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70% Bankrupt Despite Insurance? (Full) · Solving America's Problems

0:00
Alex: [excited] Welcome to Solving America's Problems, where Jerremy and
0:03
Dave dig into the messes we can't ignore.
0:06
[intrigued] Picture this: back in 2017 or so, a solid stat drops—over
0:11
70% of folks filing for bankruptcy from medical bills actually had active
0:16
health insurance on the day it hit.
0:19
Not uninsured stragglers scraping by.
0:21
[surprised] People with coverage, premiums paid up, cards in their wallets.
0:25
[dramatic pause] And the kicker?
0:27
Most got wrecked because they landed out-of-network, chasing care in
0:31
the wrong spot at the wrong time.
0:33
[confident] Nick Heider, ex-pro athlete turned insurance insider
0:38
who's launched 150 agencies, lays it bare with Jerremy and Dave.
0:42
[serious] He breaks down why your policy's network is the silent killer
0:47
nobody spots till the bill arrives.
0:49
How one wrong hospital turns security into six-figure debt.
0:52
[appalled] And why even the ER desk clerks admit they're just collecting
0:57
flat fees from everyone, insured or not.
1:01
Jerremy Newsome: Dave Conley, which problem are we addressing
1:06
and solving in this episode?
1:08
This week on solving America's problems, we're diving into a system
1:12
that millions rely on, but few actually understand health insurance.
1:16
It is supposed to provide security yet for far too many Americans, it brings stress,
1:20
surprise builds, and financial disaster.
1:23
We're asking how did we end up here, and more importantly,
1:27
how do we take back control?
1:29
Dave Conley: Helping us cut through the noise?
1:30
Is Nick Heider a former pro athlete, turned business strategist and consumer
1:34
advocate as the founder of Team Heider and host of the Hit Streak podcast,
1:38
nick has launched over 150 insurance agencies and educated tens of thousands
1:42
on navigating this confusing system.
1:44
He's here to reveal how the industry really works and what you need to know
1:48
to protect yourself and your family.
1:50
And that's this week on solving America's problems.
1:53
The Truth about Health Insurance with Nick Hiter.
1:58
Jerremy Newsome: Ladies and gentlemen, from Round the World, health
2:01
Insurance is supposed to give people peace of mind, but for millions of
2:05
Americans it does the exact opposite.
2:08
Even people who have coverage find themselves buried in medical
2:12
debt, fighting denied claims, and struggling to find in-network care,
2:17
and most do not realize they've been set up to fail until it's too late.
2:21
The system is complicated by design, and that confusion costs people
2:26
money sometimes everything they have.
2:29
I'm Jeremy Alexander Newsom, and alongside my co-host, man, the Myth, Dave Conley.
2:36
And today on Solving America's problems, we're cutting through the confusion
2:38
to expose some truths about health insurance, why it works for some while
2:43
it fails for many, but most importantly, the practical steps that you can take
2:48
now to protect yourself and your family.
2:51
I've got an absolute gem on the show with us.
2:55
This is Nick Heider.
2:57
Nick is gonna help us unpack everything because he is a consumer advocate.
3:02
He's gonna tell us, teach us, and give us literacy, and give us education,
3:06
and only the way that he can.
3:08
Nixon's an entrepreneur, he's a friend of mine.
3:10
He's a business strategist, former pro athlete who's built and scaled major
3:17
enterprises, including launching over 150 insurance agencies that have generated.
3:24
100 million in just five years.
3:27
As the founder of Team Heider and host of the Hit Street podcast, he's already
3:31
helped tens of thousands of entrepreneurs and business owners grow their impact.
3:36
He's been featured on C-N-B-C-N-B-C, Fox, New York Times, and more for
3:41
his insights on today as well.
3:43
We're gonna bring and talk and give, and ask and receive and have so much.
3:48
Nick,
3:50
Nick Hiter: thank you for
3:50
go baby.
3:51
I'm in.
3:52
Thanks for having me, fellas.
3:53
I appreciate it, man.
3:54
It's a honor and a pleasure and I'm excited about the hang today.
3:58
Jerremy Newsome: Likewise man.
3:58
We're gonna impact a lot of lives, and I know that's one of your main
4:00
missions in life and we're gonna do it through education and just
4:03
learning and through consumer advocacy and just teaching us things.
4:06
So I'm just gonna throw out the biggest question I think a lot of the
4:08
listeners are gonna have, especially as we get closer and closer into
4:11
diving into the Maha movement and what that looks like on the health side.
4:16
But with this particular overarching theme, I feel like no one knows
4:21
what the heck health insurance is.
4:22
It's supposed to protect people, but millions of Americans with coverage
4:26
still end up buried in medical debt.
4:28
What would you say is the one biggest misconception about insurance
4:32
that costs people the most money?
4:35
Nick Hiter: That it's one size fits all right?
4:38
There's, in the state of Tennessee where I reside, the great state of Tennessee,
4:41
if I went shopping just for myself right now, there's literally hundreds
4:45
How do I know which one is the right one?
4:47
And quite honestly, just if we're getting right into it first and foremost, in
4:50
my opinion, the most important thing and the most important component of
4:53
an insurance policy is the network.
4:55
Because again, if that, I think it was in 2017 or 2018, and again, this is a loose
5:01
statistic, I don't even remember with a source, but it was a credible source.
5:05
It was over 70% of the people that had filed bankruptcy due to medical costs, had
5:10
an active health insurance plan in place.
5:12
Jerremy Newsome: dude.
5:13
Nick Hiter: most common reason was they weren't in network.
5:16
Jerremy Newsome: That's wild.
5:17
So explain for the seven people that might not know what's the difference
5:21
between in-network and out of network.
5:24
Nick Hiter: So well, so in Nashville we have this street called Broadway, this
5:29
world famous street called Broadway.
5:30
And this is the analogy that I always give, right?
5:32
So everybody wants to go to Broadway's pretty dang busy.
5:35
And and let's just say there's a really long line to get in the door.
5:38
And then when you get in the door, there's even a longer line at the
5:40
bar before you can get a drink.
5:42
Let's say I sold you this magical card that you kept in your wallet, that when
5:46
you showed up on site, you got to skip the line at the door and skip the line
5:51
at the bar to get right at the front.
5:53
And even then, once you got there, they gave you discounted drinks.
5:56
When you got to that bar, everybody would be like, man, yeah, absolutely.
6:00
Give me that card.
6:01
But then what happens when you go there and they're like, oh dude,
6:04
yeah, we don't accept that card here.
6:06
And there, as a matter of fact, out of all these places on this busy street,
6:09
only one spot accepts that card.
6:12
That's where you gotta go.
6:13
That's they, that's think about it.
6:15
There's all these different types of network, PPO E-P-O-H-M-O,
6:20
like what do they all mean?
6:22
And at the end of the day, PPO is what you want.
6:25
And there's even different types of PPO networks, right?
6:28
Un unfortunately, when it comes to the government.
6:31
Provided insurance through the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare as it's called
6:35
in like a lot of times those networks are extremely small or just local.
6:38
So like a lot of times if you've got a local EPO network and you take your
6:43
family to Disney and that's when the accident happens, or that's when the
6:46
heart attack happens, and they're not gonna drive you back to Tennessee.
6:49
They're gonna get you to the closest place to get you taken care of.
6:52
As a matter of fact the other analogy I use all the time, even in this town
6:56
of Nashville, Tennessee, not every hospital accepts every insurance, right?
7:00
So let's say the bad accident happens, you're in the back of the ambulance on the
7:04
way to the, on the way to the hospital.
7:07
The guy that's the, they're not gonna slap you and wake you up and remove
7:10
the oxygen mask off your face and say, Hey man, what hospital are you,
7:13
does your insurance accept it at?
7:15
They're gonna take you to the closest one, and if you live,
7:18
you might walk out bankrupt.
7:19
Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
7:20
That it sounds scary and terrifying, man.
7:23
Dave Conley: your analogy is actually, it wasn't at Disney
7:25
World, but it happened to me.
7:26
I had a, I had like state of the art, like very expensive, like
7:30
awesome medical coverage that I paid for in the state of California.
7:33
And I ran into something when I was in Austin Texas.
7:36
And there was this one line in there that said oh no, it's only good for California.
7:41
And I'm like, wait, what?
7:42
I'm like, wait, what?
7:44
Are you kidding me?
7:45
Nick Hiter: Yeah.
7:46
Yeah.
7:47
It's one of the first, you gotta be able to use it when you need it.
7:50
That's the most important thing.
7:51
And just keeping things like, I, I put a lot of responsibility on the consumer
7:55
because again, they're the consumer.
7:56
They chose it, right?
7:58
They paid for it.
7:59
Do they know what they paid for?
8:00
The average, let's say the average policy for a family like me is gonna be, around
8:05
a thousand dollars a month, give or take.
8:06
Okay?
8:07
That's $12,000 a year.
8:09
When do you spend $12,000 a year on something and not know
8:11
exactly what it does and when and where you can and can't use it?
8:14
So as a consumer, take the same responsibility you take everywhere else.
8:19
Jerremy Newsome: Yeah, read.
8:20
Read a lot of the, read a lot of the policies.
8:22
Spend time with it.
8:24
Are there companies or are there brokers or anything like who, who helps explain
8:29
this stuff to the overall consumer?
8:31
Nick Hiter: The way, I can't speak for all the other brokers and agencies around.
8:35
I can only speak for how we do it at ours and the ones that we invested in.
8:39
And at the end of the day, we're advisors first and agent second.
8:42
I'm, we've been very clear about we don't.
8:45
I gotta sleep at night.
8:46
I if selling you something that you don't need, that's not what
8:50
I'm in business for, right?
8:51
So we're here to help you solve problems, give you security, financial
8:55
security so that if something horrible happens to you, the people that you
8:58
care about most are protected, right?
9:00
And you're not putting them in a tough spot.
9:02
And health insurance is the only type of insurance that
9:05
people expect to use this year.
9:07
They don't expect to use their car insurance or their life insurance
9:11
or their homeowner's insurance, but that boy, I'm gonna use that health.
9:14
Why it's insurance.
9:16
Why is it considered so much different?
9:19
Does your car insurance pay for any preventative stuff on your car?
9:23
Does your life insurance or your homeowner's insurance pay
9:25
for any preventative on any of the things that it's insured?
9:29
But boy, your health better.
9:32
Jerremy Newsome: Fascinating.
9:32
Yeah, it's a great point.
9:34
It's a great point.
9:35
Speak, speaking of the consumer Nick, and you mentioned them
9:38
reading and sitting down.
9:40
I know you're a big advocate for people and teaching and learning and
9:42
helping them understand these aspects.
9:45
And I'm not gonna say it's me, but it's me.
9:47
So pretend you're me and I don't read the fine print on anything,
9:50
including insurance policies, insurance companies might count on that.
9:54
So what are some of the most dangerous clauses that are hidden in policies
9:59
that people don't realize could cause them financial distrust.
10:05
Nick Hiter: it's the, what people would understand in an in a car
10:08
insurance policy is gap coverage.
10:11
It's all those, it's all those, it's all those little things.
10:13
So my, my wife actually, we just shot a podcast last week.
10:16
She is unbelievable at explaining the how to, how the health insurance
10:22
plan could and should be built.
10:24
And more importantly how you use it, right?
10:26
And she broke it down.
10:27
So she broke, she actually broke it down.
10:29
I love it.
10:30
She broke down all, there's five ways in which you can spend
10:33
money on healthcare this year.
10:34
Number one would be your premium.
10:35
You're gonna do that 12 times once a month, right?
10:39
To keep the policy in force.
10:40
Number two would be any preventative or medic or just consistent prescriptions
10:44
you take on a regular basis.
10:46
So you add number one and number two together, that's your monthly costs.
10:49
Outside of that, they're gonna break down what, whatever claim it
10:51
is down to sickness, accidents or a terminal or a critical illness, right?
10:56
Like heart attack, stroke, or cancer.
10:58
And we build policies to protect against those.
11:00
Pri there's private school and public school, okay?
11:04
Most people would agree that if you can afford private school, you would
11:07
choose it every day of the week, right?
11:09
I feel the same way about insurance.
11:11
Okay.
11:11
So there's public insurance and there's private insurance, there's
11:14
insurance that's offered through the marketplace, and there's insurance
11:16
that's offered by private companies.
11:18
And so sometimes a little of both alike.
11:20
The insurance carrier that I'm insured with is, it's specifically the product
11:26
that we use, the policy we have is made for people like me, people that can
11:30
afford to pay for their own coverage that's not provided by an employer.
11:34
And we have a track record of health where we can get through underwriting.
11:37
So we're paying, we get a extremely great rate and have a whole lot of coverage
11:41
with the largest network in the country.
11:43
Because we didn't wait until we got sick before we decided
11:46
we needed health insurance.
11:48
And and it's funny too, 'cause people will be qualifying them for whatever.
11:53
You get qualified based on health history and income.
11:56
So once we've gotten through income, we'll qualify health and people say, I'm
11:59
healthy, but I take four medications.
12:02
That, that don't, how's that work?
12:05
You know what I mean?
12:06
So obviously if you take medications on ongoing, what's that for?
12:09
And I'm not saying you can't get through underwriting, but again,
12:12
that's, it's se it's serving something that, that's needing some attention.
12:16
You're qualifying based on health and whatnot and so like the plan that I've
12:20
got the other thing too is what's the max payout from the insurance carrier?
12:24
So mine is unlimited, so I can never let's say I have a $10 million brain
12:30
hemorrhage with cancer and everything else that could come if my insurance
12:32
policy has a max payout of 5 million lifetime, it's not paying anymore.
12:38
So at
12:39
Jerremy Newsome: and that's policy specific Nick?
12:41
It can, it, it's, it can say that as like a company specific,
12:44
or is that policy specific?
12:45
Nick Hiter: It's through a carrier, but it's policy specific.
12:47
So you could actually when we, when the policy when we actually put it
12:50
in force took out the policy, you actually could choose between 5 million
12:54
or unlimited and that, and obviously just if you're a smoker or not, it'll
12:57
change the premium a little bit, right?
12:59
Because we actually, we bought more coverage by saying we wanted
13:02
unlimited co an unlimited cap,
13:05
Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
13:06
Nick Hiter: right?
13:06
So at the end of the day, that insurance card in your wallet, it's a tool dude.
13:09
And look, I could go to home Depot or Lowe's right now and get the biggest,
13:13
baddest like chainsaw they got.
13:16
Dude, I don't know how to use it.
13:17
I'm not that guy.
13:19
You know what I'm
13:19
Jerremy Newsome: I was about to, I'm glad you said that.
13:21
I was about to say you.
13:22
How use a chainsaw, Nick.
13:23
Get outta here.
13:24
Nick Hiter: I, all right, or a hammer, I'm not even that guy.
13:27
So again, like if you don't know how to use the tool, it's worthless, right?
13:31
So you gotta understand how to use it, how to apply for it.
13:34
I'll give a great example.
13:36
In 2013 or 14, we had an accident that just so happened to be in
13:39
like the middle of the night.
13:40
We were actually, we owned a nightclub at the time, and a chair in storage fell
13:44
out of storage and actually hit, clipped my wife's head on the way down on, so
13:48
we had to go to the emergency room.
13:49
All right?
13:50
So we got there, she got her test done and everything else, and we're leaving,
13:53
and it's four in the morning, okay.
13:55
On a Saturday night, technically a Sunday morning.
13:58
So we're checking out, and the girl in the emergency room,
14:00
she was like, 70 bucks, please.
14:03
And I was like, for what?
14:05
She was like, that's what it costs to, to come through today.
14:07
And I was like, is that a co is that a copay or what is that?
14:12
And I was like, is it based on the insurance policy?
14:14
She's yeah, it's based on the insurance policy.
14:15
And I was like.
14:17
So you called the insurance company to verify benefits at
14:20
four in the morning on a weekend.
14:22
They're not open.
14:23
How'd that work?
14:24
And she was like, okay, you got me.
14:27
I was just told to collect $70 from everybody.
14:30
Dave Conley: Wow.
14:31
Nick Hiter: was like, all so if I'd have paid that, what it would've happened?
14:33
She said, we would've gave you a credit back to that emergency
14:36
room, that specific emergency room.
14:38
I'd still have a credit there 10 years later, 11 years later.
14:41
So again, if you don't know what you bought and how to use it, how do you
14:43
know that the person, like the person on the, at the checkout desk that's
14:47
dismissing you and telling you owe money?
14:49
Is it their first day?
14:51
Jerremy Newsome: good point.
14:52
Yeah, it's a good point.
14:54
Nick Hiter: You know what I mean?
14:54
So again, how do you know what, how do you know what you don't know?
14:57
And here's what, here's how we got here.
14:58
Okay.
14:59
When I was brought up the media was trustworthy.
15:03
The pharmaceutical the pharmaceutical industry was trustworthy.
15:06
Okay.
15:07
It's a different world we live in today.
15:08
The me the healthcare industry was trustworthy.
15:11
If your doctor said it, that was the law.
15:14
You didn't question it.
15:16
Okay.
15:16
Guys, it's gotten to a place now where you just gotta question things.
15:20
You got you.
15:20
You just have to, you, you can't just trust is earned.
15:23
Okay?
15:24
So how much, like you're at an emergency room, which by the way, anything that's
15:28
emergency that like the timing is of an emergency, it's gonna have an escalated
15:33
cost, which is why we shouldn't use the emergency room for urgent care, right?
15:37
And stuff like that because it's, everything's gonna be inflated.
15:40
But you don't know anybody at that emergency room and they don't know you.
15:43
So why is there trust being given that hasn't been earned?
15:46
Jerremy Newsome: Yeah, that's a fascinating point.
15:48
And and obviously as Nick, this podcast solving America's Problems,
15:51
one of our main focuses is just diving into very particular and specific
15:54
aspects so that I can continue to learn, grow, and adapt, and understand
15:59
the biggest problems that face this country and our citizens, because
16:02
I'm gonna run for president in 2032.
16:05
And so I know one aspect that's very unique to this country is that
16:08
one in every 12 Americans, which is approximately 3 million people,
16:11
have medical debt, and they owe those 3 million more than $10,000.
16:16
Now, here's where you come in, because again, your main focus has been teaching
16:20
so many people about this product, about this tool, to use your verbiage.
16:26
So let's say that someone has a really big medical bill.
16:32
What Mo Most Americans don't know if they can negotiate those medical bills.
16:36
They can fight claim denials, they can even challenge network restrictions.
16:40
What's the first thing someone should do when they get an unexpected bill or even
16:45
a bill that they knew they were gonna get?
16:47
It was a lot larger than they thought.
16:50
Nick Hiter: Here's how you know that you should ask questions because
16:53
it's kinda like when it's, it even applies in the car insurance industry.
16:57
A rock hit the windshield of my car, right?
17:00
And it was $300 if I paid cash, but they were gonna build the insurance company
17:05
like $1,500 for the exact same thing.
17:07
If you have a deductible on your plan, and let's say your deductible is $5,000, the
17:13
cash price on this service might be $800.
17:16
But if they bill it to your insurance, it's gonna be $3,500.
17:19
You could pay $800 or the $3,500.
17:22
So you don't have, just 'cause you have an insurance card, don't
17:24
mean you have to give it to 'em.
17:25
You can put that thing back in your wallet, just like when
17:28
you're filling a prescription.
17:30
So anytime I go up to the thing to fill prescription, I'm like, what's the
17:32
insurance price and what's cash price?
17:35
Jerremy Newsome: Yep.
17:36
Nick Hiter: So at the end of the day, when you're coming out of pocket money,
17:39
are you paying the lowest version of whatever it is that you need to be paying?
17:43
And you can call.
17:45
I don't know, a hospital and say, what's it cost to have a baby delivered?
17:48
And they're gonna give you a whole, you'd ask cash and with insurance, right?
17:54
And you can ask both.
17:55
And you can nego and you can 100% negotiate that.
17:58
Why?
17:59
Can you, if you're making a minimum payment on medical bills, can they
18:04
hurt your, can they send you to credit and all that kind of stuff,
18:07
Jerremy Newsome: No.
18:08
If you're making the minimum, I don't believe they can.
18:10
Nick Hiter: that's right.
18:10
And think about that.
18:11
If you're, let's say the minimum is $10, what they pay the person that sent that
18:15
bill to you in the mail, more than $10 to put a stamp on it and print the paper
18:20
and put it in there and everything else.
18:21
So like they would be better off to just negotiate it down to a lump
18:25
sum payment and get it off their books than they would be to keep
18:27
tracking that over and over again.
18:29
Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
18:30
Nick Hiter: So think about it just like any other type of stuff let's
18:33
make a deal and get this over with.
18:35
And why do they have to charge insurance companies so much more?
18:37
There's multiple reasons, but you know how, if I pay you
18:40
today, you get the money today.
18:42
If the insurance pays you for the same thing that I got done
18:45
today, when do you get paid?
18:46
When does the doctor or the provider get paid?
18:49
Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
18:49
Nick Hiter: So again, like one of the insurance carrier that our policies
18:53
through, they boast like their claims are paid in under 30 days.
18:57
Doctors like that, right?
18:59
The biggest misconception is that hospitals so first of all, doctors have
19:04
to go to school for a very long time and they pay a lot for that school.
19:09
So anywhere else, if you've acquired credentials like that,
19:14
you get to charge premium rates for whatever it is that you do.
19:18
Okay?
19:19
So in God forbid you pay for a service that you receive, right?
19:23
Jerremy Newsome: You're right.
19:24
Nick Hiter: You know what I mean?
19:24
So at the end of the day, you don't want.
19:27
You want doctor, you wanna, and you get to choose your doctor too, by the way, based
19:31
on merit and a whole lot of other things.
19:32
But here's the big disconnect, Jeremy and Dave when I think I was telling Dave
19:36
about this last time I talked to him.
19:37
When you go to the steakhouse, you know if it's a hundred dollars
19:39
steak or a $20 steak, right?
19:42
The lady that, that, the girl that cuts my hair, it's not the same price
19:45
as the barbershop on the corner.
19:46
It's a little bit more, and I book her in advance.
19:49
Okay.
19:49
Just like the best restaurants you can't walk in it's reservation only, right?
19:53
There's an experience.
19:54
So the part of town real estate has different pricing
19:58
in different parts of town.
19:59
So in the rough part of town, there's gonna be a provider there versus in the
20:03
richest part of town just based on what they pay for the office space, they've got
20:07
to reflect that in their pricing, right?
20:09
So most people don't know when they go to their doctor if they're
20:12
going to Ruth's Chris or Outback,
20:14
Right?
20:15
That's a problem.
20:16
Again I put everything back on the consumer.
20:17
'cause the consumer's the only one who can fix that.
20:20
They can take control of their situation and fix it.
20:23
They can't lean on the insurance industry or even the providers to do that, right?
20:28
So they'll, if they wanna fix this problem, the consumer has to figure
20:32
out what it is that's going on.
20:33
And when I got into the insurance business, I was blown away at
20:38
just learning to be an agent.
20:40
I was like, dude, I should have learned this in college.
20:43
This is that important.
20:44
I should have learned this in college.
20:46
But unfortunately, people learn the hard way when it's too late.
20:50
It's almost I'm not gonna start eating good until I get diabetes.
20:53
I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna solve the problem until the problem shows
20:56
itself versus fixing it ahead of time.
20:58
Like the Maha movement, dude one of the reasons insurance rates are so high is
21:02
because they've just they're showing like 70, 80% of the country's obese.
21:06
You are a health risk.
21:07
You're having to take medication.
21:09
You shouldn't have to
21:10
Having to get services.
21:11
You shouldn't have to get.
21:13
You're having to get treatments on things, so there's some things that we can do as
21:15
a consumer to totally take charge of this.
21:18
Jerremy Newsome: Yep.
21:19
Dave, I know you wanted to say something for Nick.
21:21
Dave Conley: Nick I know, you've helped people, navigate these fights
21:25
with these big unmanageable bills and these, the insurance companies.
21:31
certainly have people listening to this right now who have those bills.
21:34
They might be getting these threatening like automated
21:36
letters from whoever, right?
21:38
Saying, Hey, pay this now, or We're going to do something terrible.
21:41
So tell me who are the people that you should actually talk to
21:46
negotiate these things, and what are the words that you need to be using
21:50
in order to negotiate your bills?
21:54
Nick Hiter: When you're working with an agent or a broker, like I, I told you
21:59
guys in the beginning of this, we tell everybody what's in it for us, okay?
22:02
The way that I make money in this industry is every is when you make a premium.
22:06
When you make a premium payment, it, I get my monthly cut.
22:09
Or commission from that.
22:11
So what's it, what's best for me to have you pay one or two premiums and
22:15
cancel or pay premiums for a long time?
22:18
And you get that recurring revenue, right?
22:20
Which is what we all want as business owners.
22:22
So the best thing for us, the last thing I wanna be is I'm so close to the
22:27
top of your budget that a flat tire.
22:29
I'm the thing that goes out of your life.
22:31
I wanna be a staple in your life for a long time.
22:34
I wanna pick a policy that's gonna be great for you for the next 12 months.
22:37
And in 12 months I wanna come back around and make sure that
22:39
nothing's changing, that's still the best thing for you right now.
22:42
But most importantly, I wanna make sure that you have a policy that is in force.
22:46
Because here recently a buddy of mine who you know, un unfortunately, he he
22:50
passed away and it was sad because.
22:54
He neglected to make, he let his insurance policy lapse.
22:58
And when he did that, he couldn't get it reinstated because he was going through he
23:02
had a kidney problem and that took him off the transplant list and that caused him
23:06
to no longer be here over a couple things.
23:10
But one of those factors was literally like a lapsed payment.
23:14
And it's just, that could, that can happen for so many reasons.
23:18
Card be new card being issued or a whole bunch of things, but you
23:21
just gotta stay on top of it.
23:22
So once you get in the club, so to speak, once you get through an
23:25
underwritten plan, like it's always in force until you fail to make a payment
23:29
and then you have to get put back in.
23:31
You have to almost like reapply.
23:33
It's just there's a reason that you get in early when you're healthy.
23:38
Because that's, it's just like life insurance.
23:40
You're the least you're the least amount of risk.
23:42
All insurance is a gigantic risk pool that's broken up by group or
23:46
by state or something like that.
23:47
So at the end of the day, that's all you're dealing
23:49
Dave Conley: And, but Nick if you get one of these bills from the provider
23:52
or for the insurance company or from the hospital, who do you even talk to?
23:56
Do you talk to the insurance company and are there words you need to say
24:00
oh, oh my God, make this go away.
24:02
Nick Hiter: Yeah.
24:02
So there's a hospital here that I won't say in town that never files the
24:07
insurance first, they always just send the bill straight to the customer.
24:09
They don't even file their insurance.
24:10
So the first things first is you have an insurance policy enforced.
24:13
You get a bill from the facility, but you also get an explanation
24:16
of benefits from the insurance company that says they filed it.
24:18
If you don't get that explanation of benefits, they did not file it and
24:21
they need to do you know this, when you get a bill, do you, when you get
24:24
a bill at the restaurant, do you just.
24:27
Sign it and go or do you look at it and make sure that everything was right on it.
24:31
And ask questions.
24:32
So the way that my wife and I run our agency, and she's amazing at this, is
24:36
first of all is when you get your first claim book an appointment with us to go
24:39
through it and make sure you understand.
24:40
Once you understand how to pay one general claim, you know how to
24:44
navigate through the rest of them.
24:45
First things first is, did everything get filed that needed to get filed with
24:48
everybody it needed to get filed with?
24:50
And by the way, the people that file this stuff are human and they make mistakes.
24:54
Jerremy Newsome: Yeah, good point.
24:56
Nick Hiter: Okay.
24:56
And a two might look like a five or a one might look like a seven.
25:01
And dude, you mess up one number.
25:02
It messes up everything.
25:04
Jerremy Newsome: Yeah, that's a good point.
25:06
And that, that
25:07
Nick Hiter: checking your work is huge.
25:08
Just check your work.
25:10
Jerremy Newsome: figuring out where those i's are and those t's are crossed.
25:12
Yeah.
25:13
I know you're also a huge financial literacy advocate as well, man.
25:17
And so just, this might be a tie in to both pieces, but I would just
25:20
like to get your thoughts on it.
25:21
And again, we have thousands and thousands of listeners who, who wanna know this.
25:25
So for those people who might feel like they're stuck and either, just
25:30
let's just say drowning medical costs, what are the first three things they
25:34
can do right now to take back control?
25:35
I.
25:37
Nick Hiter: the first thing you can do to take back control is make sure
25:39
that it was filed with all the proper channels that it needed to be filed
25:42
with, and that those channels took the action they were supposed to take.
25:45
Okay?
25:46
And then from there, you if you're left with something that's
25:48
uncomfortable you probably your expectations weren't managed.
25:52
You thought you bought something different than what you bought,
25:54
than what you were paying for.
25:56
And when that happens, then you gotta get real, you gotta get good at negotiating
26:00
or you gotta hire somebody that's good at negotiating on your behalf.
26:03
Okay?
26:04
And it's, again, the, at the end of the day, the facility, they
26:07
just wanna get the bill paid.
26:09
The cons, the customer just wants to get the bill paid.
26:12
And there's usually some common ground that can be found if they're
26:15
willing to have those tough, they're tough conversations.
26:18
And my wife has done so much consulting for people on the back
26:22
end where Hey man they, you went, unfortunately, you went to a hospital
26:25
that is a an educational hospital.
26:27
So like they're doing a lot of things for, to teach students
26:31
at the hospital and whatnot.
26:32
So they probably we had a client one time go in for a a spider bite and
26:37
they did all these tests on 'em for STDs, and then they bill them for it.
26:41
And it was like, you didn't go and you need to go and argue that.
26:45
And they immediately wrote it off just because he questioned it one time.
26:49
So again, if you didn't order tater tots at the restaurant and they
26:53
charged you for tater tots, you'd say, Hey man, I didn't order this.
26:55
Fix it.
26:56
So
26:57
Jerremy Newsome: Or gimme my tater tots.
26:58
Nick Hiter: That's right.
26:59
So it's the same practice in the rest of your life.
27:01
It's just for a long time in the, when, in our parents' generation, even
27:05
when I was a kid, it was real easy.
27:07
Most plans were PPO.
27:08
Most plans were you had a deductible and then you had a co-insurance and a copay.
27:13
And a copay was the $20 bill.
27:14
My mom sent, slipped in my pocket when I went to the doctor, said,
27:17
just give them that at the front desk, honey, and you're good.
27:19
And then if we hadn't met our deductible, we paid until we did.
27:22
And that was always after network reduction.
27:25
So it's, it's crazy.
27:27
You know what a client, let's say a client gets a $30,000 bill in
27:30
the mail and it says you owe 10.
27:33
The insurance company, the network reduction was 20 grand on that claim.
27:37
It was almost 66%.
27:38
And they're gonna be like, yeah, the insurance company didn't cover anything.
27:40
No, the bill was 30 grand.
27:43
And they sent you a bill for, the actual bill was 30 grand.
27:45
And what you actually are responsible for is 10.
27:47
Why?
27:48
Because you either didn't have a deductible to meet before you had to
27:51
start before the plan did stuff, or depending on how the plan's structured
27:54
or you had over a 10,000 deductible.
27:56
But like for, I have a 5,000 de deductible on, on ours and and a 80 20 co-insurance,
28:03
meaning I'm paying 20% of the of the rest of the bills until I've for the next 2000
28:08
until, so 7,000 is my max out of pocket.
28:10
That's the most I can pay on any claim in a calendar year.
28:14
So $7,000.
28:16
If you think about the math on that let's say the average network reduction
28:20
is gonna usually between 30 and 50%, let's just say 50% for easy math.
28:24
So even to hit that deductible, that 5,000 deductible, it's gotta be a $10,000 bill.
28:29
And at the time I took out the policy, I had never reached a $10,000 bill before.
28:36
So when you're taking out this, these, when you're going through these planned
28:38
details, it's important to like.
28:41
When you go and buy tools at the tool store, at the hardware store,
28:45
you're buying tools for a specific purpose and for a specific use.
28:48
So that's what I'd tell people.
28:50
Again, sickness, accidents, critical illness.
28:52
How does the plan work in those three categories?
28:55
And you that kind of lumps it all in again, if it's a bug bite or
28:59
food poisoning, or you fell out of a deer stand or a hernia in the gym.
29:03
Accidents.
29:04
Okay.
29:05
The most sickness, like heart attack, stroke cancer, those
29:09
would be like critical illness.
29:11
Sickness could be like what sickness would make you hit a deductible?
29:14
It's not a common cold, right?
29:16
It's not even probably covid unless you're confined to the hospital.
29:19
It's gonna be like gallbladder.
29:21
Appendicitis, stuff like that where you're gonna be admitted
29:24
to the hospital and whatnot.
29:25
And we built supplements on our plan that reimburses on a lot of those things.
29:29
Like my deductible on any accident's, only 500 bucks.
29:33
Jerremy Newsome: Got it.
29:35
Dave Conley: Nick, talk to me about that.
29:36
So you've helped launch 150 plus brokers in this world, and of course not all
29:41
insurance brokers operate the same way.
29:43
Some are looking out for their clients like you are and others
29:46
are just, making those commissions.
29:48
How does somebody tell the difference?
29:51
Nick Hiter: Trust is earned.
29:52
Trust is earned, man.
29:53
So again, how well do you know the person that you're buying anything from?
29:57
If you're buying a car from the car lot, you obviously trust the brand on
30:01
the front of the store to trust that makes you trust that rep that gave
30:05
you the test drive and anything else.
30:07
It's how do you choose an accountant?
30:10
It's the, it would be the, it would be the same synopsis, the same problem solving.
30:13
So is there a track record of that person?
30:16
Can you review testimonials?
30:17
Have you heard from their clients, is this person, does this person, I believe
30:21
if you can find them online, and a lot of them, I think that's a good thing.
30:25
I've literally seen agents that'll close a deal on a client and
30:28
then block their phone number.
30:29
Dave Conley: Oof.
30:29
Nick Hiter: mean?
30:30
Again, there there's snakes in the grass in every industry.
30:33
Jerremy Newsome: Sure.
30:34
Yep.
30:34
Nick Hiter: And how do you choose the right, how do you choose the right ones?
30:37
Just, I didn't my wife and I didn't get married after one date.
30:40
It took us a while to get there.
30:42
So we had to get, we had to get to know each other.
30:44
But again, this is a big, this is a big decision and especially if
30:48
you're spending, 500, a thousand or 1500 a dollars a month or
30:51
more just on the premium itself.
30:54
You need to know what you bought, man.
30:56
Take the responsibility and understand what you bought.
30:58
And again Trump's been trying to do it for a long time where, there
31:03
should be menu pricing on the, at the hospital when you go there.
31:06
And it's not a, it's not I wonder what this is gonna cost me when I get home.
31:09
And I'll find out 30 days later when they send me a bill.
31:11
Wouldn't it be great if you knew what you were up against when you walked in and you
31:14
actually could choose Hey man, we're gonna give you some ibuprofen for the pain.
31:18
The pain's not that bad.
31:19
Is that ibuprofen a thousand dollars, for that pill?
31:22
Give me some, give me something to go off of here.
31:25
You know what I'm saying?
31:26
Jerremy Newsome: That's a good point.
31:27
It is.
31:28
Nick Hiter: But again, we just always take what we want.
31:30
Like when our daughter our daughter was born in April of 2021, dude, they were
31:35
pushing all kinds of medications and vaccinations on her, on us at that time.
31:39
And it was like, you know what, dude, we, she just got here.
31:42
She's perfectly healthy.
31:44
We don't want that right now.
31:45
You have the right to choose.
31:46
So again, just 'cause the doctor says it don't mean you have to do it.
31:49
You, it's you have the right to choose.
31:51
Now, they can also say if you're not gonna do it, we're not gonna serve you.
31:54
And if that's the case, like if you didn't, if you went to Ruth's
31:57
Christ, like if you don't order the filet, you can't eat here.
32:00
I wouldn't, I'd be like, cool, I'm out.
32:02
I'll go somewhere else that wants me here.
32:04
So again, if you have a strong network, you can choose your providers and
32:08
there's a lot of power in that choice.
32:10
Jerremy Newsome: Earlier, Nick, you mentioned something tactical that
32:13
kind of stood out to me and I didn't realize, and I guess the follow up
32:17
question is gonna be this, so earlier you mentioned that you have the
32:20
ability to have someone, or maybe, I think you used the word, hire someone
32:24
to help you negotiate medical debt.
32:27
My, it sounds like both my wife and your wife are a lot better than me and you.
32:31
'cause she, my, my wife right now loves negotiating bills
32:35
is her favorite thing ever.
32:37
But to that point, if someone doesn't have an amazing negotiator in their life.
32:42
Is it possible to hire someone?
32:43
'cause that's my tactical question.
32:45
Nick Hiter: When people, when my wife does it, it's just a part of
32:49
the service that we provide again.
32:51
Jerremy Newsome: Oh, okay.
32:51
Nick Hiter: Yeah.
32:52
So it's it's not, she's not necessarily hopping on the phone with the facility
32:56
herself, but, she may be a fly on the wall saying, Hey, offer this or
33:00
offer that or here's if they come back with this, just like anything else.
33:03
So I'm not saying it's like a courtroom drama or anything like that, but again
33:07
on if there's a, $2,500 bill, I'd walk in offering maybe like 500 to $700 and
33:13
see where they st and see where they come back with and go from there, yeah.
33:16
They want that sucker paid and closed, and you want to get
33:18
it off your books too, yeah.
33:20
The, I would say that the pricing that they're asking for is a I,
33:24
let's just call it suggestion.
33:25
I'm not trying to get any compliance comp, compliance hot water here.
33:28
Yeah.
33:29
But, it's, again, e if everybody's technically in it for the same
33:34
reasons, it's just, that's not always.
33:36
Communicated and there's a lot of red tape and a lot of re This is
33:39
a heavily regulated industry man.
33:42
And it's crazy.
33:43
It's crazy.
33:43
It's regulated because, all the hospitals and providers are pr
33:46
are, they're for-profit companies.
33:49
Which is,
33:49
Jerremy Newsome: Oh yeah,
33:50
Nick Hiter: why it's hard for, it's hard for the government to go into a for-profit
33:53
company, so you have to do this.
33:55
If they did that to our business, I don't know, I'd be
33:58
like, I don't know about that.
33:59
I don't know if I accept that this is my business and I want
34:01
to run it the way I wanna run it.
34:03
So I understand there's legal things and regulations for that, but when it
34:06
comes to the pricing or the insurance companies, you gotta take and all
34:09
these negotiated rates for the network reductions they're literally, they
34:13
change, they're forever changing and they're specific to each practice,
34:18
Jerremy Newsome: Yep.
34:19
I'll say, just to rehash on this for a moment, because it is so important
34:23
to so many of our listeners, is you can ask a certain number and if
34:27
they agree to that number, a lot of times you can also take that number.
34:31
So let's just say you use the example, right?
34:33
Your bill is 2000 bucks, you negotiate down to 500.
34:36
After it's 500.
34:37
A lot of times you can get that 500 or five 50 or $600 on a payment plan.
34:44
And as long as you're paying monthly, they're happy with you.
34:47
And I've had three or four medical bills in my situation, in my
34:49
life where I got on a 0% interest just pay me every single month.
34:55
And I did, and I paid them.
34:57
And the bill price was substantially less than it would've been.
35:00
But I did pay and it took three years to pay it off.
35:02
I paid it off.
35:03
And so as of right now, I have zero medical debt, which is awesome.
35:06
But I think to that point, I. A lot of people just forget or
35:09
don't, aren't totally aware.
35:11
And so hopefully for all the listeners, you're getting some value
35:14
there because just know that you are in control, that you do have the
35:17
ability, and that's because we're in the greatest country in the world.
35:19
We got the greatest problems in the world, but we're the greatest country.
35:22
And so you're gonna have both of those aspects, right?
35:23
You can't ask to get strong without having some weight.
35:26
How boring would life be with no resistance?
35:29
Nick Hiter: Dude, we're like, at home we did a big renovation at
35:31
home and part of that renovation was a beautiful, spectacular pool.
35:36
And 10 months after it was turned over to us, like literally we woke up and
35:39
the wall had collapsed in the pool.
35:40
It's been a hole in the ground for 10 months.
35:42
And sure enough, so that first thing I did is follow it to my homeowners, right?
35:45
So what, guess what, deny And we appealed it twice and sure
35:49
enough, it's in clear cut language that I never read my homeowner.
35:52
That's not my homeowner's insurance job to cover that based on what happened.
35:56
So now we've had to we're having to go through with a lawyer through the
36:00
builder and all the subcontractors and their insurance companies.
36:03
'cause technically their insurance companies, based on
36:06
the way ours is structured is who's supposed to cover that?
36:08
So EE even then but again it.
36:11
I definitely signed it.
36:12
Just 'cause I didn't know what I signed when I signed it.
36:15
Exactly.
36:16
That's my fault.
36:17
'cause it was clearly there in the literature and it, dude,
36:19
when you get that stack insurance
36:20
Jerremy Newsome: Oh dude, they're big dude.
36:22
Nick Hiter: Think about that.
36:23
What, how much information did you just trash when you burn that sucker?
36:27
You know what I mean?
36:28
And think about that.
36:29
When in life, is that ever okay?
36:30
Where you're gonna be like, yeah, it'll be fine.
36:33
Dave Conley: So you even said, like you wish you'd learned this in college
36:36
and you're an expert in insurance and your homeowners is doing this to you.
36:42
What should consumers, where should consumers start learning about this?
36:48
Where do they start?
36:49
Nick Hiter: There, there's a ton of information.
36:51
Oh.
36:52
As a matter of fact, do chat.
36:53
GPT is a great resource to, to ask just really basic questions
36:59
to figure some stuff out.
37:00
The information's pretty good on there.
37:01
But more importantly, like that's tech, all the agent or the
37:05
broker is the marketing arm, the service arm for those carriers.
37:09
Like I love I'm gonna give Erie Insurance a shout out.
37:11
That's who our homeowner stuff is through.
37:13
Josh Mitten is our agent, and he has been fantastic.
37:16
He picks up the phone when we have a question, and that's at the end
37:19
of the day, that's his main job, man is making sure that happens.
37:23
And if he has questions like, Hey, I lost my cards.
37:25
I can't get into my portal.
37:27
Hey, I need to add a new dependent or a new spouse, or, I've had a
37:30
life changing circumstance, I need to tweak my policy a little bit.
37:33
That's what the agent's there to do for you or your broker.
37:36
And I like, nothing against brokers.
37:38
Brokers represent a lot of different companies.
37:41
And with the way our agency is structured, we can advise on all the plans in
37:46
the states that we're licensed in.
37:47
However, we have some contracts that allow us pretty much like we, we
37:52
can look at plans and quote plans that not every agent has access to.
37:55
So at the end of the day, the person that you're talking to, are they shopping
37:59
the entire, are they shopping every car, or are they only shopping Toyotas?
38:04
So when you think about that, there's a lot of different car manufacturers
38:07
and car brands, so how many of them are they actually able to help you on?
38:11
You know what I mean?
38:12
So I just want a white car that gets this gas mileage with this
38:15
many seats and so on and so forth.
38:17
I don't care what kind it is.
38:18
If they only look Toyota they might have missed a great deal for me with from GMC.
38:23
Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
38:24
So Nick, you handsome man.
38:25
Here's one for you.
38:26
What are some reforms that you feel would improve the trust
38:31
between consumers and insurers?
38:35
Nick Hiter: First off, just a, every restaurant you go to is gonna
38:39
tell you what the price of the food is before, before you order it,
38:42
you're gonna know that would be a great start to just make pricing
38:45
transparent on, on, on the front end.
38:48
So that way, again, the
38:50
Jerremy Newsome: You can decide.
38:51
You can choose, yeah.
38:53
Nick Hiter: yeah literally when I was in the, I have diverticulitis
38:55
in the emergency room twice in one month year and a half ago over it.
38:59
And like literally, like they came in offering me pain medication.
39:02
I wasn't in that much pain.
39:03
I can tolerate a lot, but they came in asking me if I wanted some, my
39:07
first response was, how much is it?
39:09
And literally like the tech was like, I don't know.
39:11
I'm like I don't know if I want it.
39:13
Go find that out and I'll tell you how painful this is.
39:16
Jerremy Newsome: That's so funny, dude.
39:19
Nick Hiter: You know what I mean?
39:19
So again, if they're gonna, they're gonna test everything.
39:22
Why?
39:23
Because if they go in and they miss something, technically there might
39:26
be a lawsuit on them later on.
39:27
So it's better for them to just test everything.
39:30
Dude I don't, I don't need an X-ray right now for my diverticulitis, right?
39:34
I had one two weeks ago.
39:35
So it's, but again, they're gonna do, they have a standard practice
39:39
and they're in it to make money too.
39:40
It's all those things combined.
39:41
Hey, we wanna do this test.
39:43
Why?
39:44
I bet you do.
39:45
Why?
39:46
What's in it for me?
39:47
What's in it?
39:48
What's in it
39:48
Jerremy Newsome: How much is it?
39:49
Nick Hiter: Yes, absolutely.
39:51
What's it, what's in it for me?
39:52
And if they can't answer that question, then I can't answer your question.
39:55
You know what I mean?
39:56
So if you can't answer my question, then I can't answer yours.
39:59
You give me an answer and I'll give you one back.
40:01
It's real fair.
40:02
Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
40:03
Dave Conley: Yeah.
40:03
But, okay, so like I, I've had emergencies too, and I'm, I am not
40:07
necessarily in my best state of mind.
40:11
So are there perhaps reforms outside of the consum?
40:15
I get it.
40:15
The consumer definitely has to be at the center of this, right?
40:19
And there's insurance, there's government, there's the medical providers, there's,
40:23
this is a constellation, right?
40:25
Do you think that there are reforms that need to happen somewhere
40:30
in that world of government and insurance providers and providers?
40:35
That would help out the consumer because for a lot of people, it doesn't feel
40:38
like it's consumer centric, even though it's the most important decisions
40:42
that we're making truly of our lives.
40:45
Nick Hiter: As, as far as reforms go.
40:48
There's a million ways that you could go about it.
40:50
And I honestly, I haven't thought too much about what they should
40:52
do, because what the thing that I do is I solve the problems that
40:55
the current state causes, right?
40:57
So we really just, I can't help my customers by talking about the things, the
41:01
hypotheticals that could make it better.
41:03
We help them by dealing with what they got to work with right now
41:06
and how to navigate through those.
41:07
So there's a million things that they could do to make it better,
41:09
whether with pricing transparency with caps on certain things.
41:13
Again, there's, there there's probably a place out there that might serve
41:16
a million that costs, Hey, man, this stake's a million dollars.
41:19
There's, and there's nobody saying they can't do that.
41:22
There's nobody saying you can't charge over that first stake.
41:24
But again, you know that before, before you get it.
41:26
So in my opinion and again, is if you're not in, is there, are
41:32
you in the right mind, like you said, to make that decision?
41:35
And is there a way to gauge that versus having, a spouse or a power of
41:38
attorney there to do next, which they have that in place to a certain degree.
41:42
But again does everybody have that set up in place when the bad thing happens, when
41:47
they're sit, when they're in the hospital incapacitated, do they have that person
41:51
that's next in line to make decisions on their behalf when they do that?
41:54
So again, it all, I it goes back to the customer.
41:56
Like I had kids and I didn't have a last will and testament.
41:59
I didn't have any of that stuff set up.
42:00
My kids were exposed and my parents were like, Nick, grow up.
42:04
Do the right thing, man.
42:05
Protect your family.
42:07
And I'm like, you're right.
42:07
I should do that.
42:09
It's just as a cons as a customer or a consumer.
42:14
Did I do all the things that I should have done to, to protect everything
42:17
that needs protecting, versus waiting until it's horrible to do.
42:21
Like I remember we were going on my wife and I were going on a cruise.
42:23
Kids were staying at home and or a kid singular was staying at home and we
42:28
didn't have the last will in testament.
42:29
Guess what?
42:30
If something happens on that boat, we're both going down with it, right?
42:34
What happens to my son when we don't come home?
42:37
So my lawyer was like, Hey dude, just send me a voice message or a video saying,
42:42
Hey, if anything happens to us, so we've got something to start with, right?
42:46
But again, if I didn't do that and something had to happen, it's then
42:49
my kids, my, my son's in tough shape.
42:52
So we're always looking for somebody else to solve a problem.
42:55
And I'm a big believer in it's if I do this, I give away the,
42:58
if I point out, I give away the ability to solve that problem.
43:01
If I'm like, it's my fault, I can fix it.
43:04
So that's just my stance on everything.
43:06
It's,
43:06
Jerremy Newsome: Which I like.
43:07
I like that.
43:07
I think there's a lot more people that just need to have that
43:09
stance in general, where it's like, Hey, this is all my fault.
43:11
This is all my doing anyway.
43:12
I'm gonna take onus for everything.
43:14
And then everything else outside of that, I hope it helps me, but
43:17
realistically, this is all my shoulders
43:18
Nick Hiter: and think about this, if everywhere I go, there's, most
43:21
of the roads in this town are 40 to 30 to 50 mile an hour speed limits
43:25
except for the interstates, right?
43:26
If everywhere I go, I'm driving 80 or 90 if when I get caught enough times, they're
43:31
gonna be like, dude, you're not insurable.
43:32
Think about what people are putting in their bodies daily,
43:36
every day, years on end.
43:39
It's habitual behavior that's not healthy and it's bad.
43:42
So it's and then we expect the insurance company to step up and
43:45
take care of all of our bad habits.
43:47
Again, golly man.
43:49
Jerremy Newsome: I know it might be obvious, Nick, but what are some
43:51
examples of those things that people are putting into their bodies that are bad?
43:54
Nick Hiter: Man those seed oils, those processed foods, fast food
43:58
fast food used to be like what you ate when you were in a rush.
44:01
Some people eat it every day.
44:03
That's all they
44:03
So what again, I was always taught in the world of business, you could,
44:07
it something's whatever you buy is gonna be good, fast, or cheap, but
44:10
you can only pick two of them, right?
44:13
So if it's good and fast, it ain't gonna be cheap,
44:16
Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
44:17
Nick Hiter: right?
44:17
If it's cheap and fast, it ain't gonna be good.
44:20
Jerremy Newsome: Yep.
44:20
My dad taught me the same thing.
44:22
Nick Hiter: the same way.
44:22
And think about that with your healthcare.
44:24
Think about what that, with the food you're putting in your body, like even
44:26
the medication and stuff you're putting in, like people take more medication
44:30
than they too vi than they too vitamins.
44:32
Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
44:33
I know one of the big questions on a lot of insurance forms is
44:37
ask about, alcohol and tobacco.
44:39
Do.
44:40
This might be a random question, but do you think, is
44:42
it tobacco or is it nicotine?
44:46
Nick Hiter: So nicotine's got a lot of positive health effects
44:48
if it's taken in the right
44:49
Jerremy Newsome: I've been reading about these.
44:50
Yeah, that's kind I didn't know if that was a sprinkle of kind of my question, I
44:53
Nick Hiter: so the tobacco, it's, in my opinion, it's the tobacco
44:56
it's the tobacco, not the nicotine.
44:58
Because the tobacco, what's causes the gum cancer from the snuff being
45:01
in your lip or the lung cancer from the cigarette smoke inhalation.
45:04
And all the, and again, what are, what's all the chemicals in
45:07
those filters and stuff, they're putting in those cigarettes.
45:09
So it's not just, it's not just natural raw nicotine you're getting
45:12
it's nicotine with all these chemicals they've lumped together with it.
45:15
Jerremy Newsome: Yeah, no valid point.
45:17
And I think to your level, I think the big shift that my ultimate dream and goal
45:23
is to create into this country is gonna be a much more robust, much more refined,
45:28
much more expansive education system.
45:31
Because I think a lot of the things that are gonna stem from what you said earlier,
45:37
most Americans are overweight, and the majority, I think it's 58% are obese.
45:43
34% of America, which is one in three people are morbidly obese, which is over
45:49
a hundred pounds overweight, which is like you're knocking on diabetes and
45:52
death doorstep if you're morbidly obese.
45:55
That's a humongous problem.
45:57
And again, yes, a lot of it, as you mentioned earlier, we can blame the
46:02
food, we can blame the, in the creators of the sugar and all the things.
46:07
And or we can also blame the education system for not being the number
46:11
one proponent of teaching every single child to the best of their
46:15
ability, what it is to eat healthy, how it works, the ingredients.
46:19
So if we start creating this shift where that's really the main focus
46:25
or a big proponent focus, right?
46:27
Financial literacy, health literacy and to your point, insurance taxes.
46:32
Every parent I talk to in America is like, yeah, why isn't this being taught
46:36
in school when you go through some actual real world things that we need to learn?
46:42
Nick Hiter: The application is, there's no application being taught in most school.
46:45
It's a whole lot of knowledge, but you're not it's like reading the Bible and not
46:50
knowing how to apply it to your life.
46:52
Jerremy Newsome: Oh shoot.
46:53
Nick Hiter: It's empty,
46:53
Jerremy Newsome: Oh, shoot.
46:55
Yep.
46:55
I love that point.
46:57
Nick, thank you for your time today, man.
46:58
You've given people a ton of value today.
46:59
Where can they go to learn more about you, about insurance and
47:04
to protect themselves even more?
47:05
Nick Hiter: Nick heider.com and team heider.com specifically
47:09
for the insurance stuff.
47:10
And again I appreciate you guys having me on today.
47:12
It's an honor and a pleasure.
47:13
The true rockstar witness.
47:15
So my wife has a very unique stance in this industry, and the fact that
47:18
she's a I'll put her up against any agent or broker on planet Earth.
47:23
And the big biggest, one of the biggest reasons is because nobody's
47:26
gonna care as much as she does.
47:27
But she used to run a big old doctor's office, so she's been, she's the one of
47:31
the few people that has been the consumer,
47:34
And the agent for the insurer.
47:35
So she's covered all three of the branches and she knows how
47:39
to navigate through those things.
47:40
But again, folks, freedom is the key word.
47:43
You want to be free to make choices, and with that, freedom comes with
47:46
responsibility to make good choices.
47:49
Jerremy Newsome: Come on now.
47:50
Hey, I'm gonna reach out to your perfect wife and see if we can
47:51
get her on the show as well.
47:52
'cause we got some amazing future topics.
47:55
And again, we're just gonna really focus on if we can make and understand and
48:00
inform all the listeners, all the people, realizing that there's problems in the
48:04
country, realizing that we can come up with easy, fast, simple solutions.
48:09
The more we can apply these, you said the word application earlier, right?
48:12
The more that we can actually apply some of these steps, the one
48:15
that I heard the most today was.
48:17
Just pricing awareness, pricing visibility, having that in front
48:22
of people, just letting them know what's available and what's
48:25
not available and what the costs are and what the costs aren't.
48:27
I think that just by itself could create a much bigger wave of informed consumers.
48:32
So Nick, thanks so much for your time man.
48:34
I
48:34
Nick Hiter: got it baby.
48:34
Thank you.
48:36
Dave Conley: Okay.
48:37
What did you learn?
48:38
Jerremy Newsome: Oh, what did I learn?
48:40
What did I learn?
48:41
There he, man, there's a lot of acronyms out there.
48:44
We said P-P-O-E-M-O-H-M-O.
48:48
Again, I think that there's a lot of the in-network pieces we started off with.
48:53
I do think that the general consumer, and the reason I feel that way is 'cause I'm
48:57
probably undereducated in this too, is the average American probably doesn't know
49:03
a lot about how health insurance works.
49:05
And one of the most interesting takes that I heard Nick say is we
49:09
treat health insurance differently than we treat anything else.
49:12
All the other insurance is more pre prehab sorry, rehab,
49:17
it's more like after the fact.
49:19
And a lot of people treat health insurance as a prehab, which is
49:22
like, all right before I get sick, what are some things I can do?
49:25
Which tells me that there's probably some kind of business in that, right?
49:31
What if someone paid a company X amount of dollars and they would help create
49:37
coupons or discounts or programs for just preventative health metrics.
49:42
So let's say that you had a company that you paid 200 bucks a month and
49:45
they sent you the newest and latest and greatest, I don't know, fancy water
49:50
bottle that rehydrates your hydrogen, or they send you to some, biometric
49:56
labs that are in your city, or there's some IV programs that they can send.
50:00
I'm trying to think of I'm, I feel like there's probably a very
50:03
interesting business model in the prehab version of health insurance.
50:07
But then of course, after the fact.
50:09
One of the other things that really is, I think, truly a crazy easy shift,
50:16
Dave, would be visual pricing on just a lot of portions of health, right?
50:22
Like right now, if I go into a, I'm not a pharmacist, but if I go
50:27
into a urgent care center, perfect example, and my, because my ear hurts.
50:33
Okay.
50:35
I don't know what any of that's gonna cost me.
50:37
No clue.
50:38
And once I get back behind the door and I start talking to the doctor,
50:41
there again, I have no idea what the prescription's gonna cost upfront or if
50:45
they gave me a bandage for my ear or they put some type of special solution on it.
50:50
I have no idea what it costs.
50:52
And I don't think most people do when they go into a program or product.
50:57
Now, I will say to backend that one of the things that me and my family
51:00
are doing is we're starting to really aggressively attack the HSA route.
51:04
And we're doing that in the simple form of some of the numbers that
51:08
Nick was throwing out there.
51:10
If you have, or if I bought like a catastrophe policy where we spend
51:14
$2,000 a month, I was like, okay, if you go into the emergency room.
51:18
You're gonna give 50% of your stay covered, and that's $2,000 a year.
51:22
Okay.
51:22
Got anything other than that?
51:24
We take all of the money, which for my family, 'cause I don't know why, dude.
51:29
I'm just, I got an expensive family, bro.
51:30
Like these kids, it's like $1,700 a month for all five of us.
51:36
It's like that's a lot.
51:38
So if I could take all of that, put it into an HSA account, which
51:41
is a health savings account, take that health savings account.
51:43
We talked about this with Sean.
51:45
Dr. Sean, take that money and then invest it into stocks also.
51:49
You can then grow that money and can keep contributing to it.
51:53
And if you use it, pull it out.
51:54
Tax free, penalty free.
51:56
And if you don't use it, it's there.
51:57
And now it's a savings account.
51:58
It can grow and grow over 5, 10, 15 years.
52:01
That can come up to hundreds of thousands of dollars that you can transfer,
52:04
donate, give, use, buy a house with it.
52:07
There's all kinds of things you can do with it at that point, but there's.
52:11
A lot of shifts here that are very interesting, but it also seems
52:15
like there's going to be yes, this bigger, overarching scary monster
52:20
that you mentioned, Dave, where it's okay, what about the government?
52:22
What about the providers, about the insurance companies?
52:24
There's probably a lot of reform in there that a lot of people haven't
52:26
totally figured out yet, but there's also probably some very easy solutions
52:30
upfront and early on, including obviously, education earlier on, but most
52:35
specifically, just more visible awareness of what things are gonna cost us.
52:41
Dave Conley: I heard that too.
52:42
Which is like the big thing that would help a whole lot of people is
52:46
price transparency and and I get it.
52:51
And the other, the, I get that piece.
52:53
And the other piece that, I dunno if I'm struggling with it, but I'm
52:56
still challenged by it is I'm not a doctor, I'm not an insurance expert.
53:02
I'm not a lawyer.
53:03
I'm not an expert in any of these things.
53:05
What I did learn today and just reconfirmed what I already knew,
53:10
was, the providers and the insurance companies, and the pharmaceutical
53:16
companies and the pharmacies, they're all built to make money and.
53:23
Your outcome, whatever it is incidental to that.
53:28
They're not there to, to really, to keep you healthy or to, to even, the,
53:34
they, the most optimal outcome for them and the most optimal outcome for you.
53:43
Can be and are often misaligned.
53:45
And a lot of that has to do around price and service and not knowing.
53:50
Like medical stuff is my second biggest expense right below my housing.
53:57
And it's because I'm, I'm a different bear, like I, I spend not only money on
54:02
insurance, but also on a medical provider, a doctor who acts as my primary person,
54:09
running medical tests and nav, helping me navigate the medical, landscape of things
54:14
in order for me to focus on vitality.
54:18
And not, and prevent, preventative maintenance.
54:21
And that was another piece that we learned from Nick.
54:23
It's these are different things, when the bomb goes off, that's one thing.
54:27
And keeping you healthy is another thing.
54:29
And, accidents are another thing.
54:31
What I do know is that, the personal responsibility that more people need
54:37
to take from this is that right now I'm gonna imagine that most of our listeners
54:42
and most of the people in the United States spend almost no time thinking
54:46
about their health, their insurance, their preventative the accidents.
54:53
They don't spend any time on that.
54:56
And it truly is your responsibility to engage with professionals like insurance
55:01
brokers to be like, okay, how's a way that I can do this that makes sense for me
55:06
and my family to talk with the providers and say, okay, what does this cost?
55:11
It's and what, how can I pay for this?
55:14
And is it in network?
55:15
And learning some of that language, so it, in order for health insurance to
55:21
work in the current system, you have to.
55:25
Everyone, I'm gonna say, everyone listening to this
55:29
Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
55:30
Dave Conley: carve out time,
55:32
Jerremy Newsome: Time.
55:33
Yep.
55:33
Dave Conley: every day, or every week or every month, and learn it and get the
55:38
professionals around this so that you, because I don't know if there's, anything
55:43
more important than somebody's health.
55:46
And that's what I learned.
55:48
Jerremy Newsome: We hear all the time, man, health is our greatest wealth.
55:51
And I do think that there, and this system is pretty ripe for disruption.
55:56
One of the questions I just didn't think to ask is, do you have to
56:01
have a broker to get insurance?
56:02
Can I just go directly to the source?
56:04
I. Of an insurance policy and just buy it and not pay a company or a brokerage
56:09
company, their monthly reoccurring revenue because that's obviously
56:13
going to eat into my costs, right?
56:16
So just another thing to be common, I don't know the answer to that question.
56:19
I'm sure we'll find out in future episodes.
56:20
In fact, for our amazing esteemed listeners, we really
56:24
do want to hear your stories.
56:26
Have you had a nightmare experience with healthcare?
56:29
Have you found a healthcare model that actually works?
56:32
Share your thoughts.
56:33
Tag us on solving America's Problems podcast on Instagram.
56:38
And if you have Twitter also now known as x solve USA pod message us there.
56:45
Both myself and Dave are very active on social media.
56:47
We would love to pour into you and help you as much as we possibly can.
56:51
And ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for being a part
56:53
of this incredible movement.
56:54
Thank you for listening.
56:55
Thank you for being a part of this awesome mission and impact.