: stops and so does the income. So families really quickly
2:19
Speaker 3: financially get upside down. So now they're making really difficult choices.
2:24
Speaker 3: Do I put gas in the car or food on
2:26
Speaker 3: the table. This is health equity at ground zero. So
2:30
Speaker 3: it started twenty years ago in New Jersey by two
2:32
Speaker 3: families who lost a child to cancer, the Morellos and
2:36
Speaker 3: the Colangelos, and they saw firsthand what other families were
2:39
Speaker 3: going through when their children passed, they started family reaching
2:42
Speaker 3: honor of their children.
2:44
Speaker 4: I made it her able to tell you a story
2:45
Speaker 4: about Carla, which is why I've been with her for
2:47
Speaker 4: so long. She's so inspiring, the reason she even got involved.
2:51
Speaker 4: And she will never tell the story, but I will.
2:53
Speaker 4: She went to Syracuse. You know, you know Pat Kelly.
2:56
Speaker 4: Kelly played for Syracuse, and unfortunately he drew the cancer,
3:00
Speaker 4: our terminal brain cancer. And while he's in the hospital dying,
3:04
Speaker 4: he still did the NFL pro amazing speed of going
3:08
Speaker 4: to and cheering up the kids and visiting other people
3:11
Speaker 4: in the hospital like NFL players do right. Pro athletes
3:14
Speaker 4: do that. And the only thing he heard all the
3:17
Speaker 4: families discussing was not the cancer and the treatment of
3:19
Speaker 4: the doctor. Is our cars in the garage. We can't
3:22
Speaker 4: get it out, people fighting over the vending machine. What
3:25
Speaker 4: food can we afford?
3:26
Speaker 5: I have a need.
3:27
Speaker 4: We have two kids at any There's all about the
3:30
Speaker 4: financial strife and challenges of being in the hospital, and
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Speaker 4: literally on his deathbed, made Carla promise, you have to
3:38
Speaker 4: find the solution to this problem. It is not fair
3:42
Speaker 4: that people that don't have money have a less chance
3:44
Speaker 4: of survival. It's nothing about the hospital, the treatment, the drugs,
3:48
Speaker 4: it's all about the money. And she did I've never
3:51
Speaker 4: made a death beat promise. I don't know you had, Jim,
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Speaker 4: but she made a deathbed promise with no idea how
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Speaker 4: she's going to solve it.
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Speaker 5: She's like, Pat, I got you, I'm going to solve
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Speaker 5: this problem.
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Speaker 4: And literally for almost two years was it a year
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Speaker 4: and a half she had Pat's picture on her desk
4:05
Speaker 4: and then luckily came across Family Reach and there was
4:09
Speaker 4: a solution. When I met her, she was the only
4:11
Speaker 4: employee of Family Reach team of one and now she's here.
4:15
Speaker 1: Carlo, maybe you can talk a little bit about where
4:18
Speaker 1: things went from there. What are the financial education advocacy
4:22
Speaker 1: initiatives of the organization, and what are the famili's basic
4:25
Speaker 1: needs that you're addressing as they deal with cancer.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, so Family Rich when I first joined, was working
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Speaker 6: with three hospitals. So we've partnered with hospitals and the
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Speaker 6: oncology social workers have access to Family Reach where they're
4:40
Speaker 6: getting a financial guidebook to help the social worker even
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Speaker 6: broke the conversation about finances and basic needs and we
4:47
Speaker 6: need to make talking.
4:49
Speaker 3: About your finances normal. There's a lot of shame, and
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Speaker 3: there's a lot of fear, so patients say nothing, especially
4:56
Speaker 3: in the healthcare system, afraid it is going to affect
4:59
Speaker 3: their treatment. And one thing we really have leaned into
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Speaker 3: is financial education and financial literacy, training healthcare providers on
5:06
Speaker 3: how to talk about it, how often to talk about it.
5:09
Speaker 3: But in the beginning, we were just stepping in to
5:12
Speaker 3: meet basic needs. We are focused on housing, food, transportation
5:17
Speaker 3: utilities like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, so that a family's
5:21
Speaker 3: basic needs are being met so that they can actually
5:25
Speaker 3: focus on cancer care. We would step in with emergency
5:28
Speaker 3: financial assistance. Pay a rent, pay a mortgage, look gas
5:32
Speaker 3: in the car, food on the table, fix a car
5:34
Speaker 3: that had broken down, so they could continue to access care.
5:37
Speaker 3: One out of three patients can't meet their basic needs.
5:40
Speaker 3: There's one point nine million new cancer diagnoses every year.
5:43
Speaker 3: That's almost nine hundred thousand patients that their chance of
5:46
Speaker 3: survival is dramatically lower. There's not enough emergency financial funds
5:52
Speaker 3: to solve that problem. So we really leaned into resource
5:55
Speaker 3: navigation and plugging patients into resources for basic needs that
6:01
Speaker 3: already exist, snap benefits, utility emergency relief funds, food delivery programs,
6:07
Speaker 3: food banks. How can we make sure they have those
6:09
Speaker 3: basic needs so that they don't hit these crises, these
6:14
Speaker 3: breaking points that Ming was alluding to. So we've really
6:17
Speaker 3: evolved from being just emergency financial assistance in three hospitals,
6:22
Speaker 3: two full financial intervention, education, resource navigation, and emergency financial
6:29
Speaker 3: assistance with over one thousand healthcare providers across the country.
6:33
Speaker 1: For a typical family reach engagement, what's the age, the race,
6:37
Speaker 1: the income, the type of cancer? Is that something we
6:40
Speaker 1: can even do better?
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Speaker 3: Targeting love that question because it's that question is driving
6:46
Speaker 3: my strategy of growth. And first of all, we're all cancers,
6:50
Speaker 3: all ages, all over the United States. We used to
6:54
Speaker 3: just be pediatrics, so again that scope has scaled as well.
6:58
Speaker 3: But we used to just get patients referred to us
7:03
Speaker 3: through hospitals. We had partnerships with hospitals, We launched a website.
7:07
Speaker 3: More patients come to us through our website than they
7:11
Speaker 3: do through over a thousand hospitals, which really leans into
7:15
Speaker 3: that trust issue being afraid to talk about it in
7:19
Speaker 3: the healthcare setting. I'm going to give you one example.
7:22
Speaker 3: I was in Florida and I was shadowing a pediatric
7:25
Speaker 3: oncologist and she said, I've got a seven year old
7:28
Speaker 3: boy with brain cancer. We're gonna go visit him. She
7:31
Speaker 3: takes me to show me the MRI. The tumor is growing.
7:33
Speaker 3: He's already had surgery, he's already at radiation, he's already
7:36
Speaker 3: had chemo. He needed another surgery. So we go into
7:39
Speaker 3: the room, this tiny little exam room, this seven year
7:43
Speaker 3: old boy with down syndrome, sitting on his dad's lap, squirming, fussing,
7:47
Speaker 3: the doctors delivering the news that the cancer is growing.
7:50
Speaker 3: And the mom says, I'm so sorry. We left the
7:53
Speaker 3: house at four o'clock in the morning because we live
7:55
Speaker 3: five hours away. He's exhausted. But the doctor doesn't hear this,
7:59
Speaker 3: not her f Oh, she wants to cure this little boy.
8:02
Speaker 3: And then she said, he needs another surgery. I have
8:05
Speaker 3: the surgical team on the third floor. You're gonna leave
8:07
Speaker 3: here and go to the third floor. He needs another
8:09
Speaker 3: surgery to save his life. And the dad asks, how
8:12
Speaker 3: long is this going to take? We have two little
8:14
Speaker 3: girls that get off the school bus, and how much
8:16
Speaker 3: more time do I have to take off from work
8:18
Speaker 3: because I'm out of paid time off. The doctor said,
8:20
Speaker 3: I have the best of the best on the third
8:22
Speaker 3: floor go And when we walked out of that room,
8:25
Speaker 3: I said, no disrespect. They're not going to the third floor.
8:29
Speaker 3: They have to go pick up two little girls. They
8:30
Speaker 3: have a five hour drive. They got to pick their
8:32
Speaker 3: two little girls up off the side of the street.
8:34
Speaker 3: And she looked at me and said, what are you
8:35
Speaker 3: talking about. This boy will die. They didn't go. They
8:39
Speaker 3: had to leave. They had like life right, They had
8:42
Speaker 3: to take care of their family first. This is where
8:45
Speaker 3: that intersection of seeing patients as people in the healthcare
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Speaker 3: system is so important. But it's such an uphill battle
8:52
Speaker 3: because they're so focused on the cancer. Knowing that we're
8:56
Speaker 3: not reaching the most vulnerable population in the healthcare and
9:00
Speaker 3: knowing more patients are comfortable because of the trust factor
9:03
Speaker 3: coming to us directly. Family Reach is starting to partner
9:07
Speaker 3: with community nonprofit organizations across the country, so we literally
9:11
Speaker 3: have a heat map where we can see where the
9:13
Speaker 3: most vulnerable populations are, where the highest cancer mortality rates are,
9:17
Speaker 3: most of them in Black, Hispanic and Latino communities, and
9:20
Speaker 3: we're forming partnerships with organizations entrenched in those communities so
9:24
Speaker 3: they can deliver our financial interventions, so they can talk
9:28
Speaker 3: to patients and make sure that they have their basic
9:31
Speaker 3: needs met, and that is where we're going to move
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Speaker 3: the needle on health equity. We've even put a family
9:37
Speaker 3: reach navigator into a community cancer center to work with
9:41
Speaker 3: the healthcare providers, to sit in the infusion rooms, to
9:44
Speaker 3: sit in the waiting rooms, to really try to make
9:46
Speaker 3: financial health a part of the healthcare team. It's a
9:50
Speaker 3: steep clim.
9:52
Speaker 1: You mentioned partnerships, and I have a good friend and
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Speaker 1: colleague that I've had on the podcast Karen Knits and
9:57
Speaker 1: at American Cancer Society.
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Speaker 2: How do you you work with them?
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Speaker 3: We recently partnered with the American Cancer Society. They literally
10:04
Speaker 3: called us in December, and this was around their efforts
10:07
Speaker 3: to diversify clinical trials. We know that trust is a
10:11
Speaker 3: major factor for clinical trials for a diverse population and
10:16
Speaker 3: financial barriers. So American Cancer Society gave us funds to say,
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Speaker 3: let's see if you can help us with our goal
10:24
Speaker 3: to get a diverse population into clinical trials. We had
10:27
Speaker 3: three weeks to spend four hundred thousand dollars in to
10:30
Speaker 3: find these patients. We did that. As you can imagine
10:33
Speaker 3: that it was not hard to spend that money and
10:37
Speaker 3: through our community partners through some of our hospital partners,
10:40
Speaker 3: we will dabor to get about two hundred and thirty
10:43
Speaker 3: two patients onto clinical trials. Sixty percent of them were black,
10:48
Speaker 3: Hispanic or Latina. Many of them we found were accepted
10:51
Speaker 3: to a trial, didn't trust it or financially couldn't afford it.
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Speaker 3: Some were on a clinical trial, but we're opting out
10:58
Speaker 3: because of finances. So we're really honing in with partners
11:02
Speaker 3: like American Cancer Society to say, how do our basic
11:06
Speaker 3: need interventions help you achieve your goals?
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Speaker 1: So, men, can you share the story behind how you
11:14
Speaker 1: got involved and stayed involved for a decade And we've
11:18
Speaker 1: talked about the healing power of food. How has your
11:21
Speaker 1: culinary background influenced your approach here?
11:24
Speaker 2: What's the magic of this partnership?
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Speaker 4: Up until meeting Carla and then meeting these families, there
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Speaker 4: was a reality I'm like, wait a minute, this kid
11:32
Speaker 4: will die.
11:32
Speaker 5: He doesn't have an apartment.
11:34
Speaker 4: And that was plenty to inspire me that I need
11:38
Speaker 4: and want to help this foundation and get them a
11:41
Speaker 4: national platform.
11:42
Speaker 5: And I've always said this and will to my grave.
11:45
Speaker 4: Food brings people together and that's really why I created
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Speaker 4: Cooking Live I wanted to bring people like mindus that
11:51
Speaker 4: want to help. But honestly, every time we do a
11:54
Speaker 4: cooking live, it's anywhere between one and two hundred people.
11:56
Speaker 4: Half of the people have their aha moment. They're like
12:00
Speaker 4: a lot of that. And I've been through it. Unfortunately,
12:02
Speaker 4: my wife is dealing with it now. I've got a
12:04
Speaker 4: cancer survivor. Carlo is a double cancer survivor. If we
12:07
Speaker 4: didn't have the funds, it's just it really drove it home.
12:09
Speaker 4: And I think one of the things that's so inspiring
12:11
Speaker 4: about Carlo, it's not just people, but let's make FARMA
12:14
Speaker 4: aware of this because if Farmer realizes people aren't getting
12:18
Speaker 4: to the clinic to keep the trials going, and then
12:22
Speaker 4: the efficacy of that trial is no good because they
12:24
Speaker 4: missed thirty percent of their trials. Let's get them there
12:28
Speaker 4: and that comes with extra money for the food and
12:30
Speaker 4: the transportation. And not everyone lives in Boston. I live
12:33
Speaker 4: in Boston. I have five places I can go to.
12:35
Speaker 4: Most people don't have that. I know that we can
12:38
Speaker 4: one raise money and I'm so proud. I've seen the
12:41
Speaker 4: growth of not only families, but Carla just how this
12:44
Speaker 4: is grown into a national president that. I don't know
12:47
Speaker 4: if you know that she's part of the President Biden's
12:49
Speaker 4: moonshob program. Family reach has been there and it's part
12:52
Speaker 4: of it, and it's really now to a point that
12:54
Speaker 4: people are all having the alaha moment and thank god
12:58
Speaker 4: Farma is having it as well, because they have one
13:01
Speaker 4: job show their drugs are they're really good.
13:04
Speaker 5: And people have to take it every day to show that.
13:08
Speaker 4: Then once you hear these family stories, you're just like,
13:11
Speaker 4: oh my god, how could I not. The stat that
13:13
Speaker 4: I hate to hear is more than half the husband's
13:18
Speaker 4: lead the family where there's a cancer diagnosis and the
13:21
Speaker 4: failure with the child. I know it's the financial challenges
13:24
Speaker 4: that compound that problem. So for me, it's really I'm
13:27
Speaker 4: honored that I ever got to meet Carla and get
13:30
Speaker 4: to really use food as a way to bring people together.
13:33
Speaker 4: And you are absolutely right, Jim. The other side of
13:35
Speaker 4: the coin is you are what you eat one percent,
13:39
Speaker 4: and if you eat double double animal style five times
13:41
Speaker 4: a day, you're going to have an issue with your health.
13:43
Speaker 5: It's easier for me to stand on the pedals.
13:45
Speaker 4: So let's say you family, you should get organic carrots
13:47
Speaker 4: and chicken and do and do that.
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Speaker 2: They don't have the pots and pans, they don't have
13:50
Speaker 2: any of that.
13:51
Speaker 4: So one of my ultimate goals, unfortunately with my company,
13:54
Speaker 4: Mings Bangs, is working with the large true companies, the
13:57
Speaker 4: nest Leis of the world, those guys, because they want
14:00
Speaker 4: to help.
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Speaker 5: They would love.
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Speaker 4: To be able to deliver food that's ready to go
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Speaker 4: to these families dealing with cancer and dealing with all diseases.
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Speaker 5: That's what they really need.
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Speaker 4: They need to check that box off that I don't
14:11
Speaker 4: worry about my family being hungry. That could focus on
14:14
Speaker 4: my child that's sick, or my wife or my husband
14:16
Speaker 4: that's sick.
14:16
Speaker 1: So what are some of the most memorable moments or
14:19
Speaker 1: experiences you've had while working at Family Reach.
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Speaker 4: I can tell you this kid, Mikaylo, he came every
14:25
Speaker 4: year to the cooking lib and I remember one year
14:27
Speaker 4: he came up on stage.
14:29
Speaker 5: Is not orchestrated or whatever.
14:31
Speaker 4: He just came up and in front of everyone just
14:33
Speaker 4: gives me a big hug, and I'm just like, I
14:36
Speaker 4: know I helped save this kid's life. And I do
14:38
Speaker 4: think Carla for this, I know I'm having impact. And
14:40
Speaker 4: again that's why we put on this planet we're brother.
14:43
Speaker 4: This planet is did you move the needle? Did you
14:45
Speaker 4: make the place a better place?
14:47
Speaker 5: So that's it. Everything else doesn't.
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Speaker 1: Mean Carlo, That's what you've been dedicating yourself towards. Right,
14:52
Speaker 1: Like you said, it came from a good friend and
14:55
Speaker 1: it's been a mission. But are there things that you've
14:58
Speaker 1: observed and seen that either made you double down, anything
15:02
Speaker 1: that discouraged you.
15:03
Speaker 2: How have you stayed the course?
15:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll tell you. Everyone at Philey says a box
15:08
Speaker 3: of tissues on their desk, and it is heart wrenching
15:11
Speaker 3: and inhumane what we see every day. In December, we
15:15
Speaker 3: got a call from a woman in Boston, stage four
15:18
Speaker 3: over in cancer with four children, that was evicted from
15:20
Speaker 3: her home in December. She called asking for a tenth
15:23
Speaker 3: because all the shelters were full and she needed a
15:25
Speaker 3: place to stay near the hospital. So I don't have
15:29
Speaker 3: one story. We have about thirty thousand patients a year,
15:32
Speaker 3: so I have thirty thousand stories, I hear. I want
15:35
Speaker 3: to just I want to say two things. One is
15:38
Speaker 3: what ming has done for family reach. Like he said
15:40
Speaker 3: when he and I met fourteen years ago, I was
15:42
Speaker 3: a team of one and nobody understood health equity. So
15:45
Speaker 3: what Ming has been able to do was use his
15:48
Speaker 3: platform to bring people in so that we could open
15:51
Speaker 3: their hearts, in their minds, and their eyes to this
15:55
Speaker 3: side of cancer that has so much shame and fear.
15:58
Speaker 3: There's a stat one third of cancer death in this
16:00
Speaker 3: country could be prevented by removing socioeconomic barriers. That's what
16:05
Speaker 3: we do. So I just have to thank Maying for
16:08
Speaker 3: really helping us get people to the table literally physically,
16:13
Speaker 3: so that we could tell this story. I'll tell you
16:17
Speaker 3: what I'm excited about. Our financial interventions do work and
16:21
Speaker 3: are having an impact on survival rates. We just launched
16:24
Speaker 3: an online platform called the Financial Resource Center. You can
16:28
Speaker 3: see it on our website. You can go to the
16:31
Speaker 3: website and all of our financial tips, our education. You
16:34
Speaker 3: can download it, you can grab it, you can read it.
16:37
Speaker 3: You can start to get comfortable talking about finances when
16:40
Speaker 3: you have cancer. And that's ground zero, and you can
16:43
Speaker 3: plug in your zip code. You can say what insecurity
16:46
Speaker 3: you have? Is it housing? Is it food? Is it utilities?
16:49
Speaker 3: Is it transportation? And it immediately populates all of the
16:53
Speaker 3: resources that are open available you qualify for right there.
16:58
Speaker 3: It just takes out all the se all the headaches
17:01
Speaker 3: of going down these rabbit holes only to find dead ends,
17:05
Speaker 3: because every minute counts when you've been diagnosed with cancer,
17:08
Speaker 3: and to spend that time trying to find basic needs
17:11
Speaker 3: again heart wrenching. So in our Financial Resource Center, you
17:15
Speaker 3: can find a resource, you can get help twenty four
17:19
Speaker 3: to seven on your own whenever it's right for you,
17:22
Speaker 3: and you can see which emergency financial assistance funds we
17:26
Speaker 3: have open, those open and closes. You can imagine pretty quickly, Jim,
17:31
Speaker 3: we launched this about two months ago, no fanfare, no announcement,
17:35
Speaker 3: We just literally put it on our website. I can
17:38
Speaker 3: see the back end analytics. I can see who is
17:42
Speaker 3: coming to the site, where they're coming from in the
17:45
Speaker 3: United States, and what basic need they're looking for. With
17:49
Speaker 3: no announcement and no fanfare, there are over twenty five
17:53
Speaker 3: thousand searches on that page of cancer patients looking for
17:57
Speaker 3: basic needs, and I can see where they're comeing from.
18:00
Speaker 3: So this is now going to direct my steps on
18:03
Speaker 3: where to go find community partners, target the interventions. Where
18:07
Speaker 3: are we seeing deep needs for food, deep needs for transportation,
18:10
Speaker 3: deep needs for housing. So this platform is really going
18:15
Speaker 3: to inform how we can target financial interventions and partnerships
18:20
Speaker 3: to really move the needle on health equity. That gives
18:23
Speaker 3: me hope. That's how I keep going.
18:32
Speaker 1: Now I want to shift into a section I'm calling
18:34
Speaker 1: so What's it all mean? Where we hear about your
18:37
Speaker 1: work and action and how it's playing out in the
18:39
Speaker 1: real world.
18:45
Speaker 2: Amazing stuff.
18:46
Speaker 1: I know you and I and Ming just brought it
18:48
Speaker 1: up farm I I don't want to leave without addressing it.
18:51
Speaker 1: I know at one time there was a somewhat maybe
18:54
Speaker 1: contentious relationship.
18:57
Speaker 2: Where's it going now? Have you found the coround?
19:00
Speaker 1: But that's a big audience my podcast reaches, and then
19:04
Speaker 1: of course I work with many of them.
19:06
Speaker 5: How it just came but an amazing just Keita to Gilead.
19:09
Speaker 3: So Gilla I just had their Global Health Equity summit
19:12
Speaker 3: eighteen thousand people and they had me come talk about
19:16
Speaker 3: basic needs and why what we do is so important
19:21
Speaker 3: for the science, not just diversity and clinical trials, but
19:25
Speaker 3: meeting basic needs again so that they can actually put
19:29
Speaker 3: cancer care and ad here is at the forefront and
19:32
Speaker 3: not forego that. So I really truly believe in my
19:36
Speaker 3: heart partnerships with pharma are mutually beneficial. The biggest winner
19:41
Speaker 3: being the patient because their basic needs are men and
19:43
Speaker 3: they can stay and care. There was a time early
19:46
Speaker 3: on when we were just financial assistants, that I was
19:49
Speaker 3: speaking at Pharma and literally was escorted to the elevator.
19:54
Speaker 3: We need to get this woman out of the building.
19:56
Speaker 3: She steares the heck out of us because of compliance.
19:59
Speaker 3: I've learned the hard way that there are fast, hard,
20:02
Speaker 3: scary rules about this. When we moved our mission to
20:07
Speaker 3: include financial education and health literacy and resource navigation and data,
20:13
Speaker 3: the data we're collecting to help people understand health equity
20:19
Speaker 3: and basic needs, and we actually do it by disease type.
20:22
Speaker 3: We have a program around long, around multiple myeloma, around breast,
20:26
Speaker 3: around cervical where we can show even the unique basic
20:30
Speaker 3: needs by disease type. So this data rich information is
20:35
Speaker 3: helping science, it's helping all of us. So I really
20:38
Speaker 3: do want Pharma, who is about sixty percent of our revenue,
20:42
Speaker 3: to understand there's a deep partnership here that is mutually beneficial.
20:47
Speaker 2: Is there anyone we're not reaching?
20:48
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you've penetrated the whole ecosystem?
20:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, we absolutely have not reached the whole. There's some
20:54
Speaker 3: players the invested five million in Family Reach in twenty
20:58
Speaker 3: eighteen to really dig into some of these bigger programs
21:03
Speaker 3: Gilly ad Takita. There's some that have been incredible partners
21:06
Speaker 3: for us, Johnson and Johnson are Jansen, others. We've got
21:09
Speaker 3: a long way to go. So any introductions, if anyone
21:12
Speaker 3: wants to have a conversation around health equity and how
21:15
Speaker 3: family reaches stepping in with these programs, I'm here for.
21:19
Speaker 1: We always like to sort of come back and talk
21:22
Speaker 1: about what all this means. Your community partnership program focuses
21:26
Speaker 1: on reaching black and Hispanic laching our communities. What states
21:30
Speaker 1: and markets are you working in most Where are you
21:33
Speaker 1: seeking to expand where do you see the biggest need,
21:37
Speaker 1: Where do you see the biggest use.
21:39
Speaker 3: So right now we have seven community partners in Kentucky, Miami, Chicago,
21:46
Speaker 3: Virginia's and we're at this crossroads, Jim, do we go
21:49
Speaker 3: breadth or do we go depth? So we're one year
21:53
Speaker 3: into the program deep deep needs, and so now what
21:57
Speaker 3: I'm doing is looking at hospital partners in those areas
22:00
Speaker 3: to just see how we can weave together. Who is
22:03
Speaker 3: the community serving, who is the hospital missing in that community?
22:08
Speaker 3: And how does Family Reach bridge that gap? So right
22:11
Speaker 3: now I'm just sort of thinking depth. I have a
22:14
Speaker 3: short list of places we need to go to find
22:18
Speaker 3: more community partners, but I'm going to wait to see
22:20
Speaker 3: what that financial resource centered data on the back end
22:23
Speaker 3: is telling me to do. So I'm going to give
22:25
Speaker 3: myself another six months till the end of the year
22:27
Speaker 3: before I expand we're going to hospitals. We're showing hospitals
22:31
Speaker 3: the Financial Resource Center to say, is this something you
22:34
Speaker 3: think you could use? Do you know this about your
22:37
Speaker 3: patient population? Here's what we're seeing. So now we're looking
22:41
Speaker 3: at forming some sort of subscription formula. How do we
22:44
Speaker 3: partner with hospitals so that they can have access to this?
22:48
Speaker 3: So you're catching me at a really interesting point in
22:51
Speaker 3: our history. What does a hospital partnership model look like?
22:55
Speaker 3: And what role do we play in connecting communities and
22:59
Speaker 3: hospitals together. Basic needs is something that is a gap
23:03
Speaker 3: that we need to fill. How do we do that?
23:05
Speaker 4: I think Faiure Reach have a great plan, which is
23:09
Speaker 4: this Financial Resource Center put them in a couple of hospitals,
23:12
Speaker 4: show the efficacy, Show how much money it can save
23:16
Speaker 4: the hospital. Because obviously someone gets cured of cancer that
23:18
Speaker 4: are no longer coming back, and then that package can
23:22
Speaker 4: be sold to the hospital and to save them hundreds
23:24
Speaker 4: of thousands of dollars. Now you do that over three
23:27
Speaker 4: thousands of hospitals, there's a good annuity for family reach
23:30
Speaker 4: to then be able to do what they want to do.
23:33
Speaker 4: I think we'd also be remissive we didn't at least
23:35
Speaker 4: suggest it's beyond pharma, it's other fortune. Five hundred companies
23:39
Speaker 4: that get involved in AT and T once again involved,
23:41
Speaker 4: provide free cell phones to all these families that need
23:44
Speaker 4: their cell phone boom.
23:45
Speaker 5: They would be the instant hero. If Mortgan stand on
23:48
Speaker 5: there be in here.
23:49
Speaker 4: If someone jumps in and says, we don't need you
23:51
Speaker 4: to pay the mortgage.
23:52
Speaker 7: Now it's a thirty year mortgage. It doesn't matter if
23:54
Speaker 7: it becomes a thirty two year mortgage. Right, that's peanuts
23:57
Speaker 7: to these people. But those two years will keep these
24:00
Speaker 7: people in their homes. Don't even victim. Just extend their mortgage.
24:03
Speaker 7: It's not going to change anything with these big companies.
24:06
Speaker 7: And that's the other side. Because there's so much money
24:09
Speaker 7: out there and there is a great amount of goodwill
24:12
Speaker 7: that these companies want to help it, and it's just
24:14
Speaker 7: a matter of access to them and getting to see
24:16
Speaker 7: the light, having their own aha moment, and then you're really.
24:20
Speaker 4: Onto something because it's not just farmer. Farmer is huge,
24:23
Speaker 4: it makes sense, but it's all the other expenses that
24:25
Speaker 4: are real.
24:26
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, man, because that obviously, how our listeners
24:30
Speaker 1: can support family reach in different ways is a definite
24:33
Speaker 1: question I wanted answered. But this concept that we've heard
24:37
Speaker 1: a lot about is longevity and longer health. This idea
24:42
Speaker 1: you said of a better experience for the cancer patient
24:45
Speaker 1: is good for the economic system. This relationship between health
24:52
Speaker 1: equity and longevity. Obviously you're connecting this dots between the
24:56
Speaker 1: financial plan and a medical plan.
24:58
Speaker 2: Why does this all Mattter?
25:00
Speaker 1: You know there's financial toxicity and financial health. How does
25:03
Speaker 1: that create health? We always hear the health as well,
25:06
Speaker 1: So how do these connect?
25:08
Speaker 3: Because if your basic needs aren't being met, you're not
25:13
Speaker 3: going to the doctor, you're not getting screened, you're not
25:17
Speaker 3: filling prescriptions, you're not showing up for a scan. It
25:21
Speaker 3: is basic needs first, and our families, so many of
25:25
Speaker 3: these families are in crisis every day. When cod first
25:29
Speaker 3: hit and screenings were way down, we jumped in to
25:32
Speaker 3: talk to people and patients through communities. Why aren't you
25:36
Speaker 3: going to screenings? So like screenings, I have enough problems,
25:39
Speaker 3: Why am I going to go look for more? So
25:41
Speaker 3: when you think about equity, we can't understand. There's families
25:45
Speaker 3: that are like, why am I going to feed my
25:46
Speaker 3: family tonight for dinner? And you're asking me to do what?
25:49
Speaker 3: Go get screened? It's basic needs first and being alluded
25:55
Speaker 3: to these partnerships. There are so many partnerships that are
25:58
Speaker 3: out there. We have a family in Philly whose water
26:01
Speaker 3: was shut off. She had her neighbor bathing her children.
26:04
Speaker 3: She had cancer through water was shut off. All the
26:07
Speaker 3: utility companies have these emergency relief programs, so we plug
26:12
Speaker 3: them in. Now all you have to do is pay
26:13
Speaker 3: five dollars a month and your water is turned back on.
26:16
Speaker 3: So these programs exist, Jim, they're just buried and families
26:22
Speaker 3: are afraid to talk about it. I'm going to answer
26:25
Speaker 3: your questions by saying, if your basic needs aren't being met,
26:28
Speaker 3: healthcare takes a back seat. But if you speak up,
26:32
Speaker 3: we can connect you to basic needs so that your
26:36
Speaker 3: basic needs are being met and you can get the
26:39
Speaker 3: healthcare that is right there for you.
26:42
Speaker 4: And that's the genius of the Financial Resource Center because
26:45
Speaker 4: probably you have the stat between.
26:47
Speaker 5: One and three in the morning, that's where.
26:50
Speaker 4: A lot of people are getting on the resource center
26:52
Speaker 4: because they am shamed. They don't want to talk about it,
26:54
Speaker 4: but they're up at three in the morning figure out
26:56
Speaker 4: how do I solve my problem? When they jump on
26:58
Speaker 4: the website, there's that solution. So that's why this resources
27:04
Speaker 4: so imperative because it'll get people that would never normally
27:07
Speaker 4: ask or make a bunk call because they're too ashamed
27:10
Speaker 4: to admit they.
27:10
Speaker 5: Need money, or need help or need their water turned on.
27:13
Speaker 2: And genius, it's simplicity.
27:15
Speaker 1: What's attracted me to Family Reach when you told me
27:17
Speaker 1: about it is the simplicity of it. It's like, look,
27:21
Speaker 1: there's just a real need here and this meets that need.
27:25
Speaker 1: And what I was saying, then if you meet that need,
27:28
Speaker 1: as you said, mean you save a life. You connect
27:32
Speaker 1: people to the resources that create that longevity that helps everyone.
27:37
Speaker 1: This is what my mission is. This is why I
27:39
Speaker 1: do this make the world a healthier place. So I
27:43
Speaker 1: do want to thank you guys. What do you want
27:44
Speaker 1: to see happen here? What do you want people to
27:46
Speaker 1: take action on how can our listeners support here.
27:50
Speaker 4: I will simply say for those with capacity that are
27:53
Speaker 4: having their own health moment, support failureach, go to failureaches
27:57
Speaker 4: dot org.
27:58
Speaker 5: Learn about Family Reach.
28:00
Speaker 4: It will be compelled to do something because if you
28:03
Speaker 4: have the capacity, you can't just sit idle.
28:06
Speaker 5: So please check out family dot org.
28:08
Speaker 4: And as a closing RC go to the grocery store
28:10
Speaker 4: and try some Mingsbangs. But for the record, some proceeds
28:13
Speaker 4: of all sales of mings Bangs, especially when we have
28:16
Speaker 4: our event, will benefit both Family Reach and Dana Farber's awesome.
28:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, Jim, I just want to peeback something you said.
28:22
Speaker 3: It's so simple, it's so tangible, it's so basic. But
28:27
Speaker 3: the reality is science is far outpacing the patient reality
28:32
Speaker 3: and it is something so simple where we could close
28:35
Speaker 3: that gap. So just you having us on this podcast
28:39
Speaker 3: to talk about it is a huge win. And for
28:43
Speaker 3: us to say we can solve this, I believe it
28:47
Speaker 3: in my heart just looking again at the back end
28:49
Speaker 3: analytics of this financial resource center, patients need it and
28:53
Speaker 3: it exists. We are just here to connect the dots
28:57
Speaker 3: and cancer affects the whole family. So we're talking about
29:01
Speaker 3: we help thirty thousand patients a year, few times that
29:05
Speaker 3: by the average family of four, and then there's one
29:08
Speaker 3: out of three cancervations can't meet basic needs. We have
29:11
Speaker 3: a long way to go, and so much of that
29:13
Speaker 3: is just talking about it, letting patients know, wiping out
29:18
Speaker 3: the fear and the shame, letting people in healthcare, people
29:20
Speaker 3: with capacity know we can fix this. And Family Reach
29:23
Speaker 3: is the only national nonprofit in the United States just
29:27
Speaker 3: addressing these basic needs, and we are wide open to partnerships.
29:31
Speaker 1: I'm glad you ended there because the partnership piece is
29:34
Speaker 1: what I'm dedicated and involved here because I see a
29:37
Speaker 1: lot of opportunity, a lot of low hanging fruit to
29:40
Speaker 1: make sure that Family Reach gets the greatest reach that
29:43
Speaker 1: can possibly get.
29:44
Speaker 2: Thanks again, so much.
29:45
Speaker 5: Thank you, Jeff. Thanks for having us. Really it means
29:48
Speaker 5: the world does.
29:54
Speaker 2: Hey everyone, thanks for listening in today.
29:56
Speaker 1: The Get Real with the Chairman podcast is a production
29:59
Speaker 1: of real chemistry. I want to thank my team, led
30:02
Speaker 1: by executive producer Kate Voss, audio engineer Nick Murphy, and
30:07
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30:11
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30:24
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