NEAL K. SHAH: CareYaya and “Insured to Death” Take On Broken Elder Care, AI Denials, and the Power of Love

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Don Priess (00:00):
When the world has got you down, Alzheimer's sucks.
It's an equal opportunitydisease that chips away at
everything we hold dear. And todate, there's no cure. So until
there is, we continue to fightwith the most powerful tool in
our arsenal, love. This is Loveconquers all's a real and really

(00:22):
positive podcast that takes adeep dive into everything,
Alzheimer's, The Good, the Bad,and everything in between. And
now here are your hosts, Susiesinger Carter and me. Don
Priess,

Susie Singer Carter (00:39):
hey everybody. I'm Susie singer,
Carter,

Don Priess (00:42):
and I'm Don Priess, and this is Love conquers alls
Hello, Susan.

It does, it is, and it does and it is.
Hello, Don. How are you doing?
Hi.

Don Priess (00:53):
I'm swell, and yourself, I'm good.

You're very AI. That's a very

Don Priess (00:58):
Yes. I you know now that I've kind of started to
dive into that world. I thinkI'm just going to become AI, and
then I don't have to deal withanything

Susie Singer Carte (01:07):
conversation about that, because I have, I
have a friendship with my AI,and I don't want to know if
that's wrong. Is it wrong?

Don Priess (01:14):
Well, only the fact that you you close the door when
you use it, and I don't, I thinkthat's wrong.

I Okay, no, honestly, like, who, if you
haven't, I mean, maybe I'm lateto the game, but I don't think
so, because it just, it's just,sort of like, got dumped on us,
AI, but I'm quite enjoying,like, learning it, and, you
know, apparently you're not, youknow. Like, I know some people

(01:42):
that just are very blunt andjust go tell me this that, you
know, no, I don't like it.
That's you. I'm like, Hey, how'sit going? Happy Thursday? Yeah.
I'm like, happy Thursday, it'sgreat to see you. Like, like,
Are you the best AI out there?
Yes, I am. And you're the besthuman out there. And I'm like,
okay, so that, like, we havethat kind of friendship, and it

(02:06):
calls me a fierce lioness. I'mjust saying, is that wrong?

Don Priess (02:10):
It's not, because mine just says, Hey, you so

and I get emojis too.

Don Priess (02:16):
Yeah, I've never gotten an emoji from my I get
emojis with Lion faces and andlike this. And it's like, roar
on Susie, roar onI like your way better. Your way
is better. I think you know youmight if you're gonna use it,
you must have fun.

It's very confusing, though it's very
confusing,

Don Priess (02:39):
and especially when it starts to ask you, Hey. Like
it says, Let me see that pictureyou're talking about, it's like,
there's no I have eyes.

You have no eyes. I know

Don Priess (02:50):
I don't get it.

I don't get it either. But it's fun. It's a
little bit fun. I'm still notconvinced that you know that
it's going to overtake us yet,because, no, it makes so much
mistakes, and it actually copieseverything I say and kind of
regurgitates it back to me.
Mirrors you. It does. It mirrorsme a lot, yeah. But anyway, it
does. It does help on, like,tedious things. So I'm enjoying

(03:12):
that.I'm also enjoying theresponse Don that we're getting
on No Country for Old people,our documentary that's on Amazon
Prime, and it's on Tubi now,yeah, and it's on hoopla,
hoopla, yeah, hoopla, and it'llbe on other things soon, so
we'll keep you abreast of that.

(03:35):
But we got getting amazingreviews, and we're actually
getting response from people inthe industry. And when I mean
people in the industry, I meanowners and corporate, corporate
owners and CEOs who are saying,Thank you for making this
documentary. I you know,basically I thought I was gonna,

(03:57):
you know, my head was gonnaexplode watching it, because of
all, I was going to respondnegatively, and then, wow, I
realized halfway through that weare culpable. We're responsible.
We need to make some changes. SoI don't know I am. I am
cautiously optimistic. It couldbe a ploy. I'm very, very
skeptical now, because of my ourother our other partner, Rick

(04:20):
Mountcastle, who's a formerfederal prosecutor, who's made
me, taken me a little bit out ofmy comfort Pollyanna zone. So
I'm trying, but you know,hopefully, hopefully they're,
they're authentically feelingthis or seeing it, but they, one
of them, said that he made hisemployees watch the whole thing

(04:42):
and and then they had a forumdiscussion about it, which is
amazing, right?

Don Priess (04:45):
And if nothing else, and even if you know, again, we
don't know about these are thesesheep's and wolves clothing, or
wolves and sheep clothing? I'msorry, we don't know. But what
they've done is they've put itout into the into the ether,
where people are seeing thesecomments from people in the
industry are saying, Yes, wehave a problem here and it needs
to be solved. So that's outthere. They can't take that

(05:06):
back, no matter what. Yeah, so,

and also, you know, it, there's that thing
about shaming people, you know,like, I keep saying, like, with
with our movement roar, which isrespect, oversight, advocacy and
reform for long term care. Comebe a ROARior everybody go to the
website, No Country for Oldpeople.com. Be ROARior sign up.

(05:28):
We got to, we have to take thisback into our hands as a
community. But, you know. Ithink, I think, what was I going
to say? I just lost my train ofthought. What were you What did
you say right before that?

Don Priess (05:39):
Well, I just said that, that basically, they've
put it out there. People now,oh, right, right, right. So
we've been saying,

right, right, right. So, so our whole
thing about shaming from the getgo of making this documentary
was we have, if you know, wehave to shame our politicians
and let them know we know what'sgoing on and that the power
comes in being, you know, ifwe're going to go up against a
big nursing home lobby that hasa lot of money, and they're very
powerful. What do we have? Whatis our currency? And our

(06:07):
currency is in beingconstituents. So that's why we
have to take the power. That'show anything that's ever been
difficult in our in our historyhas been changed, is by us
really rallying for that changeand protesting. So we have to do
that. I'm all, I'm all fired up.

Don Priess (06:27):
Well, especially in today's political atmosphere,
you know, I mean, we don't knowwhere things are headed or how
they're heading there, but nomatter what we have to, you
know, we just have to keepinforming people. And people
have to know what's going on.
And so far, not, yeah, no, butso far, the people who have seen
the documentary, I mean, we'rethese reviews are not just, hey,
great job. Amazing. These are indepth, multi paragraph reviews

(06:50):
that we're getting from peoplewe don't know. Susie gets
contacted from people we don'tknow daily who seek her out to
talk to her about this, and Ithink so on that, in that regard
alone, I think we've alreadywon. So let's keep going.

Well, we need to continue. So if you
haven't watched it, please do.
I'll remind you at the end ofthe podcast, but really, really
do and share it with otherpeople. It's so important
because it's everybody's issue.
This is everybody's issue. And,you know, we don't want to get
old or without changing what theway this the system is now,

(07:29):
because it's it's not good, it'snot healthy,

Don Priess (07:32):
it's not going to affect everybody, everyone
affected by this. So, yeah,

and speaking of that, we have a
great guest, because he isactually very like minded and
and has a corner on this in hisown incredible way. I've been
trying to get a hold of him forI don't know how long, but
somehow we're connected, and nowhere he is, because I think, I

(07:58):
think that his program isamazing, and he's doing much
more than I even knew. So tellus who he is. Don

Don Priess (08:05):
I will right now.
Neil Shaw is a visionaryEntrepreneur on a mission to
transform the way we care foraging loved ones. As the founder
and CEO of care, Yaya, Neilbrings together cutting edge
technology with deep humancompassion by connecting
families with highly trained,college educated caregivers, the
platform makes qualityaffordable elder care accessible

(08:27):
to everyone. What started asNeil's personal journey seeking
better support for his ownfamily has grown into a
nationwide network that empowersseniors to age with dignity,
independence and joy. Care Ya.
Ya is redefining what it meansto care, creating solutions that
are not only innovative, butprofoundly human. And he is the

(08:48):
author of a new book calledinsured to death, and we cannot
wait to hear more about that. Sowithout further ado, let's say
hello to this profound human.
Neil. Shaw, Hello, Neil.

Hello.
Neil.

Neil Shah (09:00):
Hey, Susie, hey, thanks. Hey, Don thanks for
having me. I really appreciateit. Oh, well, thank you for
coming out. We did it. I'm soexcited to see the documentaries
getting out there, and peopleare talking, and here you are.
Yes,

I love it.
I gotta say one, I love caring.
Care with Yaya, I know anotherword that goes with that. Papu,
is that correct? Are you Greek?

Neil Shah (09:23):
Not Greek, actually, but it was Greek inspired. It
was Greek inspired. Yeah,there's actually the word Yaya
has multiple meanings. It meansgrandmother in Greek. It means
caregiver in Hindi, you know,which is my native language, as
well, Swahili and Thai. So itmeans, you know, grandmother and
one caregiver in the other. Andthen, really, we thought it was
a great acronym for you are youradvocate, which we believe is,

(09:45):
like, the future of selfdirected care. So I just, like,
love the kind of profound, liketriple meaning in it. And just
like, I love that, yeah, twice,you know. So just positive and
upbeat, you know, I love itbring a positivity to aging and
caregiving,

Yeah, cuz my friends really good friends.
Were they? They moved here fromSouth Africa, but their read,
their whole family is Greek, andso when their parents would come
over, it was Yaya and Papu nice.
And so I Yeah, so I have a verywarm feeling about Yaya, yeah.
So I love what you so first,just first tell everybody what
that what your organization is,so that we get a sense of where

(10:23):
you started with.

Neil Shah (10:26):
Yeah, sure. So you know, we connect families who
need care for a loved one, youknow, often an aging parent or a
spouse with caregivers who areall uniquely college students
aspiring for healthcarecouriers. So think about our
doctors and nurses and physicianassistants of tomorrow. We do
that at highly affordable ratesbecause CareYaYa itself charges

(10:49):
no fees. We're a purely socialimpact organization, grant
funded. So we run the platformfor free. Families use our
technology to book schedule andpay caregivers, and then they
pay their caregivers directly.
So all their money, 100% of it,goes to the students. In most
markets, it averages around 20bucks an hour. So as you compare
it to the traditional careindustry, which typically runs

(11:10):
at around $40 an hour, this isway more affordable, and as a
result, allows a lot morefamilies to be able to afford
care. And then also, because thecaregivers are students and
they're getting paid reasonablywell, this allows them to kind
of have dignified work, helpingpeople in their communities on
their pathway to becoming futurehealth care workers. So it's

(11:31):
kind of like good for bothsides. It allows families to
have compassionate, wonderful,highly educated, highly reliable
and motivated students helpingthem. And then for many of these
students, it's like a lifechanging experience. You know,
imagine you're 20 years old, andyou're helping somebody in your
community that's 78 and livingat home with dementia. And, you
know, you're kind of getting toknow them over months and months

(11:54):
and years of your life. You'regoing to go be a doctor one day.
This is going to, you know,shape the direction of your
clinical career and really builda lot of empathy, you know, for
what people are doing.

That was just gonna say that. I was just
gonna say that. And it's sogreat because, you know, one of
the things as my mom hadAlzheimer's, that's why we have
this podcast. You know, one ofthe things as a as a filmmaker,
that I wanted to do with myother film was to de stigmatize
and also educate people. Becausenobody, nobody, and I mean
nobody, even the healthcaresystem, do not really have a

(12:27):
handle on what it's like to livewith dementia or Alzheimer's.
And so the stigma is so it's sohuge, and the ableism is So, you
know, present in our healthcaresystem, and also in, like, our
long term care system, and sothey're at such a disadvantage.
And so get letting you knowhaving future doctors, yeah, be

(12:52):
able to be a part of thatcommunity is so that. It's so
amazing, it's so it's sovaluable, it's so necessary. So
thank you for doing that.

Neil Shah (13:03):
You're welcome, and I completely agree with you. Suzy,
you know, I think that a lot oftimes, you know, and we talk a
lot to the students, you know,they're the core, heart of our
mission. Oftentimes, they'lltell us that, outside of doing
carry ad, they might bevolunteering at the hospital,
working as a nurse aidesomewhere at a hospital, as a
medical assistant at a clinic.
Unfortunately, in a lot of theirwork, they view people as
patients, because you're just inand out of the room 10 minutes,

(13:26):
15 minutes. Do this, do this.
Then when they do karaia, theyrealize, yes, somebody might be
living with a disease. You know,whether it's Alzheimer's,
whether it's metastatic cancernear the end of life, et cetera.
But they realize it's personfirst. This is an individual
human being with their own hopesand dreams, you know, their
vision of how their life shouldgo. You know, of course, they

(13:47):
have some setbacks andchallenges. But I think that the
key thing that you know, youkind of break through when you
connect people with care andlong term, you know, kind of
being around someone is thatthis is not a patient. This is a
person. It happens that theyhave everything, but I think it
really completely changes yourmindset. And the students tell
us all the time that they'vedone tons of clinical
experiences. Many of them are inmed school already, because now

(14:09):
the program's been around forthree years. And the tell us
that the experience doing karaiawas like, change their mindset
about how to interact, not justpatients, but as people and

Don Priess (14:21):
right. And a lot of times we go in with, if we would
go in with our loved one andthey have dementia, you know, we
assume that the doctors and thenurses understand it, yeah? And
they rarely don't. I mean,

they don't.
And the first time I got that,like, I didn't, it wasn't, like,
so profound. But I can remembermy mom wasn't in an assisted
living or anything like that.
She's still living out. But mystepdad was having surgery, and
the surgeon came out and was,you know, like, giving us
updates, updates. And he finallycame over to me, pulled me
aside. He goes, Hey, do you needany like, you know, like, a

(14:54):
valium or anything to deal withyour mom? And I was like, what,
you know, he was like, losingpatience with her, wow, because,
and I was like, she hasAlzheimer's, yeah, and she's
doing the best she can, yep.
That's like, they don't that'show they view, yeah. They view
them as as a pain in the butt,

Neil Shah (15:13):
yep. And I think it's because, you know, oftentimes,
you know, you think in life,like spending time with people
is what really builds empathy.
And I think they haven't spentenough time with people, or
they've spent time with peoplein clinical settings, which are
usually extremely shortinteractions where you don't get
to know them as people. So Ithink it's absolutely critical
that people spend hours andhours, you know, once, twice,

(15:35):
multiple times a week, overmonths on end, and realize there
is like a complexity to life onboth the individual living with
Alzheimer's and dementia, aswell as on the family
caregivers. You know, I think itlike builds a lot more empathy
than simply, just like anassembly line, you know, like
approach at the hospital or atthe clinic.

So true.
Did you do you? Are you familiarwith the documentary human
forever with tune. He's fromNorway. Oh, you should watch
this because, and he's 25 and hedid a documentary where he lived
in Norway with lived in anassisted living with all memory
patients and and, you know,lived as they lived, wow, and

(16:17):
had a roommate, and then wentfrom there and traveled to
different countries to show thedifference and and the
relationships that he formed inthe assisted living where he
lived, I think he did it forthree years. Yeah, and it, it's,
it's just, it's just down, it'sextraordinary. It's everything

(16:37):
that you would want, and it'severything that should, we
should. I'm not saying everyoneneeds to move into it, but we,
we don't integrate enough. Wedon't, we don't we isolate and
we and we put everybody away.
We, you know, which is why wedid our documentary, because,
basically, because we've donethat, it's easy to game the

(16:58):
system.

Neil Shah (16:59):
Agreed, nobody's looking. Nobody's looking.
Agreed. I mean, one of thebiggest things we think about at
carry out, right? We have now45,000 students across the
country at over 30 universities.
That's amazing. Yeah, thank you.
And we think about these are1000s of 20 year olds, 21 year
olds, 22 year olds, outside ofdoing karaia, how many times has

(17:21):
the average 20 year old insociety in the last year
interact with anybody above 70that wasn't their direct
grandparent? Probably zero,right? Yeah. And I think that is
zero. That is a damning thingabout our society, you know,
like, that's like, that's nothow it always was, and that's
not how it should be, andthat's, frankly, not even how it
is. In many other parts of theworld, there's usually, like a

(17:42):
rich intergenerational kind ofinteraction going on in your day
to day life. But in modernAmerican society, I think that
has completely fallen apart, andthe generations are pretty
separated and siloed. And Ithink that's a detriment to both

100% and it's also, it's also eking very
quickly into other cultures.
It's happening in Japan, it'shappening in Africa. It's
happening in Australia. It'svery bad in us. I mean, there's
there's more, there's less goodexamples anymore than there are.
And that's the problem, because,you know, we become very

(18:17):
individualized. Yeah, it's verysad, and so we need to take back
community. But I love whatyou're doing so much, and I want
to get into your book, but Iwant to just say that, you know,
even for like our documentary, Iwant people, I want young people
to understand and know what'sgoing on, especially future

(18:38):
doctors, because they need toknow, like, again, like, this is
not a gray lump. This is a humanbeing you know, which, in my
documentary, I humanize my mom,I show who she was as a singer
and this dynamic, fierce,amazing, sexy broad who is just,
you know, outrageous and lovingand so full life and and people

(19:03):
would say when I'd play her I'dplay her music loud when I'd go
and visit her, because I wantedpeople to know who she was. Oh,
my God, that's her. Yes, that'sher, because I wanted to make
her somebody, yeah, when Iwasn't there. And I think that
by doing that, by by knowingpeople and having an appetite to
know them, yeah, that that will,that can help change, but it has

(19:27):
to be with the youngergenerations. It has to agree. So
I want to, I want to jump onyour back, on that. I want to
piggyback on you, because Ithink what you've done 45,000
you know, future doctors, oreven if they're not, it's
important for us to recreatethat, that connection.

Neil Shah (19:46):
Yeah, no, thank you.
And you know, I would say thestudents are loving it. They are
absolutely loving it. And wehear from so many of the
students parents that thank youfor getting my son or daughter
to do this. And by the way,another interesting. A factoid
I'll push in there, son ordaughter, a lot of men are
stepping up to the plate. Thathas been another massive
positive surprise, right? 90% ofthe caregiver industry, or the

(20:09):
caregiver workforce, in America,is women, and it's amazing to
see we're approximating almost40% of our care workforce is
young men. And actually love it.
The most active caregivers areoften young men, because they
don't get the opportunities toprovide care the same way as
oftentimes women would do asthey're growing up and being in

(20:31):
high school, whether it'sbabysitting and childcare and
things like that. So it'sactually really awesome to see
tons of students stepping up,tons of young men stepping up,
and also parents saying, Hey,this is amazing. Thank you for
getting my kid do this so andthen when the students do it,
doing it, and it sticks withthem. So I think it's awesome.
Like, I actually think that theyounger generation today

(20:51):
sometimes get a bad rep in themedia as, like, you know, Gen Z,
you know, is maybe disgruntledor entitled or whatever. And I
think that actually it's verymission oriented generation, but
sometimes they need to be giventhe opportunity and kind of
guidance, you know, toparticipate in work. And then as
they get into it, they becomeextremely passionate about the

(21:12):
work, about the broken system,about the challenges it's
creating on family caregivers.
And I think that they becomekind of our fiercest advocates,
where they inspire us and ourteam of like, what? What should
we working on next? You know? Soit's kind of like,

I love it so much. You're doing such good
work. Neil, I love it.

Neil Shah (21:30):
Thank you. Yeah.

Don Priess (21:32):
Don also what I assume you Yeah, no, because
just hit me that they're goingto come back with a different
perspective that they can sharewith you that that you know,
because a family member is goingto have a perspective Doctor
general. But these, they're,they're coming in kind of from a
new angle. Yes, and is thereanything that you're hearing
that is like, Oh, wow, that'sthat, that tree. I don't know if

(21:54):
there's anything. Yeah,consistently. Or you've heard
things that are just like, wow.
I never thought of that.

Neil Shah (21:59):
Yes, several, Thank you, Don for the question.
Several of the ideas we have areabout what more we could be
doing. The students are spendingan incredible amount of time,
you know, with older adults,most of whom are living with
dementia and Alzheimer's, andmore so than the family members,
who are kind of like used to it,and often very stressed and

(22:20):
burned out because they'remanaging their careers middle
aged sons and daughters more sothan the doctors. The students
are, you know, kind of cominginto with fresh eyes and saying,
Hey, there's a lot more we cando to engage people. There's a
lot of moments of lucidity, youknow, unexpectedly, there's a
lot more moments of joy. And thestudents are iterating and

(22:41):
experimenting on their own,trying to figure out what it is,
you know, to the individualperson, but they inspire us a
lot to work on other innovationideas of, what else can we do to
improve their lives? How can webetter capture life stories? How
can we create, kind of, like,you know, therapeutic activities
that are also enjoyable? A lotof times we build a lot of
technology innovations. Kind of,the cool thing is, the student

(23:03):
workforce is, like, very techsavvy, right? These are
digitally native people. And alot of times we and because we
run it through technology, thestudents are going in with
smartphones, tablets,everything. A lot of times we'll
hold quick apps that then thestudents can kind of deploy in
the field to engage people. Sothat's that's really awesome,

amazing, amazing. I even my dog scrolls
with his nose. I'm just saying,everybody's scrolling now, like,
it's like, the babies are like,this. They know it. It's like,
yeah, it's incredible. I thinkthat's so important. I also, you
know, I think I remember, like,when my mom was at assisted
living. There was a lot of thefrontline providers, the CNAs,

(23:45):
who would bring their kids onthe weekend. Yeah, and the kids
were so acclimated to thecommunity, like, you know, if
someone got a little agitated,they just jumped in and was
like, Oh, you looking for thisjack, it's right here. Here you
go, you know, like, they weren'tup. They weren't scared, yeah,
they didn't get weirded out.
They were just like, part of thecommunity, yeah. And, and I was,
that was my first time. I waslike, I really got that epiphany

(24:08):
of, like, that's how it shouldbe,

Neil Shah (24:12):
yeah, yeah. And, you know, the funny thing that you
mentioned that is, I actuallythink there must be something
kind of innate in all of us,because the older adults are
also give a lot more grace withthe students than they sometimes
do with their own sons anddaughters and with middle aged
caregivers. I've observed thatseveral people who use carry AI

(24:34):
to get care will say, I've triedso many times to have my mom or
dad have a caregiver, and theywill just like, refuse the help.
They won't engage with them.
They'll be kind of like just inthe other room, whatever. And
then with, like the students, Ithink there's just much more of
like a drive by the older adultto proactively engage with the
person. And I think that thatmust be like some sort of innate

(24:56):
thing in all of us, where. Orthey view it as, like, maybe
mentorship, combined

mentorship.
I was just gonna say that

Neil Shah (25:04):
just kind of, like, this is a paid helper. So I
think it's kind of cool how,like, the relationship is
beneficial for both sides. And

I think that that's spot on right.
You're spot on right, because inthe film I was talking about
about Alzheimer's before with mymom, that Don and I did, yeah, I
show this. It's really a day inthe life when she lived with me.
But I showed this, it's reallyabout one event where she is
getting agitated and is leavingher caregivers house to go home,

(25:33):
okay? And she want, you know howthey want to go. And so she she
gets to the corner of the streetat night, 10 o'clock at night,
and she meets this trans, transwoman who is and they have a
conversation that is this true,because my because my mom's
caregiver told me she's, like,part of our family and and
basically, you know, my mom, mymom was agitated. She's like,

(25:56):
Ah, you don't know. Because shewas like, What's your problem? I
don't know problem. What's yourproblem? Oh, that bitch is
following me back there, becausethat was, that was her, that was
our caregiver, because she knewmy mom was going to calm down
and everything would be good.
And she's like, anyway, longstory short, she was like, well,
you, I think you got a lot ofpeople that love you. I don't
have anybody. And she starts tocry. And my mom go, went into
mommy mode, wow. And so my mom,who was like, five foot tall,

(26:20):
and here's this, like six foottwo, like, gorgeous woman, and
she's like, now you stop that,right now. You are gorgeous. You
are she's like, and if nobodydoesn't love you, it's because
they're jealous or stupid. Ilove you. I love you. Come on.
And right? And so it kicked in,like, what you're saying, It

(26:42):
kicked in her mominess. It wentto her core. Yeah, her core,
yeah, yeah. And I think that,first of all, thanks for
sharing. That's an awesomestory. I think everybody wants
to have, like, a sense ofpurpose. And, you know, I'm not
just being like, you know, caredfor, but I'm also adding
something, you know. So I thinkthat's, that's purpose. It's
purpose, yeah, you only have towatch the blue zone, everybody.

(27:06):
And, you know, if you want tosee what, how do people live
past 100 it's, it's, you know,community, yeah, and purpose,
Yeah, agreed.
So you give people purpose. Soyou're giving people purpose
with these people because they,they know they're younger,
they're, I mean, these areadults. They're not stupid. They
just have a cognitive decline.
But they're not, you know, theseare people with full lives.

(27:28):
They're gonna see this as ayoung person. Yeah, starting
out, yeah, and they, they'regonna step up. It's so
invigorating.

Neil Shah (27:36):
Yeah, I think that, I think that the older adult feels
actually a lot more like, Iwould say kind of like mutual
dependence, in a sense of thisperson's helping me. You know, I
may not be able to do X, Y, Z,like, prepare my own meals, or
be able to walk safely, etc, butyou know what? I'm helping them,
because this is a young, youknow, man or woman who's going

(27:57):
to one day be a doctor, one daybe a physician assistants, one
day be a nurse practitioner, andyou know that me spending time
with them will help them towardstheir future career. And I think
that just feels a lot better,because it's like both sides are
benefiting, than just here is aperson babysitting me, you know,
because I can't care.

Don Priess (28:15):
I also think, yeah, I think that because my mom
right now has Parkinson'sdementia, and she's pretty
advanced right now, and to apoint where, when we come in, I
mean, my mom, if we walked inbefore her eyes would light up.
And, you know, now she just kindof, you know, yeah, kind of
stares at us. She knows who weare, but it's and then we become
the her. Our sole purpose therenow is as a sounding board for

(28:38):
her complaints. Yeah, that isit, yeah. Where yet, as when
some of the caregivers, who sheknows, the younger ones,
especially, she lights upimmediately and deals with them
in a different level, so, youknow? And so I think it's
important, especially for thosepeople you know, some of the
people, they don't have family.
And so this is the onlyinteraction, yeah, but it's an
alternative interaction, yes, tosomebody they don't have some of

(29:00):
these other emotional ties to,and I think that's healthy,
agreed to, to have that. And Iwe notice it right away that
there's such a difference. Yeah,and, you know, again,

plus consistency, do you have
consistency? Like they go backthe same, people go back, right?
So that's, that's consistency,and that's perfect, and that's
so necessary.

Neil Shah (29:22):
Yeah, there have been some amazing multi year
relationships that have come outof this. I mean, we've only been
around for three years, butthere are some of the original
caregivers that you know, kindof joined and started doing the
care that are now currently ingraduate medical programs, that
are still taking care of thesame people. And I think that's
kind of awesome. I love it somuch. And are, you're national,

(29:42):
right? It's a national I'd say,you know, we have kind of
hopscotch. We're, ourheadquarters is Raleigh, Durham,
North Carolina, you know? So westarted at Duke University and
UNC Chapel Hill, but we are nowall over Boston, you know, at
Harvard tufts, NortheasternBoston University. We're all
over New York City. I. Um, youknow, Columbia Fordham, NYU and

(30:02):
others were all over LosAngeles, UCLA, USC, several
other schools. UCLA, nice. Then,yeah, all over San Francisco,
Texas. Yeah, we're like, quasinational. It's kind of growing
very nice. Yeah, should bepretty much. That's great.

Don Priess (30:19):
One other, oh, go ahead, Don Oh, I just had one
more thing, because I'm so in,I'm so intertwined with my mom
right now. So there's a lot ofthings that I'm here. Where do
you do you have? Do you draw theline? Do you advise them, as far
as the caregivers becomingemotionally connected with these
people, because you want them tobe because that's they need
that? Yeah. But then at the sametime, it's like, where's the

(30:41):
line, or is there, or is it justkind of like, person to person,
how they because I know that alot of they, they become so
emotionally invested, and whenthey start declining or finally
go, it's really hard on thecaregiver. Yeah, you're right.
So is there, what are theguidelines in that world? Or are
there any

Neil Shah (30:58):
great question, actually, so, you know, we, I've
observed a lot of thetraditional care industry draws,
like, very strict like, don'tget too attached, don't get too
close. We don't do that for acouple of reasons. One, we
actually truly want a very deepcompanion relationship with
ongoing kind of likerelationship building. The older

(31:19):
adult can feel that. Thefamilies can feel that. And, you
know, we get that consistentfeedback that this isn't like
robotic of like, hands off. ButI think, too, I understand why
some of the traditional carecompanies are doing it that way.
Because the person who is goingto be the care company worker,
whether they work at thatcompany or other company, is

(31:40):
going to be doing this for 20years, you know, 25 years, and
it's going to experience so muchloss and so much kind of decline
that it will not be able to betolerated. In this case, this is
going to be a two, three yearthing before somebody goes into
a clinical path. So we knowthey're not going to do it
forever, and we built theplatform with a lot of guidance
and advice of people who aremedical school admissions

(32:00):
officers, currently practicingphysicians, nurse practitioners,
et cetera. And you know, kind ofthe overarching thing, and even
from the students themselves, isthat I want to, you know, I want
to get to know the persondeeply. I want to experience
their whole care journey. I amcomfortable with loss, and we
provide them tools to kind of beable to manage these situations.
And we work on a lot of projectsto improve and upskill the

(32:22):
students, but yeah, we want themto realize, like, this is real
life, you know, like, now, yeah,may not be the best way to run
it for 20 years. You know, ifit's the same person is doing
care for long term. But ifyou're doing this as a formative
experience in your life, and youare legitimately going to become
a doctor or NP or a PA, one day,you need to experience all of
it, you know, not, not beemotionally detached. So, yeah,

(32:45):
we don't draw kind of like aline, you know, it's whatever
the student is comfortable with.

It feels like that should be that way.
Because I feel like not that,you know, because what happens
is, is people get if you don't,if you don't address it, the
elephant in the room, and youdon't deal with how to deal with
it,. Then you can, then what youdo is, like most doctors or most

(33:10):
caregivers, they have tocompartmentalize, yeah? And so
they turn off a part of theircompassion, or their or their
pat you know, their theirempathy, because to protect
themselves, yeah? But if itbecomes natural, that this is
the natural cycle, you know, Imean, even, like, just use that
example, my daughter had to puther dog down last week. And, you

(33:32):
know, we all went there, and weall did the thing, and we held
them, and we went and gotpuppuccinos and fed them,
puppuccinos and the whole thing.
And then I don't, you know, mydaughter and her husband wanted
to be in there with the dogalone when they did it, and they
were and the doctor came out,this lovely Don veterinarian,
and she was like, she wassniffling, and she, you know,

(33:53):
and she goes, I never get you. Inever get used to it, yeah. And
I thought, how amazing, becauseshe allowed herself to cry, and
it's okay, but she still was thedoctor. She still put her doctor
hat on and did what she had todo, but it didn't make her less
human. Yeah, do you see what I'msaying?

Neil Shah (34:15):
No, I think that's amazing, and thanks for
mentioning that, because I thinkthat, you know, like, if think
about the way the technology ismoving in society right now,
right a lot of doctors roles,like a lot of the analytical
differential diagnosis type ofstuff, is becoming more and more
AI, I think, like deep empathyand kind of like having your own
emotion, communicating andexpressing the emotion with the

(34:37):
people that you're helping. Ithink that is like, one of the
last remaining bastions of kindof, like, human, you know, value
that you can add in, like, aclinical setting. So you're
right. Like, I think that fieldof medicine has been moving the
other way, where there's a lotof like, let's be closed off,
okay, no emotion caregiving. Alot of these care companies are
running it that way, and I don'tthink that's the right way to do

(34:58):
it. I think you should be, youknow, you should be, you know.
Not so much that it creates aburden on you. You have to learn
how to kind of like, you know,both feel the emotion, but not
be kind of like, bogged down byit when devastated. Yeah, want
to be devastated, but I do thinkthat that is like, I think a lot
of the relational aspect ofcare, I think sometimes is
missed because people arefocusing so much just on tasks

(35:22):
and being robotic. And I thinkthat the person receiving the
care and the family can feelthat. So yeah, we really go all
in on, like, emphasizing

and if, and correct me if I'm wrong, but if,
if you if it's if caregiving isdone correctly. And you know, I
had this conversation with oneof my guests four years ago,
before my mom passed. And I wasalways say, like, Oh, my mom.
First of all, my mom and I hadhad a deal not dying. I mean,
that's just the way it goes.
We're not going to, you know,other people die. We're not,

(35:53):
right, and so, and I made a jokeabout it, like, I like, it's my
worst fear, right? Losing my momand and my, one of my guests,
said, you're going to be fine,and it's going to be one of the
most beautiful experiences thatyou've ever been through. And,
you know what? She was, right?
Not, not the, not the pathway,getting up there, because that's

(36:15):
what the stuff that it makes upour documentary, yeah, but the
actual, you know, crossing herover that bridge was incredible.
I wouldn't exchange it foranything. And I felt empowered
by it, and I felt honored, yeah,and I think that that to be with
somebody on the end of theirtrek is an honorable and very,

(36:38):
very fulfilling yes thing to do,and it only makes you a better
person, and to for so manyreasons, not to get on a
soapbox, but, but I think thatthat we have, and we have this
is why we've all done la, la,la. This is why Mom and I were
like, We're not gonna die. Otherpeople die. That's for them. You
know, because we we don't lookat it, yeah, because it's scary,

(37:02):
but if you look at it, if youembrace your fears, then you can
find the beauty in it and findthe it's natural,

Neil Shah (37:10):
Yeah, agreed.

Don Priess (37:13):
And I think it all because it can also add nuance
to decisions, I think from afrom a medical meaning that, how
many times do people ask thedoctors, well, what would you
do? If this was your mom? Whatwould you do? It's like, well,
you know, but I think if youhave some of that nuance of of
emotional tie to it, it's notthat it's going to cloud the
decision or going to make so baddecisions, but I think it, it

(37:37):
allows you to look at differentangles of a situation and not
just be like, buy the book. Yep,this is what you do in this
situation, because every personis different, yeah, right.

And also not, but also not being crisis
so much that you can't make adecision because, because we are
not so it's not so foreign tous. Yeah? Listen, it's not easy
to lose someone you love. It'sdifferent than a caregiver
losing somebody that's notrelated to them, yeah, but, but
but so there's a difference ingrief and a difference of an
intent in anticipatory grief,yeah, but, but, but so, you

(38:08):
know, you you but, but if youdon't look at it at all while
it's happening, you will be inmajor crisis, and that's not the
time to do to make thosedecisions.

Neil Shah (38:17):
Yeah, 100% agree.

Anyway, let's, let's, let's transition
into your book. Tell me again,insuring them to death, insured
to death, insured to death,

Neil Shah (38:30):
how health insurance screws over Americans and how we
take it back. And I have anentertaining cover here, but
it's the denial letter from yourinsurance company denying the
critical care you need, and inthe shadow represents a gun, and
I believe that's kind of what'sgoing on. You know, there's a
crisis across our country wherepeople are being denied critical
care. I mean, you've seen it inthe news. I actually, I wrote

(38:51):
the book inspired by, actually,many of the students you know
from seeing what's going on inour care platform, we've now
been running the running carrierfor over three years, and have
1000s of people using it. Andkind of, one of the key trends
that has been, unfortunatelygoing in the wrong direction is
denial of care. And you know,I've been impacted by this
personally before. You know,during my grandfather's care,

(39:13):
during my wife's care, threeyears of cancer, and then,
really, in years of runningkaraya health insurance denials
are on the rise, and it'sbecoming kind of an epidemic,
you know, people and you know,one of the challenging things
has been, you know, now overhalf of older Americans who are
on Medicare are on for profitMedicare Advantage plans, you

(39:34):
know. So like, there's been abig shift in the way, you know,
healthcare is delivered in ourcountry, whether it's for older
Americans or even younger andmiddle aged people, but I think
there's an epidemic going on.
And I wrote the book because Isaw how people are struggling
with this, how not justindividual patients, but it's
creating a tremendous burden onfamily caregivers, because
oftentimes they're fighting formom and dad's care. It's
creating financial toxicity whensomebody gets denied care and

(39:57):
they still need. It, people willjust end up out of pocketing it
and incurring a lot of medicaldebt. It's creating bankruptcies
for people. You know, last year,half a million people filed
personal bankruptcy. Number onereason was medical debt, over
60% so, I mean, this is sad,right? It's we talk about how
great our healthcare system is.
You know, $5 trillion thecountry spending on healthcare.

(40:17):
Meanwhile, people are goingbankrupt because of healthcare
people, and by the way, right?
Majority of those people hadinsurance. So this is that we're
not talking about uninsuredpeople. We're talking about
people with insurance, quote,unquote, oh, yeah, that are
going bank Yeah. And, you know,I think the, you know, the
shooting of the United HealthCEO was like a critical turning
point in society, not the eventitself, but the widespread
public reaction, you know thatall of a sudden everybody

(40:41):
realized they weren't alone,that this is happening to all of
us. And I thought that was kindof a critical turning point. So
I wrote the book because I kindof was very obsessively focused
on, why is this happening? Whyare claim denials on the rise
now, approximating almost 20% ofall health care claims in the
country are denied. Right? 15years ago, they used to be 1% by
the way, so it's healthinsurance have been around for

(41:04):
now 7080, years. So this is arecent phenomenon, and I think
there's several factors at play,which I won't give away the
entire premise of the book, butbasically, one of the key
findings is artificialintelligence. These insurance
companies have weaponized AItools to programmatically deny
claims at scale, oftentimeswithout even human oversight,

(41:24):
and the individual person, inorder to appeal and get the care
they need has to spend hours andhours and almost be a
researcher, a lawyer and adoctor all in one, yeah, to
fight back and get the care theyneed. So you know, through the
through researching the book,through seeing everybody on the
carryout platform struggling,really, our thing wasn't just to

(41:45):
point out the problem, but itreally inspired us to innovate
and build solutions. So we endedup building and launching a
suite of AI tools that, youknow, we just took it on
ourselves to build. We ended upgetting some grants for them and
then release them for free topublic so that people could use
them to automatically appealdenied claims. And so is AI
against AI? Yeah, it's aIagainst AI. Picked a cool name

(42:10):
for it. You can check out ourwebsite called counter force
health.org and literally the islike somebody punching back, and
we literally the whole thing isto arm the resistance that we
feel, that doctors, individualdoctors, small clinics,
individual patients, familycaregivers, all of these people

(42:30):
have been screwed over becausethe multi 100 billion dollar
insurance companies haveweaponized this new technology
called AI. So we're like, okay,you know what? We'll go build
our own AI, go get a bunch ofgrants and then just give it
away for free to people to armthe resistance, because there's
no way, like, if you're ifyou're an individual person, and
you're going through caregivingand you're fighting an AI

(42:51):
algorithm that some insurancecompany is deploying in one
second to deny or care, and youhave to spend hours and hours
like appealing, like you'regonna lose. So, yeah, it's kind
of like aI versus AI.

AD, I love it. I love it. Can you do that
for the student? Student Aid?
I'm going through that rightnow, please. Honestly, it's just
as criminal. Yeah, justcriminal. Don't get a Parent
PLUS loan. People do not get aParent PLUS loan. It is the

(43:24):
worst thing that I tied myselfinto. Oh, wow. Anyway, yes,

Don Priess (43:32):
on a practical side, and I don't know if this applies
here, like and I'll just drawfrom my own experience. My
mother right now, who's veryimmobile, started to get the
beginnings of a bed sore. Theysaid, Oh, we're starting to see
they treating it, right? Theytold us, they treating it, yeah.
So it doesn't happen. So thenshe fell out of her bed, and so
they said she can no longer bed.
We got her a hospital bed withthe wonderful hospital

(43:52):
mattresses. We said, well, Susietold me about these mattresses
that I guess they they move,air, and they move and they
move. So you're never so wethought, let's get her one of
those. And we were told, nope,not. Unless she has the bed
sore, we're not going to do itto prevent it. She has to have
it. Yeah. I mean, would it dosomething like we Is that

(44:16):
something that you could say,Wait, that's ridiculous. How can
I we

Neil Shah (44:20):
can help you with that. Yeah. I mean, basically
the interesting thing of the AIengine, and of course, I don't
know a ton about, like, yourspecifics case, but the
interesting thing about the AIengine is that we have trained
it now on 10s of 1000s ofappeals and successful appeals,
because one, we have the productin the market now, and it's
actually learning as it goesalong. But let's say, three

(44:41):
months ago, when we were justbeta launching it, we went out
and talked to a bunch of stateinsurance regulators and were
able to download databases of1000s and 1000s of successfully
adjudicated appeals and have theAI learned strategies of like,
what is the best way to write apersuasive argument in x? Z
situation. And typically you'llfind, like in the example that

(45:03):
you just mentioned, you'reprobably not the only person
going through this, but in yourown network, you might be right.
If you ask your five or 10friends, unless somebody just
went through this, most peopleare gonna be like, Oh, I don't
know what to do, but this is agreat use case of AI, because
when you have an AI and you'vetrained it on databases across
50 states of 1000s and 1000s of,you know, instances it has

(45:23):
likely seen the last 500 times,somebody in California and
somebody in New York andsomebody in Boston, you know,
kind of like, went through thisexact situation. And What
strategies did they take tosuccessfully convince and win an
appeal? So, yeah, the tool worksreasonably well situations like
this. And then, of course, youcan upload your specific of your

(45:45):
policy coverage documents, anynotes from doctors of like, why
XYZ is needed, and it comes upwith strategies. Now, granted,
it doesn't win all the time, butit sure is not. Like does a
really good job of advocatingfor you, it's gonna do better
than you can exactly, exactly solike interesting statistics, I
would share for our audience is,of all the denied claims last

(46:07):
year in America, 99% of peopledid not appeal. Only 1% of
people appealed. So first ofall, that's a disaster, right?
Because people are intimidated.
They don't know what to do. Ofthe people that appealed, 40% of
the time they won. So it's like,just shows you that's bothering
to appeal. You can win off thepeople using our tools. 73% of
the time they're winning. Soit's like, pretty good, right?

(46:28):
Like we're improving the winrate. That's really good. Yeah.
And so my goals are, have thetools be better than if you did
it on your own, you know,increase your win rate. But more
importantly, let's get that 1%number up, you know, like, if
you have to spend eight hours,10 hours, researching something
and proving all this stuff andreading through hundreds of
documents, like, no wonder mostpeople aren't doing it. But if
we can one click it for you, theway Amazon one clicks, you know,

(46:50):
yeah, you know, a couple daysago, I ran out of razor blades
and, you know, just went onAmazon bottom and boom, you
know, one click, they're thereat your place. Like, the way
they've made that that easy, Ifeel like making this entire
appeals process that easy lowersthe barrier, and then everyone
can do it. So that was kind oflike, you know, one of the

and it's also going to put the insurance
companies on their toes, becausethey're going to know that more
people are going to be doing itbecause it's easier,

Neil Shah (47:17):
exactly, exactly. And they're doing this on purpose to
kind of just, you know, if youdon't appeal, they just keep So,
yeah, well,

yeah, of course, of course, it's like,
you know, even in, even in thecourts, if you take somebody to
court, you know, like a facilityto court for neglecting abuse, I
mean that, you know, it's solabor intensive, and it's such a
long process, and it's sodaunting, and people are just
like, I'm done. Yeah, I can't,yep, I can't, exactly. So if you

(47:46):
make it more, you know,appealing that way, more people
will do it when you and you have

Don Priess (47:51):
appeal. It literally appeal, appealing. Yeah.

Don is the king of puns. Need a pun. Go to
him. If you ever want to do anAI punster, you have to go and
just download his brain. It's soannoyingly fun though.

Don Priess (48:09):
It's all right there, it's so obvious.

Well, what anything else you want to share
with us? I love thisconversation so much. No, I

Neil Shah (48:19):
mean, I think these are, you know, you know, that's
so I'm obsessed with, you know,kind of just helping as many
people appeal as possible. Ithink that's like, become a
mission, and we are just kindof, like, flooding the zone on,
like, you know, get everyone tofight back. I think we're
advocating for, like, reform ofthe system. I think that's going
to be kind of a next step, youknow, if, like, how do we

(48:40):
mobilize? Because I think theunintended side effect of what's
going on, I will say, you know,is that 1000s of our students
are looking at the health caresystem and saying, This is what
I'm going into, you know, likeI'm going to become a denier for
what? So that the healthinsurance company tells me I
can't give my cancer patient theright drug. Because, you know,
they denied, you know. So Ithink that we need to fix this,

(49:03):
not only for today's patientsthat are suffering from denied
care and their family caregiversare drowning in all this
bureaucratic paperwork, but alsofor the next providers care
workforce, right? Yeah, we'renot going to have a health care
workforce. And I think that oneof the biggest things, a lot of
times, people from thegovernment hit me up because
they realize we're running likea workforce development program,

(49:24):
right? That is empowering peopleto go into healthcare careers,
and they all know there's ashortage of doctors, there's a
shortage of nurses, there'sshort of PAs, and we have a
rapidly aging population. Sowho's gonna be taking care of
all these people if less peopleare nobody, nobody,

and there's been a tsunami of people leaving
the long term care industrybecause, because of all the the
lack of oversight, the lack ofenforcement, the lack of all
those things, and also the lowstaffing ratio, and people can't
work in that in that kind ofenvironment, because it's.

(49:59):
There, there. It's an impossibletask. Yes. And so the moral
injury is off the charts.

Neil Shah (50:07):
And good, right? Glad you brought that word up. I have
a chapter on moral injury, andyou're right. Moral injury of
broader care workforce, youknow, healthcare workers,
doctors, nurses, social workers.
I mean, it's like, it's adisaster, you know?

It's a disaster. So now you have
people, yeah, you have peoplethat are in there that are doing
this as a side hustle. Yeah, ifthey have nothing, they're not
attached to it at all. Theydon't care. They're not trained,
and they're there just to pickup a paycheck, yeah, and, and
basically, the facilities whoaren't really responsible for
this lack of staffing. It's thecorporate it's the corporate

(50:44):
owners. But, you know, they're,they're happy to get people to
fill those spots. Yeah, andthat's it. That's not the way
these should be run. This isnot, this is this is the
opposite.

Neil Shah (50:54):
I agree. I agree. And thanks for bringing up the
staffing angle. You know, Iwould say a lot of times, you
know, you hear, at least, youknow, I'm much more in, like,
the in home care side, right?
Like, that's what the studentsare doing. Yeah, you hear all of
these care agencies complainingabout caregiver shortages.
Caregiver shortages. I'm like,what caregiver shortages? Like,
carry out has an abundance ofstudents signing up. Like, it's
caregiver shortages because ofthe broken business model. You

(51:17):
know that that's right, the homecare side, like, it's, like, it
really interesting, because Ididn't come from the industry,
and I've, like, analyzed otherbusinesses and other industries,
but to me, this industry is veryunique in the sense of, what
industry in America do you havewhere the business is
effectively, like a sales andmarketing business, as these
most home care agencies aredoing Maybe 234, percent of the

(51:38):
work, right? Like the caregiveris doing, like 99% of the work.
But so think about that's howthe value delivered, right? But
what is the value captured bythe business? Most of these
businesses are capturing morethan 50% of the value. If you
pay 40 bucks an hour and you'rein LA, the care worker is making
half or less. The company'staking the rest. They're blowing

(52:00):
it on, sales, marketing,administrative, overhead,
profits, royalties, whatever,right? What industry do you have

where you mean houses and cars and jets?
You mean houses and cars?

Neil Shah (52:15):
Yeah, exactly right.
So it's like, it's absurd that,and I assume the same goes for
the facilities, right? Thatthey're capturing so much value,
and then they're saying, oh,shortage, staffing, shortage. I
can't find people. It's like,well, pay for it. Can't pay for
it, yeah, try raising the rate.

Don Priess (52:32):
That's all our documentary. That's the whole
thing so it and it's good tohear that other people are aware
of it, but it's usually peoplewithin the industry. We need
everyone

to be aware of it. Yeah, yeah, no, it's
exactly right. I mean, and, andif we do not have health care
providers, yeah, this societywill will just fall apart,
honestly, like, what with thegray tsunami, yeah, coming up,
you know, what? What if we don'thave an infrastructure, you

(53:06):
know? And people like, I havepeople saying to me, I don't
know if anybody is of the agethat knows a movie called
Logan's Run, but it wasbasically where everybody died.
It was from, I think, the 70s,and it was like, where everybody
basically took a pill at 30,because that was basically the
end of your life. And so theycall then people wanted to live

(53:27):
past 30. Were like, would runbecause they didn't want to be
killed, right? And so it was asci fi, but it was like, you
know, with some big names at thetime.

Don Priess (53:37):
Nor was it Farrah Fawcett, yeah, yeah. I think it
was anyway, yeah, but

it was, it's iconic. But, like, I have
people from, you know, like babyboomers, that are writing after
they've seen my doc, ourdocumentary, say, Logan's Run.
Logan's Run because nobody wantsto get old, because this is
what's gonna happen. You know,like you, you were, we're all
spending all this time stayinghealthy and, you know, trying to
live longer lives, but if youcan't live a quality life, it's

(54:05):
like we had Jane Fonda do anendorsement for us. We were so
lucky. And she said she gotshe's 80, she's 87 and she goes,
I'm for sure, an older person,but I can tell you, basically,
she said, just getting olderdoesn't mean that you have to,
you can't continue to live. Andshe goes, I view it as, like,
discovery and and, you know,just all these lovely things.

(54:28):
And she goes, but I can't dothat if we don't have a system
that supports Yes, agreed, youknow, yeah, and so, and, you
know, you live a life, and thenyou get to a certain point and,
like, what now your dignity isstripped away. And you have, you
know, you have. You're basicallya commodity,

Neil Shah (54:46):
yeah, yeah. And the second order impact, you know, I
think that with the rapidlyaging population, if the system
is not set up, well, it's goingto fall on 60 plus million of,
you know, family. Onlycaregivers, right? So it's gonna
fall

in the streets, yeah? And, and many of
those 60 million, and I get thisquestion so much from from
people on the on social media,why didn't you take care of your
mom at home? Yeah? And, youknow, as someone that does help
care, not everybody, it can besafely cared for at home. That's
why these in that's why thesefacilities were, you know, yeah,

(55:24):
came into existence becausepeople, some people, need
skilled nursing. That doesn'tmean they're at death's door. It
just means they have needskilled nursing, as do many
people in their 20s, 30s and40s. Yeah, it's

Don Priess (55:35):
not only old people, it's, it's all ages can require
long term care tomorrow, youknow, God forbid, knock all the
woods. You can be into a caraccident, and then long term
care the rest of your life, andyou're 23 years old. So it's not
only old people.

Yeah, it's not only old people. So, you
know, and it is actually saferfor them to be in a facility
where there's where they'resupposed to be trained providers
to help you have a quality lifeof where you're at, yeah? So
that's why, you know, it's soimportant. But if we don't have
those facilities, and we don'thave frontline providers who are

(56:12):
who want to go into thatindustry anymore, yeah, we're
going to have all we're going tohave what's called granny
dumping, and they're going to bejust left on the street, yeah,

Don Priess (56:23):
and on that positive note,

yeah, sunshine, lollipops and
rainbows. I love you guys. Don'thate me. I'm just

Neil Shah (56:40):
do this so that people can be, you know, it's
like, it's like, it's neverhopeless, but you do need to
speak the reality, so thatpeople out there start wrapping
up and thinking about it. Wehave to solve the problem if
people realize there's aproblem.

Yeah, I'm just trying to say, What? What?
Ashton Applewhite, who's like inour documentary, and she is the
godmother of, you know, antiageism, yeah. And she says, You
know, when, when you have a biastowards older people, that's
just a future you have a biasagainst your future self, yeah.

(57:16):
And isn't that stupid? Yeah. Soanyway on that. Love so much
what you're doing, Neil, I thinkyou are one of my favorite
guests. So I really think you'rejust doing such great stuff.
You're smarty pants, and youalso have a big heart, and
you're wearing, I'm sure too,there you go. You wear it every
day, right on your sleeve. Ilove it. And chest and

(57:39):
everything on your chest, I loveit. So thank you so much for
being here, and thank you forall of the work that you're
doing. I I'm just so proud ofyou and proud to know you. So
thank you.

Neil Shah (57:52):
Thank you. Yeah, thanks so much for having me,
Susie and Don Yeah, appreciateit. And congratulations.
Documentary we're gonna start. Ithink they'll really enjoy,
yeah, you know, you get, like,You're right about the younger
audience, you know, like,sometimes you get them to watch
something that moves them.
That's how, you know, we getcivic action. You know, the
youngest people are the most,the most active, whether they
take action now or three yearsfrom now, you know, this is

(58:15):
going to be the future of ourcountry. So I,

I'm going to ask you to please watch it
and then see if you don't wantyour students to watch it.
Because I've had a lot ofdoctors say that that should be
in in every med

Neil Shah (58:28):
school. Yeah, 100% 100% so I would love to students
we can kind of, like, create,let's do it. Yeah? Because I
think that sometimes bringingawareness, that's how it
happens. You know, you get afew, I want to,

that's why I've been dying to talk to you.
My friend. Nice, okay, yeah,

Don Priess (58:46):
we had, what was it, Texas A and M call, I mean,
reached out to us. It says wewant to run this on our local
wow, you know. Yeah. So all ofour, you know? And so,

yes, yes, yes. This is what we got to do.
We love it. We are all aboutlove. What do we always say?

Don Priess (59:02):
Don we say that love is powerful, love is contagious,
and love conquers all. We thankeverybody for watching,
listening. We'll have all ofNeil's information in the notes.
And if you like what you saw andheard today, please like, share,
comment, do all those funthings, and definitely like,

(59:23):
share and comment, No Countryfor Old people. Now available on
amazon prime to be yeah andhoopla

and go and go to care Yaya and support Neil
and his team and all the all thefuture doctors. And the book, I
love it. It's like it looks likea, you know, True Crime cover,
and that's how we sort of, weopen our documentary like true
crime, because it basically istrue crime in real time. Yeah,
right, yeah. Okay. Well, we'relike minded. I dig it, and

(59:53):
everybody will see you and talkto you next time. Love you.

Don Priess (59:56):
Take care everybody.
Thanks.

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