Health and Wellness Show 05-31-25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Jeff Howell from Health Markets is our resident expert on
all things when it comes to health insurance. Jeff, good morning, sir.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Good morning Gary.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
We uh want to talk about and being somebody who
just by if I got my red and blue car
in the mail.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
The other day, Jeff. For Medicare is mine goes an
effect come June.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
But for me, I'm still working in on my employee plan,
so I'm just taking the Part A for now. But
you know, when you get to the rest of the parts,
when you don't have that group coverage through your employer
and you've hit the age of sixty five, then you
know the Part A you get. Then oh my goodness,
if you go to the regular route, you got what

(00:44):
parts c's and d's and g's and all sorts of parts,
and then you have, well the other option, which is
to go with Medicare advantage plans. And you know, even
for some folks who are on Medicare right now, I
guess there's still a bit of confusion about what the
differences are and maybe what's right or not and what's
not right for them.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
That's true. I mean, even if someone's been on Medicare
for ten fifteen twenty years. Every year they know that
an open rollment's coming up around the corner between October
fifteenth and December seventh, when they can make changes. You know,
we're thinking, they're thinking, well, I can't make a change
now there is a plan I'm currently on right for me,
and looking to the future, you know, what does the

(01:23):
future hold? For example, if they're on a Medicare supplement plan,
they know that every year they get older that Medicare
supplement is going to go up in price. We've been blessed,
you know, really since the inception of the prescription drug
card program in two thousand and six, is that the
premiums of the drug cards have been fairly low, depend

(01:43):
upon which drug card you select. But in twenty twenty five,
with some of the COVID laws going into effect, and
the good news for seniors is that they won't pay
any more in two thousand dollars and co pays at
the pharmacies for example, when they go to you know,
my pharmacy, an optical or Riley's Drugs or CBS wherever
they go. When they're paying their copaids of the counter,

(02:04):
they'll pay no more than two thousand dollars which that's
a law that is going to help with the counter
that's great, annual cap, right, yeah, an annual cap, yes, sir, absolutely,
and that's the first time that we've had something like that.
But what we worry about as insurance agent is that
what is that going to do to drug card premiums?
Because if the insurance companies are taking on a lot

(02:27):
of that overage over the two thousand dollars in costs,
then that will probably be passed down the consumer as
far as monthly premium.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
So this is not a case where the government bio
taxpayers is picking up the rest of the tab. This
is a cost that the pharmaceutical company is going to
have to eat, right.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
More specifically, the insurance companies. Okay, so interesting enough, the
pharmaceutical companies, we're not giving a very large percentage of
the liability over that two thousand dollars in costs. The
insurance companies were given the bulk of that percentage. So
of course it's the insurance companies that bill you every
month for the monthly premium to have the drug card.

(03:11):
And then of course I only say why do I
need a drug card? Well, part of that initial law
in two thousand and six for the prescription drugs is
that you do not have a prescription drug card or
credible coverage through your employer like you would have. But
if you do not have a prescription drug card, you
will be penalized. So everyone had a prescription drug card now,

(03:31):
and it's really not that big a deal. I mean,
we have prescription drug cards out there. They are fifty
cents a month, So having a drug card is really
you know, it is not that burdensome premium wise right
now for most people. There are some people who take
more expensive drugs who need a higher price a prescription
drug card, and their drug card might be over one

(03:52):
hundred dollars a month. Now, say, however, in twenty twenty five,
that one hundred dollars a month plus premium could be
the norm, not the exception. So you're saying, okay, So
now if you're say seventy years old, and you've been
on a Medicare supplement since you were sixty five, and
you've been on a drug card, and maybe you're paying

(04:12):
one hundred and ninety dollars for your supplement, now you're
paying fifty cents for your drug card. Now, if your
drug card goes up to to throughout an easy number
for math, one hundred dollars a month. Now you've got
from one to ninety and fifty to two hundred and
ninety dollars a month. Right, That may make a lot
of people look a little more close to Medicare advantage

(04:35):
come this open enrollment season in October, So it's good
to start preparing and start realizing, you know, what is
Medicare advantage and is that an option for someone who's
currently on a Medicare Supplement and drug.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
Card right right, And again you're talking about seventy seventy
two seventy five years old. You're more than likely on
a fixed income. And you know they've come to one
hundred bucks a month that you weren't expecting.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
That's correct, that's correct, and so and that's pushed a
lot of people to Medicare advantage. And you know, there's
a lot of fear about Medicare advantage because when it
first came out in two thousand and six, most of
the Medicare advantage plans were HMOs, and no one likes
a HMO because the HMO means you have to go
to this particular doctor and if you have to go

(05:21):
to a specialist. You need to referral from that doctor
to go to this particular specialist, to go to this
particular hospital. It's very restrictive. However, Medicare advantage plans that
I sell are all PPOs, meaning you can go anywhere
that takes Medicare. It does have a network, and so
you definitely get lower costs when you go in network.
For example, if you've got a Blue Cross Medicare Advantage PPO,

(05:45):
every hospital in the state the networks. You can go
to Lexington, you can go to Prismo, you can go
to musc and Charleston. You know, you can go where
you want to, and you can even go out of state.
So if they're in network, you'll get the same low
costs in Colorado that you get Alecta Medical Center. If
they're out of network, and still go to that doctor
in Colorado, who you just might pay a higher copay. So,

(06:09):
you know, a lot of the fears about HMOs and
Medicare advantage, you know, I can lay or put those
fears to rest when I meet with people and talk
to them about Medicare advantage and see if it's the
right fit for them, and I.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
Guess I think you've told us before, Jeff, that in
the last couple of years, the number of people on
these advantage plans is now more than those who are
on supplements, or right at the about the same number.
Is that right as a percentage?

Speaker 2 (06:39):
That's correct, that's correct. You know, in twenty twenty two
to the last year, we have data from more seniors
purchased Medicare advantage plans than Medicare supplement plans. So Medicare's
seplins had always been on top, you know, until twenty two.
And I'm and I can say with conference A twenty
three will be even more so when that data comes

(07:02):
out that Medicare advantage more Medicare advantage plans were sold
to Medicare supplements. And a lot of reasons for that
is that Medicare advantage plans have zero premium, right, And
the second reason is they provide extra benefits like three
thousand dollars in dental benefits, some vision benefits, pre pair
of glasses, hearing, a discount, some gym memberships, Flex cards

(07:25):
that's the card you take to a grocery store CBS
and get food and over the counter like vitamins or
toothpaste things like that. So they provide a lot of value. Now,
of course, with anything in life, there is a give
and a take, right, Well, okay, zero premium, you get
all this extra stuff.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
Well, pardon the cynic in me, but you know when
I first and I guess maybe one of the big
reasons for the boom and these is that, I mean,
let's face it, insurance companies have been advertising the heck
out of these for a while now, you know, I
mean you can't spit without hitting one of those ads.
But yeah, I mean the senting to me says, h,

(08:08):
I don't pay anything and I get all this stuff.
What's the catch?

Speaker 2 (08:12):
Yes, And so the catches is that there's higher risk. So,
for example, if you're on a standard or let's say
the most popular Medicare supplement plan, now the Plan G
where your only risk health wise is the part be deductible,
which is two hundred and forty dollars. So if someone
turned sixty five in June and I write them a
Plan G for June first, the first time they go

(08:34):
to a doctor or urgent care or emergency room, or
the first time they receive medical treatment after June one,
they'll be billed that two hundred and forty dollars, then
they're done for the year. They're one hundred percent covered.
That person have been a coma all summer, wake up
on Labor Day, and they owe nothing right because they
already pay that two hundred four dollars deductible, So their
risk is very low. Whereas on the Medicare advantage plans,

(08:57):
you know, the maximount of pockets could be anywhere from
five thousand to eleven thousand dollars, depend upon what plan
you choose. Now I will say that that's not a deductible.
You just pay small copays along the way, and if
those cops ever added up to that five thousand, then
you would be died at the five thousand if that's

(09:18):
your max out of pocket on that particular plan. So
sometimes people get confused, They're like, I don't want to
pay the first five thousand. You wouldn't, So like on
mostly Medicare advantage plans, you get your primary doctor who
pays zero or ten dollars cope. You go a specialist,
you'll pay a fifteen or thirty five dollars cope, so
you have small cope. The MRI is one hundred and
fifty night in the hospital three hundred feat of dollars

(09:40):
a night the first five nights. Things like that. They're
very delineated on the copays that you pay. But if
you had a very bad year, but certainly that risk
is out there. But the Medicare advantage studies showed that
less than one percent of people on Medicare advantage plans
hit their MAXI amount of pocket. So you have to
have a really bad year to hit your max's out
of pocket on this plant.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
Well, the ironic thing about this, Jeff, seems to me
that all right, so folks who could most afford to
take the risk under an advantage plan of having to
come out of pocket you know, five ten thousand dollars
or what have you in a calendar year are the
same folks who probably are in a financial situation to
best afford to stay on a supplement planned and pay
the money each month and not take the risk.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
That's true. And for a lot of those people, that's
the decision, you know, is would you rather just put
money away into a savings account and have that ten
thousand dollars, say, in a savings account every year? So
if you had a bad year, or if you have
twenty thousand in an account, if you have a bad year,
then that money's in your account and it's growing interest.

(10:45):
That's your money, right. Or do you want to mail
off a check to an insurance company for a supplement
and a drug card and once you mail those checks
the insurance coming every month, they're not coming. That money's
not coming back, whether you go to a doctor that
month or not, whether you have a prescription field that
month or not. Next month the premiums are due again.
So it's just two completely different ways of doing your

(11:07):
medicare insurance coverage. No wrong or no right, by the way,
and I do not push one or the other. I
just explained the differences and lay out the packs and
talk to a person about their doctors, their medical treatment,
their prescriptions, and they give them an educated you know,
educate them and they make an educated decision on which ones,

(11:27):
which path is right for them.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
Now you mentioned again with the changes in the prescription
card plan under the supplements, that you could see your
price really go up here over the course of the
next year or so. Now does that not applicable if
you're on an advantage plans that doesn't hit.

Speaker 2 (11:45):
You there, it should not hit as much because Medicare
advantage plans have so much else going on as far
as money that received from the government for people who
are on those Medicare advantage plans, for the healthcare or
the prescription drugs. It could you could see in the
Medicare advantage plans maybe the benefits not growing as much,

(12:08):
just as a dental or the vision of the hearing,
you know, some of those benefits being pulled back or
maybe capped. You know a lot of times, you know,
over the years, we've seen dental go from five hundred
benefits to one thousand, to two thousand, to three thousand.
So maybe next year they don't go to four thousand
or right, maybe they're capped or they're lowered, you know,
So maybe we see effects in the Medicare advantage plan

(12:29):
that way. Internally, do not. I think we're going to
see much effect on the premium. So I think that's
going to stay you know, zero to you know thirty,
you know, somewhere under thirty dollars, certainly on the Medicare
advantage side.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
So do you do you foresee in your crystal ball,
mister Howell, or do you think that that maybe the
government's long term plan is to try to push everybody
off the supplements to the advantage plans. Is that is
that an advantage to the government.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
Well, when the law was passed in two thousand and four,
it was a George Bush was in office w right
with the Republican Congress, and it was a vote. It
was a law, believe it or not, that Democrats agreed
to back in those days when.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
Congress was when.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
They would talk to each other and they would make compromises,
and the law of you passed. That's the way Congress
was in two thousand and four. So this is a
law that the government sees as an advantage for the
government's keeping Medicare viable. Right, because every time a person
signs up for a Medicare advantage plan, the private company
they sign up with, Blue Cross, at Na Humana, whoever

(13:43):
it is, that person becomes that private company's responsibility and
they are now off the Medicare book.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
If you'd like to sit down with Jeff and discuss
the options, you can do that. How to folks get
a hold of you, my.

Speaker 2 (13:54):
Friend, Yes, my office is right beside the flight Deck
restaurant in Lexington and the flight deck shops health market insurance,
and you can give me a call or chext my
number at eight zero three six seven eight eight one
two one. My website is my name Jeffhowell dot com,
Jeff Hwle dot com.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
All right, thank you, Jeff, appreciate you, buddy, Thank you.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
Garry.

Speaker 4 (14:17):
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Speaker 1 (14:23):
Here's what I mean?

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Speaker 1 (14:34):
You inflation proof it.

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(14:56):
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Speaker 5 (15:08):
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Speaker 6 (15:16):
The hunt for quality insurance is more important than ever,
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(15:36):
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(15:59):
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Speaker 1 (16:33):
And we welcome you back to the Health and Wellness
Show on one O three point five f m and
five sixty AMWVOC. Now sitting down behind the microphone, Jim
Snell from the Law Office of James Nell. Good morning
to you, my friend.

Speaker 5 (16:45):
Good morning.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
How's that?

Speaker 5 (16:47):
Everything's great? You know we got so much better weather
this weekend, the last weekend.

Speaker 1 (16:51):
Oh yeah, that's truth. Huh. We're seeing the sunshine again. Yes,
so very thankful, Yes we are. Think I'm ahead to
the beach later on today, man, enjoy it. Need a
beach day or half day whatever. I gotta get a
little beach time in here since vacation is still like
two months away. Uh. Anyway, today something just doesn't feel right. Yes,

(17:15):
and I can't quite put my finger on it, the
after effects. That was something that maybe wasn't diagnosed originally
when you've been hurt in some sort of an accident.

Speaker 5 (17:27):
Right, you know this I was I was trying to think,
you know, uh, you know, trying to come with something
interesting talk to people about on the Health Involvement Show,
right you always do, yeah, right.

Speaker 7 (17:37):
And.

Speaker 5 (17:39):
So and actually had a had a had actually had
a few cases that we've handled in my office in
the uh just very recently that kind of wrangled with
this issue. But you know, it's it's so often after
say a car accident, right, you know, people people will

(18:00):
know that they you know, broke a bone or you know,
have some kind of laceration or whiplash or you know,
whatever that is, right, But sometimes there are other injuries
that are not visibly apparent. And and and I'm really
talking about kind of the world of and again I'm

(18:22):
not gonna be discussing this from a medical perspective, so
much is just kind of from my perspective, but generally
what all categorizes a traumatic brain injury or a TBI. Okay,
And and you know, really I don't I don't know
how much you know, the medical community was involved in

(18:44):
diagnosing or really understanding that phenomenon, you know, say, twenty
years ago. It's you know, obviously there's situations where people
clearly have head injuries, and you know, especially you know,
if they're.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
You know, have.

Speaker 5 (19:04):
You know, very significant issues leading to loss and motor
control or whatnot. And I know that's always been able
to be diagnosed. But I'll tell you what I'm want
to kind of just talk. What I want to talk
about are these situations where someone's gotten in a in
a see a car wreck. You know, they typically hit
their head in some fashion in the collision. You know,

(19:28):
maybe they had some headaches. Us well, yeah, they can
diagnose a concussion and there's really you know, I mean,
you take it easy, trying to hit your head again,
take it easy, that sort of thing. But some people,
you know, they've reported that they still have symptoms you know,

(19:48):
for uh, you know, weeks months after that wreck. And
you know kind of things I hear are people talk
about memory loss, especially short term obviously to talk about headaches,

(20:10):
but then like personality changes and like irritability maybe real
quick to get frustrated or you know, just have these
anger outbursts that sort of thing, and you know, talk
to people and they're like, you know, this is what
I'm dealing with, and I've never had this before, and

(20:32):
I feel like this is a you know, I'm different, right,
And I'll tell you that it's always sad to hear
that because you know, I mean, you know, really the
only thing you got in life. I mean, I guess
you know, people always talk about your health, but it's
you you know, and you changing. I mean, that's that's

(20:55):
about as bad as they get. And you know, I
taught to you know, you taught to people's family members,
you know, people they live with, spouse's children, whatnot. And
they'll they'll report kind of the same thing. You know,
that that that you got these behavioral changes. And and
again that's that's you know, that's these things are not

(21:17):
things that like a hospital and you know, the emergency
room can't diagnose it hospital. You know, you know, when
you get injured and you go in, nobody has any
idea if if you've got this injury or if it's
gonna affect you.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
So so this has been a situation where because typically
if you're in an accident like that, there's gonna do.
They gotta check your head in some way, shape or form,
typically right MRI I whatever, especially if you're complaining of
of of of of some pain in that area. But
I guess it doesn't always tell the whole story, is

(21:56):
what you're saying.

Speaker 5 (21:56):
No, I mean you know it tests like you know,
c T c T tests or MRIs can be very
good for detecting like bleeding or you know, some kind
of hemorrhage. They can look for fractures, they can look
for swelling. You know, they can like MRIs for example.
I know this are very good for detecting micro bleeds
in the brain. But sometimes, you know, you know, maybe

(22:25):
those imaging tests are done, or maybe they show something
or don't show something, but you've still got somebody that's
had this injury and they've got these these changes. So
and again it's it's the same sort of thing. You know, people,
you know, if you've got this internal head injury, you know,

(22:45):
you don't have a you know, maybe you had bruising
or something right after, but it's all healed. So people
look fine. And it's just something that I've sort of
learned to to be on the on the look got for.
And I'm talking to clients or their family about how
they're doing.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
So, how do you okay? So you break your arm
in an accident, it heals, maybe you've got some left over,
you know, I broke an arm and a leg in
a motorcycle accident when I was fifteen years old. Well,
all these years later or something not if the if
the weather changes somethimes, but I could feel it. My bones,
you know, they say you feel it in your bones,
but it's totally healed. Well, this is I guess somewhat similar.

(23:29):
You've got maybe there was an injury diagnosed or not
to the to the head. It's healed, but you know
you're feeling something here. How do you quantify that in
a in a court of law?

Speaker 5 (23:43):
So okay, So to tell you what we're doing, and
you know we have someone with you know, sharing these
kind of symptoms and obviously good gosh, all this has
to be done before a case settle, right one body,
which something always talked about. You got to make sure

(24:05):
you know what your injuries are before you wrap anything up.
Kind of what I and again just from my perspective,
when someone reports having you know, the headaches, memory loss,
just problems, I know, if they had had a concussion
or something go on in their head. Right, very often

(24:29):
and very hopefully you know your body will heal, your
antal heel, right, and so you want, you know, ideally
those symptoms subside and maybe so so I'm not talking
about people that have issues that last just for a
few weeks. This is something that's going to persist for
six months or more after the brain and body would

(24:53):
have completed whatever healing it's going to do, and and
you know it's going to create that new permanent state
for that individual. So typically I start really thinking about this.
I mean, as I'm listening people at the beginning stages
of the of a case, I'll listen, I make my notes,
and then I always want it to be to go
back after say about that six months timeframe, to check

(25:16):
in and see how they're doing. Are those those issues
you know better or worse staying the same? You know,
it's oftentimes just talking to the client, talking to their family,
you know, because I always encourage people to follow up
with their doctor, encourage them to maybe seek out a

(25:38):
neurologist just to try to you know, see if they
can get assessed whatever they need. Also because again when
you have things like potential you know, microbleeds or hemorrhages
in the brain, good gosh, that stuff. You know, you
really do want to get that stuff diagnosed. Sure, I
mean you don't just I don't. I don't know what

(26:00):
happens if you just live with it, but I'm assuming
it's it's not good, and some people do. But all right,
so you know, again we just resolve some cases with
this issue. And what we've what I've done is I've
located a an expert in diagnosing TBIs or traumatic brain injuries.

Speaker 1 (26:23):
That was giving my question, you can these be diagnosed?

Speaker 5 (26:25):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (26:25):
Okay, yeah, yeah, and short of that, I mean good
luck in in a courtroom.

Speaker 5 (26:29):
Right, yes, yeah, good luck And you know, typically uh,
it's a you know, there are psychologists that you know,
can make from a psychological perspective, can can make a
you know, maybe a diagnosis or typically some kind of

(26:51):
like neuropsychiatrist. There are actually some some people in the
local Columbia area that from a medical perspective, are very
focused and knowledge in this area that can be helpful
in getting people evaluated. I know that in addition to
you know, looking at medical records and and ordering any
medical tests, they focus on, you know, through interviewing both

(27:18):
they'll call it a patient, but I'll call it my
client and their family are people close to them, you know,
I refer those as cliral interviews. They'll they'll they'll test
them and talk to them about memory loss attention. Like
for example, I had a had a case where client
was an avid reader, just somebody that would just read

(27:43):
right and and they kind of shared that they could
get maybe a page through a novel and just lose
track of what they were reading or what's going on
in the story, and that was significant, you know, so
you talk about their tension like language processing. Uh, sometimes

(28:04):
people in from my perspective, kind of significant cases they
start misspelling words or they go to make a note
and they write down and it ends up being kind
of gibberish or something weird. Just stuff like that, right,
Just and and and there can be different symptoms that
at a different whole different range depending on people. Some
people report that they just kind of slow down, like mentally,

(28:28):
you know, just take some longer to think through things,
or you know, just report they're just not as quick
as they used to be. So anyways, you get you
get them to to some easily. It's a neuro psychiatrist, right,
that'll that will neuros psychiatrists that will examine them. And
you know, you know, obviously, if somebody comes in and

(28:49):
their their medical care, they've already got has has come
up with this diagnosis, that's great. But so often people
finish their treatments, they come back in and I'm just
talking to them, and I'm just like, well, you know,
you just don't.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
Sound like you're right. Yeah, uh so so and.

Speaker 5 (29:05):
I'll tell you know, and and and so what we
do is we, you know, we we find a professional
who can evaluate them. We get their medical records and everything,
you know, information about the wreck, the accident, the medical records.

Speaker 1 (29:19):
Get that to uh this expert, help get.

Speaker 5 (29:22):
Them an appointment set up for this kind of specialized
evaluation and then they go right and.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
You don't know even in Nero's psycho pschiatrist, is that
what they call it? Psychologists, neuropsychologist, nurse.

Speaker 5 (29:37):
Uh well yeah, you'd be a for different phrases, but
there are understanding neuro psychiatrists or neuse psychologists. But basically,
and of course psychiatrists are the ones that are actually
medical doctors.

Speaker 1 (29:49):
Right right, right, But this is it doesn't sound like
something they can actually cure, they can just diagnose it,
or that you're not you're you're a you're a lawyer
and a doctor.

Speaker 5 (30:00):
Yeah yeah. And so what I'll tell you is is
there are there can be depending on and the science
and this is kind of quickly evolving, right there, situations
where people can benefit from certain therapies. You know, there's
different types of counseling can be available, different kind of therapies,

(30:20):
certain circumstances there, commun medications. I mean, there's stuff that
can be done to improve. But that six month period
I was describing, that's kind of like what I understand
is sort of the criteria between something that may be
a temporary problem and versus something permanent. So these are
issues that people very well may have to live with

(30:40):
for the rest of their life. And sometimes they're just
you know, kind of people describe as just minor annoyances,
but other times they can be fairly significant, you know.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
And I'm sure this is something the insurance companies fight
tooth and nail here on.

Speaker 5 (30:55):
Well, yeah, you know, And the issue is unless you
get a medical person, you know, actually documenting it and
putting in writing that you know, their opinion to reasonable
do your medical certainty. Somebody's got this right because it's
not going to be diagnosed by the er. It's not
gonna be diagnosed, you know, when people followed with an
orthopedic practitioner and they go through normal I'm gonna call

(31:15):
it just other channels. It's not something that is really
going to be already in the records. And then a
big part of this of how it's determined is these
interviews with the with the client or interviews with their family,
you know, getting into the you know, the memory loss
and the language issues and the attention and the processing

(31:38):
speeds just all of that, right, So we end up with,
you know, if we can get this medical opinion, our
sister client getting it, you know, I mean a couple
of things we always say, you know, ask, you know,
get some recommendations of what you could do for any
kind of follow up treatments or exams. But then too,
we want to make absolutely certain that's something that can

(31:59):
be included and incorporated into any kind of demand with
an insurance company or if it was something that was
going to go to court. You know, we're prepared to
you know, present medical evidence and an expert medical opinion
that this is something, you know, an actual real thing.

Speaker 1 (32:15):
Have you come across this a lot of your practice.
I mean.

Speaker 5 (32:20):
Yes, I mean yeah, yeah, I mean it's gonna say.
I mean I try to be I try to look
out for it and talk and listen. So obviously it's
not the most common type of injury, but it's absolutely
something that that exists. It's absolutely something that affects people.
And it is and again it's the kind of thing

(32:41):
I think, you know, my understanding. Twenty thirty years ago,
there really were not you know, in the medical literature.
This wasn't anywhere near as well known or well documented.
You know, the science wasn't there. And this is this
is something where the medical communities is you can kind
of newer area, right and and it's something becoming more

(33:04):
and more focused on or more and more intentions given to.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
Well a personal injury law. This is a this is
a new a new take, uh for for our conversations.

Speaker 5 (33:13):
Yeah, yeah, just you know, and it's it's and and
I'll tell you that, you know, so often I'm gonna
shift gears a little bit, you know, just like this
is an area where we may have to send clients.
We actually regularly send our clients to help them find
a doctor do a special evaluation, you know. And obviously

(33:33):
there are other areas we do that, like like, for example,
if I have a client after physical injury and they
report you know, persistent, say after they say they broke
their leg right and there, and they say, hey, you
know it's been a year later and I still have
a mobility loss or strength loss on this leg or

(33:54):
the side of my body. You know, we help oftentimes
we get those clients prefer to function capacity evaluations where
they're kind of tested to determine what the difference and
strength maybe between their their left leg, right leg.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
Or different parts of their body right.

Speaker 5 (34:09):
Workers' compensation obviously there are lots of opportunities where it's
necessary to help arrange for the doctors to evaluate, recommend
additional treatments, and then offer an opinion on whatever the
impairment rating is going to be. Yeah, because because that's
a big part of workers comps, so, you know, personal

(34:30):
injury work. It's not necessarily limited just getting bills and
records and asking for money. I mean, you got to
make sure you understand exactly what the You got to listen,
understand what people's injuries are, how it's affected them, and
then yeah, and and then figure out, okay, I'm getting
this information. How can I get a medical opinion to

(34:52):
actually you know, document and you know and sort of
me just saying what I think it is. How can
I get somebody that sort of expert in the field
to make that termination. Is this or is it's not
really something?

Speaker 1 (35:04):
All Right? Find yourself in a situation like this, As
you always say, most of your folks would rather not
find themselves in a situation.

Speaker 5 (35:10):
But if you do, our free consultations and people can
call us at eight zero three three five nine three
three zero one or business online at Snell Law dot
com three Lsnell Law dot com.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
All right, thank you, Jim.

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Speaker 5 (36:22):
Good morning.

Speaker 7 (36:23):
This is Larry Harris with Classic Systems. I'm a certified
mold inspector. We can help you test the air in
your home ten minutes per sample, one sample inside, one
sample outside. If we do it in the morning, we'll
have the lab report that afternoon, and then we can
discuss with you what protocols you need to take to

(36:44):
clean the air in your home, particularly if you have coughing,
sneezing rashes on your body. This could be because of
mole that's in the air. Let us come do air
testing for you. The fee is only seventy five dollars
percon sample and we can get the lab report back
the same day, so you know if you have any

(37:05):
airborne issues in your home. This is Larry Harris with
Classic Systems. Eight O three six two six two seven
four eight eight O three six two six two seven
four eight.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
We're now joined by Larry Harris, the owner of a
Classic System.

Speaker 7 (37:28):
Morning Gary, it's a blessing to be here.

Speaker 1 (37:30):
I'm always good to have you in mold inspection remediation,
which is right a big part of what you do
with classic systems. And uh so tell us a story.
So you got to call from the league last week?
Who but fat lady called me.

Speaker 7 (37:43):
She she was looking in about a twenty year old
phone book in the Yellow Pages and.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
She uber phone books everybody, yeah, years ago.

Speaker 7 (37:51):
Anyhow, she couldn't find anybody that would answer the phone,
so apparently they were out of business.

Speaker 3 (37:56):
But she called me.

Speaker 7 (37:57):
She had a son in North Carolina that has severe
allergies to airborne mole and so I told her that
I could I could help her. I go up there
for a minimal fee and do air testing and I
could get the results back because that's about a two
hour drive to where she Isn't her son, Nay is
in North Carolina. So anyhow, her daughter called me yesterday

(38:18):
and wanted to make a convenient time for them and
for me. So she said, I had called a mole
inspector in North Carolina and they wanted over one thousand
dollars to come out and do a mole inspection. And
I'm probably way less than a third of that. So

(38:38):
you know, there's a lot of people that are in
the business and make a lot of money, and that's
not our mission. Of course, we got to get paid
for gas and time and everything in the lab fees.
But our mission is to help people. And of course
we get paid. Everybody has to get paid if you're
going to make a living. But I don't goung people.
And that said that, there are companies out there that

(39:00):
to manipulate things and take advantage of people.

Speaker 3 (39:03):
Well, it's like so many things in life. I mean,
well I wouldn't know.

Speaker 1 (39:06):
I mean if I called and if I called a
couple of companies and got a quote that was one
thousand and fifteen hundred bucks whatever, Yeah, and I got
that from a couple different companies, and think, okay, that's
just what the going rate is. We as the consumer,
we don't really know what really is fair and what's
not when with something that specializes as well.

Speaker 7 (39:23):
Traditionally, the average mold inspection to go into a property
and look at the inside the house and the cross space,
there's about three hundred dollars. Really, yeah, that's the average.
And so there are a lot of people that do
much more than that, But we've been doing this for
over twenty years, so we've got a little bit of experience,
just a.

Speaker 1 (39:43):
Bit, I mean, and everybody's doing the same thing, right, Well, thanks,
So the guy that charges three or four times more
is doing something that you're not able to do, right.

Speaker 7 (39:52):
No, I've actually worked with the industrial hygienis. Now that's
an education. You pay a lot of money to get
that certification. But I do the same thing that an
industrial hygienist does. I get the square footage of every room.
I do air testing and surface testing, and I write
up up a report just like they do. So there's

(40:13):
nothing that they've done that I don't do.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
So what's all involved? I mean, what's the process like
when you go into a home or business and test
the air.

Speaker 7 (40:20):
I mean, the first thing you got to do is
learn what's going on in the environment. Has there been
water leaks? Roof leaks? Is a water intrusion of any type?
Can you see visible mold? If you can't, then you
do air testing because you have to do one sample
of air inside and one outside. You compare the inside
air to outside. If the air inside is worse than outside,

(40:42):
then you know you've got an airborne problem, So we look,
we also have morstu meters. I've got an infrared camera
that will trace water leaks through a ceiling or wall,
and the infrared has emmissifity that reflects energy back to
the camera, and water is always blue on that infrared camera,

(41:03):
so that tells us that there's moisture there. So there's
a lot of things that I do that industrial hygienist
does and we duplicate the same process.

Speaker 1 (41:12):
Now how long does something that take to do Larry
in your average size home.

Speaker 7 (41:18):
When I had a laboratory that was out of state,
it might take four or five days to get the
lab report back. But now that I've got a local laboratory,
if I do air testing in the morning, I get
the report back that afternoon. And I had a client
call me from Ascot that they had some issues health issues.
And fortunately they called me in the morning. I was

(41:40):
able to go out there immediately got the air samples,
and got it back the same day. So not only
did I go out and do the inspection in air testing,
I was able to give them a report that afternoon.

Speaker 1 (41:54):
Now I guess, I mean, what do I know, But
your allergies can be caused by a lot of different things.
But let's put it this way, even if maybe you
don't have an allergy to mold, it's certainly going to
be detrimental to your health to have it in your structure.

Speaker 7 (42:08):
We've had a lot of clients gary that. I've got
a friend that his mother had exceptional coughing issues, and
so we did air testing in the master bedroom in
one outside and she had elevated five different molds airborne
inside the bedroom. So I let her try the pure
Are fifty overnight. After it plugged in, she hadn't coughed since,

(42:32):
and not only did she able to get rid of
the airborne issues that were causing her coughing, she bought
two others, so she had a total of three in
her home. So it's a great benefit.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
So you cannot only determine what there's mold in us
in a right, but you can determine what kind of mold.

Speaker 7 (42:50):
It is absolutely identify as every type of mold.

Speaker 1 (42:53):
How many different type of molds are.

Speaker 7 (42:54):
There, well, on the labor report there's probably about fifteen.
There's aspidge willison, penicillium, this alternaria, this claudisporium, this cavaleria,
this mysilla smut. The most toxic mold known to human
beings is stacky botress atra. That is a black mole.
Not all black moles or that toxic. But in ninety nine,

(43:18):
there was an ABC television program called Arab Mystery and
Doctor Door Dearborn was the emergency room physician at the
East Rainbow Babies and Children Hospital in Cleveland. They had
three infants coming in three months old, bleeding from the
nose in the mouth. Dearborn told the staff that if
any more infants were brought in, they'd called the CDC. Well,

(43:41):
the next night they had two more. They had a
total of thirty infants three month old come into the
hospital bleeding from the nose in the mouth. Ten of
them drowned on their own blood. What happened sixty percent
low income and forty percent high Indgum had roof leaks.
And in Cleveland, you've got basements, so that all that

(44:01):
water got into the basement on the vertical two by
four wallsters and it calls a black mole. Well, the
h FACT is in the basement, and it drew all
that airborne mold into the HVAC and got up into
the breath of air space. That mole got into the
lungs of a three month old infant that has rapidly
growing blood vessels, caused lesions, and ten of those infants

(44:23):
drowned on their own blood. And that's how toxic that
mold is.

Speaker 1 (44:28):
You've welcome a very good point too, that that air
underneath your home. We don't have any basements around here,
but we have a lot of cross spaces. You may
not be able to use it the same way you
would a basement. Maybe you can, but that cross space
and you get mold down there. As you mentioned. Now
you know with the air duct systems and the h

(44:48):
fact systems, I mean, all that stuff is going to
wind up inside your air dwelling.

Speaker 7 (44:53):
It's very possible because see fifty years ago, when people
ran pipes and wiring up through the the plate of
a wall, they didn't insilate that. So that's an open
breach of air coming from the crass space up into
the home. Now, in the Shandon area, there are a
lot of cross There are a lot of basements over
in that area. The whole particle um be over there

(45:14):
in their firepoints. So there are people that have basements.

Speaker 1 (45:16):
Why don't we have that many basements. Is it a
soil question.

Speaker 7 (45:19):
Well, it's an older area gear where you've got homes
that were built maybe sixty seventy years ago. There's a
lot of basements over in that area.

Speaker 1 (45:31):
Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's not there.

Speaker 3 (45:33):
That's exactly right.

Speaker 1 (45:35):
How often do you want to cross that when you
do these inspections of these tests that yeah, I don't
see it.

Speaker 7 (45:39):
Do a lot of work for universities and medical facilities,
and when we have issues that people report to us,
the fastest way to learn if you have an issue
is an air test. It takes ten minutes per sample.
We can do as many inside. We had a medical
facility that had twenty five offices and we did air

(46:01):
testing in every office and they had airborne mole in
a all twenty five office and a conference room. So
we were able to identify the issues and they hired
us to do the remediation. So it's a blessing to
be able to help people like that.

Speaker 1 (46:15):
What aside from just being allergic to mold And I
don't know what can you guessed to me or do
you know, I mean what percentage of us actually if
we're exposed to mold, we're going to have an allergic
reaction to it. Is that a high number a low number?
I mean, well, do we know?

Speaker 7 (46:29):
Back in the early two thousands, I had a client
that was a teacher and the airborne mole in that
classroom got into her blood. And her doctor had her
own medication, and she heard me on the radio and
she wanted to try an air pure of fire.

Speaker 1 (46:45):
Three days.

Speaker 7 (46:46):
After three days that had helped us so much, she
called me up and said, may I take this airpier
fire to my doctor? I said absolutely, So that afternoon
she called me up and said the doctor wrote a
prescription for the airpure fire and her insurance paid for Wow.
Now what insurance company it was.

Speaker 3 (47:03):
I don't know.

Speaker 7 (47:04):
I failed to ask. But that's been twenty years ago.

Speaker 1 (47:09):
Other reactions people have to mold. Any reaction mold considered
to be an allergic reaction or absolutely hoping.

Speaker 7 (47:17):
You can headaches, fatigue, disorientation, rashes on the body, mystery coughs,
eye infections, repertory infections. You can even get rashes on
the body from some types of mold hives. There's a
lot of things that mold can cause, and particularly this
one client said, this child had trumors and never had

(47:40):
a problem like that before. So there's a lot of
things that can go on because what we breathe into
our lungs is where the allergies come from. Just like
you see on the meteorologist about grass and tree pollen
and all these things that can cause allergies.

Speaker 3 (47:58):
Is it worse in this part of the country than
the parts of the country.

Speaker 1 (48:00):
Or is it.

Speaker 7 (48:01):
No, it's all issue.

Speaker 1 (48:02):
So it's not a question of humidity in that and
all that.

Speaker 7 (48:05):
Because more humidity you have, the more moisture you're going
to have. And see a lot of people don't realize
that some h facts. I inspected a financial institution and
in a break room in this financial institution, the duckwork
was within eight inches of an out exterior wall, and

(48:26):
the temperature coming out of that vent against that wall
with sixty five degrees. Of course, all that cold air
on that hot exterior wall cossed mold growth, and when
I pulled the wallpaper off, it was like a rainbow
of mold all over the sheet rock. So when you
get that extreme temperature deferential and you've got ninety degrees

(48:47):
outside heating up that wall, you're going to have some issues.

Speaker 3 (48:51):
What are the odds Larry, that, out of one hundred
homes you might go into to do testing, what are
the odds that you're going to run across a home
that there's no problem at all. I've never run into that.

Speaker 7 (49:05):
There are some mold counts that are way below outside air,
so that's acceptable. Anytime I find air inside way lower
than mold outside, then that's acceptable.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
So what's when you talk about the difference between the
inside and the outside. I guess because we can't do
anything about the outside. It's what it is, I guess.
So you just want to be sure that whatever's inside
is not worse than what's outside exactly. But if it's
the same, I mean, there's nothing you can really do
about that. Is that what you're saying?

Speaker 7 (49:33):
Well, you know, an air pure fier never hurts because
it's gonna get the particles out of the air. You've
seen sunlight coming in a window late in the afternoon,
early in the morning, you see the particles floating in
the air. Eighty percent of what's floating in the air
is dead skin, and according to doctor Larry arlint Wright
State University, the average adult sheds four hundred thousand dead

(49:56):
skin cells every minute. So we're the number one cause
of day to an environment.

Speaker 1 (50:02):
We're growing four hundred thousand. We're growing them to to
replace them. A problem if you don't replace it, right goods.
So so you you've established Okay, we got an issue.
Then let's talk about the remedies the cure. Let's talk
about the pure air systems.

Speaker 7 (50:18):
Yeah, the pure system is a filterless technology. I was
talking earlier to an individual about uh. This individual said
they had an air pure fire and I said, does
you have a filter? He said yeah. I said, that
is not an air pure fire. Anything you've got to
draw the air to it will not draw the air
any further than three feet circumference of that filter because

(50:40):
you don't have the power to draw that air to it.
So what we have duplicates a thunderstorm or sunlight, or
waterfall or the ocean. It duplicates outdoor air like a
thunderstorm creates six thousand negative ions per cubic centimeter to
four thousand positive. If we can put negat and positive

(51:00):
charges in an environment, all the particles will clump together,
get heavy, and sebtle out of the air. Then the
ozone oxidizes eighty percent of the particle that are on
the floor.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
But there are those situations when you go into a
home or a business where okay, certainly the pure air systems,
these these fabulous systems are going to be a big
help to that family or that the group of individuals
in a business, but you still got to do something

(51:33):
for that mold. There's got to be some remediation.

Speaker 7 (51:36):
And the best remediation that we've been able to find
is a product called sandy Shield that has ten percent
hydrogen and pronoxide in it, and we fog an area
with a cold air minster. We fog everything. We fog carpet,
everything that's in a room, everything that's in a home,
we fogged. We had a couple of relators that built

(51:56):
homes over of Hope's Ferry Road in Lexington and they
had a haul bath near the fo you coming into
the home. That broke and it flooded the whole house,
and so we first thing you got to do is
drive that out. Stop the water intrusion. That's prior to
number one. Once you did that, then you extract the
water and dry it out. And after that's done, then

(52:18):
we fogged the higher area.

Speaker 1 (52:21):
That'll get rid of the mold. Do we keep it
from coming back?

Speaker 7 (52:24):
Yes, okay, yeah, okay, and then ten percent hydroen proxide'll
kill mold on contact.

Speaker 1 (52:32):
Classic systems mold issues. We've been talking a lot about
that this morning. Is a very real problem for even
if remember even if you don't see it, that's right,
doesn't mean you don't have it. Yeah, I guess that
sounds like we've all got at least.

Speaker 7 (52:42):
Some Yeah, if you don't test, you don't know, right,
and so we can help you with that.

Speaker 1 (52:46):
How do folks get a hold of my friend?

Speaker 7 (52:48):
The best way to reach me is eight oh three
six two six two seven four eight eight oh three
six two six two seven four eight try fresh air
now dot com.

Speaker 1 (52:58):
All right, Larry, good to see it.

Speaker 7 (53:00):
Always a pleasure. Thank you, Gary, having a blessed today
you as.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
Well as the Health and the Walla Show on one
of three point five FM and five sixty AMWVOC. The
lawyers and staff at the law office of James Snell
are there to help those with injuries and workers' compensation claims,
car accidents on the job and other accidents resulting in injuries.
They want to help everyone resolve their claim as quickly
as possible, but they'll never recommend you accept a settlement

(53:25):
that's unfairly low. The Law Office of James Snell recognized
by AVA with a ten and an eight plus rating
with a Better Business Bureau. There's no cost to speak
to them. Insurance companies make their money by denying and
minimizing otherwise valid claims. The Law Office of James Snell
can help. They're not looking to try to take every
small mishap, but focus on real injuries that deserve to

(53:46):
be taken seriously. The Law Office of James Snell. I'm
Jim Snell. Contact me at Snell Law dot com. That's
three l's spell law dot com. The Law Office of
James Snell since two thousand and four with the office
is in Lexington and Columbia.