70% Bankrupt Despite Insurance? (Full)

Over 70% of folks filing bankruptcy from medical debt had insurance. But networks and fine print still wreck you.

Jerremy Alexander Newsome and Dave Conley dig in with Nick Hiter, who built 150 insurance agencies raking $100M fast. He breaks down why knowing your policy beats blind trust, how to haggle bills down, and the pricing chaos that hits everyone.

It's blunt talk on claims fights, broker picks, and owning your health moves—no excuses, just real edges.

Timestamps:

• (00:00) Health insurance truths – Nick Hiter intro
• (02:51) Expert background – Meet Nick Hiter
• (04:35) Insurance networks – How they limit you
• (07:51) Policy details – Why read the fine print
• (16:26) Bill negotiation – Tactics that work
• (23:49) Claims process – Fighting denials
• (29:14) Hospital admissions – Insurance pitfalls
• (29:35) Broker trust – Picking the right one
• (32:10) Medical debt – Negotiation steps
• (33:43) Pricing mess – Why costs vary wildly
• (36:33) Consumer role – Health choices matter
• (45:17) Health education – Building knowledge
• (46:57) Wrap-up – Key resources

Connect:

• Website – https://nickhiter.com/
• Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/nickhiter/
• X (Twitter) – https://x.com/nickhiter
• YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/NickHiter
• Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/nickhiterofficial
• Podcast – https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/thehitstreak

Episode Transcript

Alex (00:00):
[excited] Welcome to Solving America's Problems, where Jerremy and
Dave dig into the messes we can't ignore.

[intrigued] Picture this (00:06):
back in 2017 or so, a solid stat drops—over
70% of folks filing for bankruptcyfrom medical bills actually had active
health insurance on the day it hit.
Not uninsured stragglers scraping by.
[surprised] People with coverage,premiums paid up, cards in their wallets.
[dramatic pause] And the kicker?

(00:27):
Most got wrecked because they landedout-of-network, chasing care in
the wrong spot at the wrong time.
[confident] Nick Heider, ex-proathlete turned insurance insider
who's launched 150 agencies, laysit bare with Jerremy and Dave.
[serious] He breaks down why yourpolicy's network is the silent killer
nobody spots till the bill arrives.

(00:49):
How one wrong hospital turnssecurity into six-figure debt.
[appalled] And why even the ER deskclerks admit they're just collecting
flat fees from everyone, insured or not.

Jerremy Newsome (01:01):
Dave Conley, which problem are we addressing
and solving in this episode?
This week on solving America'sproblems, we're diving into a system
that millions rely on, but fewactually understand health insurance.
It is supposed to provide security yet forfar too many Americans, it brings stress,
surprise builds, and financial disaster.

(01:23):
We're asking how did we endup here, and more importantly,
how do we take back control?

Dave Conley (01:29):
Helping us cut through the noise?
Is Nick Heider a former pro athlete,turned business strategist and consumer
advocate as the founder of Team Heiderand host of the Hit Streak podcast,
nick has launched over 150 insuranceagencies and educated tens of thousands
on navigating this confusing system.
He's here to reveal how the industryreally works and what you need to know
to protect yourself and your family.

(01:50):
And that's this week onsolving America's problems.
The Truth about HealthInsurance with Nick Hiter.

Jerremy Newsome (01:58):
Ladies and gentlemen, from Round the World, health
Insurance is supposed to give peoplepeace of mind, but for millions of
Americans it does the exact opposite.
Even people who have coveragefind themselves buried in medical
debt, fighting denied claims, andstruggling to find in-network care,
and most do not realize they've beenset up to fail until it's too late.

(02:21):
The system is complicated by design,and that confusion costs people
money sometimes everything they have.
I'm Jeremy Alexander Newsom, and alongsidemy co-host, man, the Myth, Dave Conley.
And today on Solving America's problems,we're cutting through the confusion
to expose some truths about healthinsurance, why it works for some while

(02:43):
it fails for many, but most importantly,the practical steps that you can take
now to protect yourself and your family.
I've got an absolutegem on the show with us.
This is Nick Heider.
Nick is gonna help us unpack everythingbecause he is a consumer advocate.
He's gonna tell us, teach us, and giveus literacy, and give us education,

(03:06):
and only the way that he can.
Nixon's an entrepreneur,he's a friend of mine.
He's a business strategist, former proathlete who's built and scaled major
enterprises, including launching over 150insurance agencies that have generated.
100 million in just five years.

(03:27):
As the founder of Team Heider and hostof the Hit Street podcast, he's already
helped tens of thousands of entrepreneursand business owners grow their impact.
He's been featured on C-N-B-C-N-B-C,Fox, New York Times, and more for
his insights on today as well.
We're gonna bring and talk and give,and ask and receive and have so much.

(03:48):
Nick,

Nick Hiter (03:50):
thank you for
go baby.
I'm in.
Thanks for having me, fellas.
I appreciate it, man.
It's a honor and a pleasure andI'm excited about the hang today.

Jerremy Newsome (03:58):
Likewise man.
We're gonna impact a lot of lives,and I know that's one of your main
missions in life and we're gonnado it through education and just
learning and through consumeradvocacy and just teaching us things.
So I'm just gonna throw out thebiggest question I think a lot of the
listeners are gonna have, especiallyas we get closer and closer into
diving into the Maha movement and whatthat looks like on the health side.
But with this particular overarchingtheme, I feel like no one knows

(04:21):
what the heck health insurance is.
It's supposed to protect people, butmillions of Americans with coverage
still end up buried in medical debt.
What would you say is the onebiggest misconception about insurance
that costs people the most money?

Nick Hiter (04:35):
That it's one size fits all right?
There's, in the state of Tennessee whereI reside, the great state of Tennessee,
if I went shopping just for myselfright now, there's literally hundreds
How do I know which one is the right one?
And quite honestly, just if we're gettingright into it first and foremost, in
my opinion, the most important thingand the most important component of
an insurance policy is the network.

(04:55):
Because again, if that, I think it was in2017 or 2018, and again, this is a loose
statistic, I don't even remember witha source, but it was a credible source.
It was over 70% of the people that hadfiled bankruptcy due to medical costs, had
an active health insurance plan in place.

Jerremy Newsome (05:12):
dude.

Nick Hiter (05:13):
most common reason was they weren't in network.

Jerremy Newsome (05:16):
That's wild.
So explain for the seven people thatmight not know what's the difference
between in-network and out of network.

Nick Hiter (05:24):
So well, so in Nashville we have this street called Broadway, this
world famous street called Broadway.
And this is the analogythat I always give, right?
So everybody wants to go toBroadway's pretty dang busy.
And and let's just say there's areally long line to get in the door.
And then when you get in the door,there's even a longer line at the
bar before you can get a drink.
Let's say I sold you this magical cardthat you kept in your wallet, that when

(05:46):
you showed up on site, you got to skipthe line at the door and skip the line
at the bar to get right at the front.
And even then, once you got there,they gave you discounted drinks.
When you got to that bar, everybodywould be like, man, yeah, absolutely.
Give me that card.
But then what happens when you gothere and they're like, oh dude,
yeah, we don't accept that card here.
And there, as a matter of fact, out ofall these places on this busy street,

(06:09):
only one spot accepts that card.
That's where you gotta go.
That's they, that's think about it.
There's all these different typesof network, PPO E-P-O-H-M-O,
like what do they all mean?
And at the end of theday, PPO is what you want.
And there's even differenttypes of PPO networks, right?
Un unfortunately, when itcomes to the government.

(06:31):
Provided insurance through the AffordableCare Act or Obamacare as it's called
in like a lot of times those networksare extremely small or just local.
So like a lot of times if you've gota local EPO network and you take your
family to Disney and that's when theaccident happens, or that's when the
heart attack happens, and they're notgonna drive you back to Tennessee.
They're gonna get you to the closestplace to get you taken care of.

(06:52):
As a matter of fact the other analogyI use all the time, even in this town
of Nashville, Tennessee, not everyhospital accepts every insurance, right?
So let's say the bad accident happens,you're in the back of the ambulance on the
way to the, on the way to the hospital.
The guy that's the, they're not gonnaslap you and wake you up and remove
the oxygen mask off your face andsay, Hey man, what hospital are you,

(07:13):
does your insurance accept it at?
They're gonna take you to theclosest one, and if you live,
you might walk out bankrupt.

Jerremy Newsome (07:19):
Yeah.
That it sounds scary and terrifying, man.

Dave Conley (07:23):
your analogy is actually, it wasn't at Disney
World, but it happened to me.
I had a, I had like state of theart, like very expensive, like
awesome medical coverage that Ipaid for in the state of California.
And I ran into somethingwhen I was in Austin Texas.
And there was this one line in there thatsaid oh no, it's only good for California.
And I'm like, wait, what?
I'm like, wait, what?

(07:44):
Are you kidding me?

Nick Hiter (07:45):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's one of the first, you gottabe able to use it when you need it.
That's the most important thing.
And just keeping things like, I, I puta lot of responsibility on the consumer
because again, they're the consumer.
They chose it, right?
They paid for it.
Do they know what they paid for?
The average, let's say the average policyfor a family like me is gonna be, around
a thousand dollars a month, give or take.

(08:06):
Okay?
That's $12,000 a year.
When do you spend $12,000 ayear on something and not know
exactly what it does and when andwhere you can and can't use it?
So as a consumer, take the sameresponsibility you take everywhere else.

Jerremy Newsome (08:19):
Yeah, read.
Read a lot of the, reada lot of the policies.
Spend time with it.
Are there companies or are there brokersor anything like who, who helps explain
this stuff to the overall consumer?

Nick Hiter (08:31):
The way, I can't speak for all the other brokers and agencies around.
I can only speak for how we do it atours and the ones that we invested in.
And at the end of the day, we'readvisors first and agent second.
I'm, we've been very clear about we don't.
I gotta sleep at night.
I if selling you something thatyou don't need, that's not what
I'm in business for, right?
So we're here to help you solveproblems, give you security, financial

(08:55):
security so that if something horriblehappens to you, the people that you
care about most are protected, right?
And you're not puttingthem in a tough spot.
And health insurance is theonly type of insurance that
people expect to use this year.
They don't expect to use their carinsurance or their life insurance
or their homeowner's insurance, butthat boy, I'm gonna use that health.
Why it's insurance.

(09:16):
Why is it considered so much different?
Does your car insurance pay forany preventative stuff on your car?
Does your life insurance oryour homeowner's insurance pay
for any preventative on any ofthe things that it's insured?
But boy, your health better.

Jerremy Newsome (09:32):
Fascinating.
Yeah, it's a great point.
It's a great point.
Speak, speaking of the consumerNick, and you mentioned them
reading and sitting down.
I know you're a big advocate forpeople and teaching and learning and
helping them understand these aspects.
And I'm not gonna sayit's me, but it's me.
So pretend you're me and I don'tread the fine print on anything,
including insurance policies, insurancecompanies might count on that.

(09:54):
So what are some of the most dangerousclauses that are hidden in policies
that people don't realize couldcause them financial distrust.

Nick Hiter (10:05):
it's the, what people would understand in an in a car
insurance policy is gap coverage.
It's all those, it's all those,it's all those little things.
So my, my wife actually, wejust shot a podcast last week.
She is unbelievable at explainingthe how to, how the health insurance
plan could and should be built.
And more importantlyhow you use it, right?

(10:26):
And she broke it down.
So she broke, she actually broke it down.
I love it.
She broke down all, there'sfive ways in which you can spend
money on healthcare this year.
Number one would be your premium.
You're gonna do that 12times once a month, right?
To keep the policy in force.
Number two would be any preventative ormedic or just consistent prescriptions
you take on a regular basis.
So you add number one and number twotogether, that's your monthly costs.

(10:49):
Outside of that, they're gonnabreak down what, whatever claim it
is down to sickness, accidents or aterminal or a critical illness, right?
Like heart attack, stroke, or cancer.
And we build policies toprotect against those.
Pri there's private schooland public school, okay?
Most people would agree that if youcan afford private school, you would
choose it every day of the week, right?

(11:09):
I feel the same way about insurance.
Okay.
So there's public insurance andthere's private insurance, there's
insurance that's offered through themarketplace, and there's insurance
that's offered by private companies.
And so sometimes a little of both alike.
The insurance carrier that I'm insuredwith is, it's specifically the product
that we use, the policy we have is madefor people like me, people that can

(11:30):
afford to pay for their own coveragethat's not provided by an employer.
And we have a track record of healthwhere we can get through underwriting.
So we're paying, we get a extremely greatrate and have a whole lot of coverage
with the largest network in the country.
Because we didn't wait untilwe got sick before we decided
we needed health insurance.
And and it's funny too, 'cause peoplewill be qualifying them for whatever.

(11:53):
You get qualified based onhealth history and income.
So once we've gotten through income,we'll qualify health and people say, I'm
healthy, but I take four medications.
That, that don't, how's that work?
You know what I mean?
So obviously if you take medicationson ongoing, what's that for?
And I'm not saying you can't getthrough underwriting, but again,
that's, it's se it's serving somethingthat, that's needing some attention.

(12:16):
You're qualifying based on health andwhatnot and so like the plan that I've
got the other thing too is what's themax payout from the insurance carrier?
So mine is unlimited, so I can neverlet's say I have a $10 million brain
hemorrhage with cancer and everythingelse that could come if my insurance
policy has a max payout of 5 millionlifetime, it's not paying anymore.

(12:38):
So at

Jerremy Newsome (12:39):
and that's policy specific Nick?
It can, it, it's, it can saythat as like a company specific,
or is that policy specific?

Nick Hiter (12:45):
It's through a carrier, but it's policy specific.
So you could actually when we, whenthe policy when we actually put it
in force took out the policy, youactually could choose between 5 million
or unlimited and that, and obviouslyjust if you're a smoker or not, it'll
change the premium a little bit, right?
Because we actually, we boughtmore coverage by saying we wanted
unlimited co an unlimited cap,

Jerremy Newsome (13:05):
Yeah.

Nick Hiter (13:06):
right?
So at the end of the day, that insurancecard in your wallet, it's a tool dude.
And look, I could go to home Depot orLowe's right now and get the biggest,
baddest like chainsaw they got.
Dude, I don't know how to use it.
I'm not that guy.
You know what I'm

Jerremy Newsome (13:19):
I was about to, I'm glad you said that.
I was about to say you.
How use a chainsaw, Nick.
Get outta here.

Nick Hiter (13:24):
I, all right, or a hammer, I'm not even that guy.
So again, like if you don't know howto use the tool, it's worthless, right?
So you gotta understand how touse it, how to apply for it.
I'll give a great example.
In 2013 or 14, we had an accidentthat just so happened to be in
like the middle of the night.
We were actually, we owned a nightclubat the time, and a chair in storage fell

(13:44):
out of storage and actually hit, clippedmy wife's head on the way down on, so
we had to go to the emergency room.
All right?
So we got there, she got her test doneand everything else, and we're leaving,
and it's four in the morning, okay.
On a Saturday night,technically a Sunday morning.
So we're checking out, and thegirl in the emergency room,
she was like, 70 bucks, please.
And I was like, for what?

(14:05):
She was like, that's what itcosts to, to come through today.
And I was like, is that a co isthat a copay or what is that?
And I was like, is it basedon the insurance policy?
She's yeah, it's basedon the insurance policy.
And I was like.
So you called the insurancecompany to verify benefits at
four in the morning on a weekend.
They're not open.
How'd that work?
And she was like, okay, you got me.

(14:27):
I was just told to collect$70 from everybody.

Dave Conley (14:30):
Wow.

Nick Hiter (14:31):
was like, all so if I'd have paid that, what it would've happened?
She said, we would've gave youa credit back to that emergency
room, that specific emergency room.
I'd still have a credit there10 years later, 11 years later.
So again, if you don't know what youbought and how to use it, how do you
know that the person, like the personon the, at the checkout desk that's
dismissing you and telling you owe money?
Is it their first day?

Jerremy Newsome (14:51):
good point.
Yeah, it's a good point.

Nick Hiter (14:54):
You know what I mean?
So again, how do you know what, howdo you know what you don't know?
And here's what, here's how we got here.
Okay.
When I was brought up themedia was trustworthy.
The pharmaceutical the pharmaceuticalindustry was trustworthy.
Okay.
It's a different world we live in today.
The me the healthcareindustry was trustworthy.
If your doctor said it, that was the law.
You didn't question it.

(15:16):
Okay.
Guys, it's gotten to a place nowwhere you just gotta question things.
You got you.
You just have to, you, youcan't just trust is earned.
Okay?
So how much, like you're at an emergencyroom, which by the way, anything that's
emergency that like the timing is of anemergency, it's gonna have an escalated
cost, which is why we shouldn't use theemergency room for urgent care, right?

(15:37):
And stuff like that because it's,everything's gonna be inflated.
But you don't know anybody at thatemergency room and they don't know you.
So why is there trust beinggiven that hasn't been earned?

Jerremy Newsome (15:46):
Yeah, that's a fascinating point.
And and obviously as Nick, thispodcast solving America's Problems,
one of our main focuses is just divinginto very particular and specific
aspects so that I can continue tolearn, grow, and adapt, and understand
the biggest problems that face thiscountry and our citizens, because
I'm gonna run for president in 2032.
And so I know one aspect that'svery unique to this country is that

(16:08):
one in every 12 Americans, whichis approximately 3 million people,
have medical debt, and they owethose 3 million more than $10,000.
Now, here's where you come in, becauseagain, your main focus has been teaching
so many people about this product,about this tool, to use your verbiage.
So let's say that someone hasa really big medical bill.

(16:32):
What Mo Most Americans don't know ifthey can negotiate those medical bills.
They can fight claim denials, they caneven challenge network restrictions.
What's the first thing someone should dowhen they get an unexpected bill or even
a bill that they knew they were gonna get?
It was a lot larger than they thought.

Nick Hiter (16:50):
Here's how you know that you should ask questions because
it's kinda like when it's, it evenapplies in the car insurance industry.
A rock hit the windshieldof my car, right?
And it was $300 if I paid cash, but theywere gonna build the insurance company
like $1,500 for the exact same thing.
If you have a deductible on your plan, andlet's say your deductible is $5,000, the

(17:13):
cash price on this service might be $800.
But if they bill it to yourinsurance, it's gonna be $3,500.
You could pay $800 or the $3,500.
So you don't have, just 'causeyou have an insurance card, don't
mean you have to give it to 'em.
You can put that thing backin your wallet, just like when
you're filling a prescription.
So anytime I go up to the thing tofill prescription, I'm like, what's the
insurance price and what's cash price?

Jerremy Newsome (17:35):
Yep.

Nick Hiter (17:36):
So at the end of the day, when you're coming out of pocket money,
are you paying the lowest version ofwhatever it is that you need to be paying?
And you can call.
I don't know, a hospital and say,what's it cost to have a baby delivered?
And they're gonna give you a whole,you'd ask cash and with insurance, right?
And you can ask both.
And you can nego and youcan 100% negotiate that.

(17:58):
Why?
Can you, if you're making a minimumpayment on medical bills, can they
hurt your, can they send you tocredit and all that kind of stuff,

Jerremy Newsome (18:07):
No.
If you're making the minimum,I don't believe they can.

Nick Hiter (18:10):
that's right.
And think about that.
If you're, let's say the minimum is $10,what they pay the person that sent that
bill to you in the mail, more than $10to put a stamp on it and print the paper
and put it in there and everything else.
So like they would be better offto just negotiate it down to a lump
sum payment and get it off theirbooks than they would be to keep
tracking that over and over again.

Jerremy Newsome (18:29):
Yeah.

Nick Hiter (18:30):
So think about it just like any other type of stuff let's
make a deal and get this over with.
And why do they have to chargeinsurance companies so much more?
There's multiple reasons, butyou know how, if I pay you
today, you get the money today.
If the insurance pays you forthe same thing that I got done
today, when do you get paid?
When does the doctor orthe provider get paid?

Jerremy Newsome (18:49):
Yeah.

Nick Hiter (18:49):
So again, like one of the insurance carrier that our policies
through, they boast like theirclaims are paid in under 30 days.
Doctors like that, right?
The biggest misconception is thathospitals so first of all, doctors have
to go to school for a very long timeand they pay a lot for that school.
So anywhere else, if you'veacquired credentials like that,

(19:14):
you get to charge premium ratesfor whatever it is that you do.
Okay?
So in God forbid you pay for aservice that you receive, right?

Jerremy Newsome (19:23):
You're right.

Nick Hiter (19:24):
You know what I mean?
So at the end of the day, you don't want.
You want doctor, you wanna, and you get tochoose your doctor too, by the way, based
on merit and a whole lot of other things.
But here's the big disconnect, Jeremyand Dave when I think I was telling Dave
about this last time I talked to him.
When you go to the steakhouse,you know if it's a hundred dollars
steak or a $20 steak, right?
The lady that, that, the girl thatcuts my hair, it's not the same price

(19:45):
as the barbershop on the corner.
It's a little bit more,and I book her in advance.
Okay.
Just like the best restaurants you can'twalk in it's reservation only, right?
There's an experience.
So the part of town realestate has different pricing
in different parts of town.
So in the rough part of town, there'sgonna be a provider there versus in the
richest part of town just based on whatthey pay for the office space, they've got

(20:07):
to reflect that in their pricing, right?
So most people don't know whenthey go to their doctor if they're
going to Ruth's Chris or Outback,
Right?
That's a problem.
Again I put everythingback on the consumer.
'cause the consumer's theonly one who can fix that.
They can take control oftheir situation and fix it.
They can't lean on the insurance industryor even the providers to do that, right?

(20:28):
So they'll, if they wanna fix thisproblem, the consumer has to figure
out what it is that's going on.
And when I got into the insurancebusiness, I was blown away at
just learning to be an agent.
I was like, dude, I shouldhave learned this in college.
This is that important.
I should have learned this in college.
But unfortunately, people learnthe hard way when it's too late.

(20:50):
It's almost I'm not gonna starteating good until I get diabetes.
I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna solvethe problem until the problem shows
itself versus fixing it ahead of time.
Like the Maha movement, dude one of thereasons insurance rates are so high is
because they've just they're showinglike 70, 80% of the country's obese.
You are a health risk.
You're having to take medication.
You shouldn't have to

(21:10):
Having to get services.
You shouldn't have to get.
You're having to get treatments on things,so there's some things that we can do as
a consumer to totally take charge of this.

Jerremy Newsome (21:18):
Yep.
Dave, I know you wantedto say something for Nick.

Dave Conley (21:21):
Nick I know, you've helped people, navigate these fights
with these big unmanageable billsand these, the insurance companies.
certainly have people listening tothis right now who have those bills.
They might be getting thesethreatening like automated
letters from whoever, right?
Saying, Hey, pay this now, or We'regoing to do something terrible.

(21:41):
So tell me who are the peoplethat you should actually talk to
negotiate these things, and what arethe words that you need to be using
in order to negotiate your bills?

Nick Hiter (21:54):
When you're working with an agent or a broker, like I, I told you
guys in the beginning of this, we telleverybody what's in it for us, okay?
The way that I make money in this industryis every is when you make a premium.
When you make a premium payment,it, I get my monthly cut.
Or commission from that.
So what's it, what's best for me tohave you pay one or two premiums and

(22:15):
cancel or pay premiums for a long time?
And you get that recurring revenue, right?
Which is what we allwant as business owners.
So the best thing for us, the lastthing I wanna be is I'm so close to the
top of your budget that a flat tire.
I'm the thing that goes out of your life.
I wanna be a staple inyour life for a long time.
I wanna pick a policy that's gonna begreat for you for the next 12 months.

(22:37):
And in 12 months I wanna comeback around and make sure that
nothing's changing, that's stillthe best thing for you right now.
But most importantly, I wanna make surethat you have a policy that is in force.
Because here recently a buddy of minewho you know, un unfortunately, he he
passed away and it was sad because.
He neglected to make, he lethis insurance policy lapse.

(22:58):
And when he did that, he couldn't get itreinstated because he was going through he
had a kidney problem and that took him offthe transplant list and that caused him
to no longer be here over a couple things.
But one of those factors wasliterally like a lapsed payment.
And it's just, that could, thatcan happen for so many reasons.

(23:18):
Card be new card being issued ora whole bunch of things, but you
just gotta stay on top of it.
So once you get in the club, soto speak, once you get through an
underwritten plan, like it's always inforce until you fail to make a payment
and then you have to get put back in.
You have to almost like reapply.
It's just there's a reason that youget in early when you're healthy.

(23:38):
Because that's, it'sjust like life insurance.
You're the least you'rethe least amount of risk.
All insurance is a gigantic riskpool that's broken up by group or
by state or something like that.
So at the end of the day,that's all you're dealing

Dave Conley (23:49):
And, but Nick if you get one of these bills from the provider
or for the insurance company or fromthe hospital, who do you even talk to?
Do you talk to the insurance companyand are there words you need to say
oh, oh my God, make this go away.

Nick Hiter (24:02):
Yeah.
So there's a hospital here that Iwon't say in town that never files the
insurance first, they always just sendthe bill straight to the customer.
They don't even file their insurance.
So the first things first is youhave an insurance policy enforced.
You get a bill from the facility,but you also get an explanation
of benefits from the insurancecompany that says they filed it.
If you don't get that explanation ofbenefits, they did not file it and
they need to do you know this, whenyou get a bill, do you, when you get

(24:24):
a bill at the restaurant, do you just.
Sign it and go or do you look at it andmake sure that everything was right on it.
And ask questions.
So the way that my wife and I run ouragency, and she's amazing at this, is
first of all is when you get your firstclaim book an appointment with us to go
through it and make sure you understand.
Once you understand how to payone general claim, you know how to
navigate through the rest of them.

(24:45):
First things first is, did everythingget filed that needed to get filed with
everybody it needed to get filed with?
And by the way, the people that file thisstuff are human and they make mistakes.

Jerremy Newsome (24:54):
Yeah, good point.

Nick Hiter (24:56):
Okay.
And a two might look like a fiveor a one might look like a seven.
And dude, you mess up one number.
It messes up everything.

Jerremy Newsome (25:04):
Yeah, that's a good point.
And that, that

Nick Hiter (25:07):
checking your work is huge.
Just check your work.

Jerremy Newsome (25:10):
figuring out where those i's are and those t's are crossed.
Yeah.
I know you're also a huge financialliteracy advocate as well, man.
And so just, this might be a tiein to both pieces, but I would just
like to get your thoughts on it.
And again, we have thousands and thousandsof listeners who, who wanna know this.
So for those people who might feellike they're stuck and either, just
let's just say drowning medical costs,what are the first three things they

(25:34):
can do right now to take back control?
I.

Nick Hiter (25:37):
the first thing you can do to take back control is make sure
that it was filed with all the properchannels that it needed to be filed
with, and that those channels tookthe action they were supposed to take.
Okay?
And then from there, you ifyou're left with something that's
uncomfortable you probably yourexpectations weren't managed.
You thought you bought somethingdifferent than what you bought,
than what you were paying for.
And when that happens, then you gotta getreal, you gotta get good at negotiating

(26:00):
or you gotta hire somebody that'sgood at negotiating on your behalf.
Okay?
And it's, again, the, at the endof the day, the facility, they
just wanna get the bill paid.
The cons, the customer justwants to get the bill paid.
And there's usually some commonground that can be found if they're
willing to have those tough,they're tough conversations.
And my wife has done so muchconsulting for people on the back

(26:22):
end where Hey man they, you went,unfortunately, you went to a hospital
that is a an educational hospital.
So like they're doing a lot ofthings for, to teach students
at the hospital and whatnot.
So they probably we had a client onetime go in for a a spider bite and
they did all these tests on 'em forSTDs, and then they bill them for it.
And it was like, you didn't goand you need to go and argue that.

(26:45):
And they immediately wrote it off justbecause he questioned it one time.
So again, if you didn't order tatertots at the restaurant and they
charged you for tater tots, you'dsay, Hey man, I didn't order this.
Fix it.
So

Jerremy Newsome (26:57):
Or gimme my tater tots.

Nick Hiter (26:58):
That's right.
So it's the same practicein the rest of your life.
It's just for a long time in the,when, in our parents' generation, even
when I was a kid, it was real easy.
Most plans were PPO.
Most plans were you had a deductible andthen you had a co-insurance and a copay.
And a copay was the $20 bill.
My mom sent, slipped in my pocketwhen I went to the doctor, said,
just give them that at the frontdesk, honey, and you're good.

(27:19):
And then if we hadn't met ourdeductible, we paid until we did.
And that was alwaysafter network reduction.
So it's, it's crazy.
You know what a client, let's saya client gets a $30,000 bill in
the mail and it says you owe 10.
The insurance company, the networkreduction was 20 grand on that claim.
It was almost 66%.
And they're gonna be like, yeah, theinsurance company didn't cover anything.

(27:40):
No, the bill was 30 grand.
And they sent you a bill for,the actual bill was 30 grand.
And what you actually areresponsible for is 10.
Why?
Because you either didn't have adeductible to meet before you had to
start before the plan did stuff, ordepending on how the plan's structured
or you had over a 10,000 deductible.
But like for, I have a 5,000 de deductibleon, on ours and and a 80 20 co-insurance,

(28:03):
meaning I'm paying 20% of the of the restof the bills until I've for the next 2000
until, so 7,000 is my max out of pocket.
That's the most I can pay onany claim in a calendar year.
So $7,000.
If you think about the math on thatlet's say the average network reduction
is gonna usually between 30 and 50%,let's just say 50% for easy math.

(28:24):
So even to hit that deductible, that 5,000deductible, it's gotta be a $10,000 bill.
And at the time I took out the policy, Ihad never reached a $10,000 bill before.
So when you're taking out this, these,when you're going through these planned
details, it's important to like.
When you go and buy tools at thetool store, at the hardware store,

(28:45):
you're buying tools for a specificpurpose and for a specific use.
So that's what I'd tell people.
Again, sickness, accidents,critical illness.
How does the plan work inthose three categories?
And you that kind of lumps it allin again, if it's a bug bite or
food poisoning, or you fell out ofa deer stand or a hernia in the gym.
Accidents.
Okay.
The most sickness, like heartattack, stroke cancer, those

(29:09):
would be like critical illness.
Sickness could be like what sicknesswould make you hit a deductible?
It's not a common cold, right?
It's not even probably covid unlessyou're confined to the hospital.
It's gonna be like gallbladder.
Appendicitis, stuff like thatwhere you're gonna be admitted
to the hospital and whatnot.
And we built supplements on our planthat reimburses on a lot of those things.

(29:29):
Like my deductible on anyaccident's, only 500 bucks.

Jerremy Newsome (29:33):
Got it.

Dave Conley (29:35):
Nick, talk to me about that.
So you've helped launch 150 plus brokersin this world, and of course not all
insurance brokers operate the same way.
Some are looking out for theirclients like you are and others
are just, making those commissions.
How does somebody tell the difference?

Nick Hiter (29:51):
Trust is earned.
Trust is earned, man.
So again, how well do you know theperson that you're buying anything from?
If you're buying a car from the carlot, you obviously trust the brand on
the front of the store to trust thatmakes you trust that rep that gave
you the test drive and anything else.
It's how do you choose an accountant?
It's the, it would be the, it would be thesame synopsis, the same problem solving.

(30:13):
So is there a track record of that person?
Can you review testimonials?
Have you heard from their clients, isthis person, does this person, I believe
if you can find them online, and a lotof them, I think that's a good thing.
I've literally seen agents that'llclose a deal on a client and
then block their phone number.

Dave Conley (30:29):
Oof.

Nick Hiter (30:29):
mean?
Again, there there's snakes inthe grass in every industry.

Jerremy Newsome (30:33):
Sure.
Yep.

Nick Hiter (30:34):
And how do you choose the right, how do you choose the right ones?
Just, I didn't my wife and Ididn't get married after one date.
It took us a while to get there.
So we had to get, we hadto get to know each other.
But again, this is a big, this isa big decision and especially if
you're spending, 500, a thousandor 1500 a dollars a month or
more just on the premium itself.
You need to know what you bought, man.

(30:56):
Take the responsibility andunderstand what you bought.
And again Trump's been trying todo it for a long time where, there
should be menu pricing on the, atthe hospital when you go there.
And it's not a, it's not I wonder whatthis is gonna cost me when I get home.
And I'll find out 30 dayslater when they send me a bill.
Wouldn't it be great if you knew what youwere up against when you walked in and you
actually could choose Hey man, we're gonnagive you some ibuprofen for the pain.

(31:18):
The pain's not that bad.
Is that ibuprofen a thousanddollars, for that pill?
Give me some, give mesomething to go off of here.
You know what I'm saying?

Jerremy Newsome (31:26):
That's a good point.
It is.

Nick Hiter (31:28):
But again, we just always take what we want.
Like when our daughter our daughter wasborn in April of 2021, dude, they were
pushing all kinds of medications andvaccinations on her, on us at that time.
And it was like, you know what,dude, we, she just got here.
She's perfectly healthy.
We don't want that right now.
You have the right to choose.
So again, just 'cause the doctorsays it don't mean you have to do it.

(31:49):
You, it's you have the right to choose.
Now, they can also say if you're notgonna do it, we're not gonna serve you.
And if that's the case, like ifyou didn't, if you went to Ruth's
Christ, like if you don't orderthe filet, you can't eat here.
I wouldn't, I'd be like, cool, I'm out.
I'll go somewhere else that wants me here.
So again, if you have a strong network,you can choose your providers and
there's a lot of power in that choice.

Jerremy Newsome (32:10):
Earlier, Nick, you mentioned something tactical that
kind of stood out to me and I didn'trealize, and I guess the follow up
question is gonna be this, so earlieryou mentioned that you have the
ability to have someone, or maybe, Ithink you used the word, hire someone
to help you negotiate medical debt.
My, it sounds like both my wife and yourwife are a lot better than me and you.

(32:31):
'cause she, my, my wife rightnow loves negotiating bills
is her favorite thing ever.
But to that point, if someone doesn'thave an amazing negotiator in their life.
Is it possible to hire someone?
'cause that's my tactical question.

Nick Hiter (32:45):
When people, when my wife does it, it's just a part of
the service that we provide again.

Jerremy Newsome (32:51):
Oh, okay.

Nick Hiter (32:51):
Yeah.
So it's it's not, she's not necessarilyhopping on the phone with the facility
herself, but, she may be a fly onthe wall saying, Hey, offer this or
offer that or here's if they come backwith this, just like anything else.
So I'm not saying it's like a courtroomdrama or anything like that, but again
on if there's a, $2,500 bill, I'd walkin offering maybe like 500 to $700 and

(33:13):
see where they st and see where theycome back with and go from there, yeah.
They want that sucker paid andclosed, and you want to get
it off your books too, yeah.
The, I would say that the pricingthat they're asking for is a I,
let's just call it suggestion.
I'm not trying to get any compliancecomp, compliance hot water here.
Yeah.
But, it's, again, e if everybody'stechnically in it for the same

(33:34):
reasons, it's just, that's not always.
Communicated and there's a lot ofred tape and a lot of re This is
a heavily regulated industry man.
And it's crazy.
It's crazy.
It's regulated because, all thehospitals and providers are pr
are, they're for-profit companies.
Which is,

Jerremy Newsome (33:49):
Oh yeah,

Nick Hiter (33:50):
why it's hard for, it's hard for the government to go into a for-profit
company, so you have to do this.
If they did that to ourbusiness, I don't know, I'd be
like, I don't know about that.
I don't know if I accept thatthis is my business and I want
to run it the way I wanna run it.
So I understand there's legal thingsand regulations for that, but when it
comes to the pricing or the insurancecompanies, you gotta take and all
these negotiated rates for the networkreductions they're literally, they

(34:13):
change, they're forever changing andthey're specific to each practice,

Jerremy Newsome (34:18):
Yep.
I'll say, just to rehash on this fora moment, because it is so important
to so many of our listeners, isyou can ask a certain number and if
they agree to that number, a lot oftimes you can also take that number.
So let's just say youuse the example, right?
Your bill is 2000 bucks,you negotiate down to 500.
After it's 500.
A lot of times you can get that 500or five 50 or $600 on a payment plan.

(34:44):
And as long as you're payingmonthly, they're happy with you.
And I've had three or four medicalbills in my situation, in my
life where I got on a 0% interestjust pay me every single month.
And I did, and I paid them.
And the bill price was substantiallyless than it would've been.
But I did pay and it tookthree years to pay it off.
I paid it off.
And so as of right now, I have zeromedical debt, which is awesome.

(35:06):
But I think to that point, I.A lot of people just forget or
don't, aren't totally aware.
And so hopefully for all thelisteners, you're getting some value
there because just know that youare in control, that you do have the
ability, and that's because we're inthe greatest country in the world.
We got the greatest problems in theworld, but we're the greatest country.
And so you're gonna haveboth of those aspects, right?
You can't ask to get strongwithout having some weight.
How boring would lifebe with no resistance?

Nick Hiter (35:29):
Dude, we're like, at home we did a big renovation at
home and part of that renovationwas a beautiful, spectacular pool.
And 10 months after it was turned overto us, like literally we woke up and
the wall had collapsed in the pool.
It's been a hole in theground for 10 months.
And sure enough, so that first thing Idid is follow it to my homeowners, right?
So what, guess what, deny Andwe appealed it twice and sure

(35:49):
enough, it's in clear cut languagethat I never read my homeowner.
That's not my homeowner's insurance jobto cover that based on what happened.
So now we've had to we're having togo through with a lawyer through the
builder and all the subcontractorsand their insurance companies.
'cause technically theirinsurance companies, based on
the way ours is structured iswho's supposed to cover that?
So EE even then but again it.

(36:11):
I definitely signed it.
Just 'cause I didn't know whatI signed when I signed it.
Exactly.
That's my fault.
'cause it was clearly there inthe literature and it, dude,
when you get that stack insurance

Jerremy Newsome (36:20):
Oh dude, they're big dude.

Nick Hiter (36:22):
Think about that.
What, how much information did youjust trash when you burn that sucker?
You know what I mean?
And think about that.
When in life, is that ever okay?
Where you're gonna belike, yeah, it'll be fine.

Dave Conley (36:33):
So you even said, like you wish you'd learned this in college
and you're an expert in insurance andyour homeowners is doing this to you.
What should consumers, where shouldconsumers start learning about this?
Where do they start?

Nick Hiter (36:49):
There, there's a ton of information.
Oh.
As a matter of fact, do chat.
GPT is a great resource to, toask just really basic questions
to figure some stuff out.
The information's pretty good on there.
But more importantly, likethat's tech, all the agent or the
broker is the marketing arm, theservice arm for those carriers.
Like I love I'm gonna giveErie Insurance a shout out.

(37:11):
That's who our homeowner stuff is through.
Josh Mitten is our agent,and he has been fantastic.
He picks up the phone when we havea question, and that's at the end
of the day, that's his main job,man is making sure that happens.
And if he has questionslike, Hey, I lost my cards.
I can't get into my portal.
Hey, I need to add a new dependentor a new spouse, or, I've had a
life changing circumstance, I needto tweak my policy a little bit.

(37:33):
That's what the agent's thereto do for you or your broker.
And I like, nothing against brokers.
Brokers represent a lotof different companies.
And with the way our agency is structured,we can advise on all the plans in
the states that we're licensed in.
However, we have some contracts thatallow us pretty much like we, we
can look at plans and quote plansthat not every agent has access to.

(37:55):
So at the end of the day, the personthat you're talking to, are they shopping
the entire, are they shopping everycar, or are they only shopping Toyotas?
So when you think about that, there'sa lot of different car manufacturers
and car brands, so how many of themare they actually able to help you on?
You know what I mean?
So I just want a white car thatgets this gas mileage with this

(38:15):
many seats and so on and so forth.
I don't care what kind it is.
If they only look Toyota they might havemissed a great deal for me with from GMC.

Jerremy Newsome (38:23):
Yeah.
So Nick, you handsome man.
Here's one for you.
What are some reforms that youfeel would improve the trust
between consumers and insurers?

Nick Hiter (38:35):
First off, just a, every restaurant you go to is gonna
tell you what the price of the foodis before, before you order it,
you're gonna know that would be agreat start to just make pricing
transparent on, on, on the front end.
So that way, again, the

Jerremy Newsome (38:50):
You can decide.
You can choose, yeah.

Nick Hiter (38:53):
yeah literally when I was in the, I have diverticulitis
in the emergency room twice in onemonth year and a half ago over it.
And like literally, like they camein offering me pain medication.
I wasn't in that much pain.
I can tolerate a lot, but they camein asking me if I wanted some, my
first response was, how much is it?
And literally like the techwas like, I don't know.
I'm like I don't know if I want it.

(39:13):
Go find that out and I'lltell you how painful this is.

Jerremy Newsome (39:16):
That's so funny, dude.

Nick Hiter (39:19):
You know what I mean?
So again, if they're gonna,they're gonna test everything.
Why?
Because if they go in and they misssomething, technically there might
be a lawsuit on them later on.
So it's better for themto just test everything.
Dude I don't, I don't need an X-rayright now for my diverticulitis, right?
I had one two weeks ago.
So it's, but again, they're gonnado, they have a standard practice
and they're in it to make money too.

(39:40):
It's all those things combined.
Hey, we wanna do this test.
Why?
I bet you do.
Why?
What's in it for me?
What's in it?
What's in it

Jerremy Newsome (39:48):
How much is it?

Nick Hiter (39:49):
Yes, absolutely.
What's it, what's in it for me?
And if they can't answer that question,then I can't answer your question.
You know what I mean?
So if you can't answer my question,then I can't answer yours.
You give me an answer andI'll give you one back.
It's real fair.

Jerremy Newsome (40:02):
Yeah.

Dave Conley (40:03):
Yeah.
But, okay, so like I, I've hademergencies too, and I'm, I am not
necessarily in my best state of mind.
So are there perhaps reformsoutside of the consum?
I get it.
The consumer definitely has tobe at the center of this, right?
And there's insurance, there's government,there's the medical providers, there's,

(40:23):
this is a constellation, right?
Do you think that there are reformsthat need to happen somewhere
in that world of government andinsurance providers and providers?
That would help out the consumer becausefor a lot of people, it doesn't feel
like it's consumer centric, even thoughit's the most important decisions
that we're making truly of our lives.

Nick Hiter (40:45):
As, as far as reforms go.
There's a million waysthat you could go about it.
And I honestly, I haven't thoughttoo much about what they should
do, because what the thing thatI do is I solve the problems that
the current state causes, right?
So we really just, I can't help mycustomers by talking about the things, the
hypotheticals that could make it better.
We help them by dealing with whatthey got to work with right now

(41:06):
and how to navigate through those.
So there's a million things thatthey could do to make it better,
whether with pricing transparencywith caps on certain things.
Again, there's, there there's probablya place out there that might serve
a million that costs, Hey, man,this stake's a million dollars.
There's, and there's nobodysaying they can't do that.
There's nobody saying you can'tcharge over that first stake.
But again, you know thatbefore, before you get it.

(41:26):
So in my opinion and again, isif you're not in, is there, are
you in the right mind, like yousaid, to make that decision?
And is there a way to gauge thatversus having, a spouse or a power of
attorney there to do next, which theyhave that in place to a certain degree.
But again does everybody have that set upin place when the bad thing happens, when

(41:47):
they're sit, when they're in the hospitalincapacitated, do they have that person
that's next in line to make decisionson their behalf when they do that?
So again, it all, I itgoes back to the customer.
Like I had kids and I didn'thave a last will and testament.
I didn't have any of that stuff set up.
My kids were exposed and myparents were like, Nick, grow up.
Do the right thing, man.
Protect your family.
And I'm like, you're right.

(42:07):
I should do that.
It's just as a cons as acustomer or a consumer.
Did I do all the things that I shouldhave done to, to protect everything
that needs protecting, versuswaiting until it's horrible to do.
Like I remember we were going on mywife and I were going on a cruise.
Kids were staying at home and or a kidsingular was staying at home and we

(42:28):
didn't have the last will in testament.
Guess what?
If something happens on that boat,we're both going down with it, right?
What happens to my sonwhen we don't come home?
So my lawyer was like, Hey dude, justsend me a voice message or a video saying,
Hey, if anything happens to us, so we'vegot something to start with, right?
But again, if I didn't do that andsomething had to happen, it's then

(42:49):
my kids, my, my son's in tough shape.
So we're always looking forsomebody else to solve a problem.
And I'm a big believer in it'sif I do this, I give away the,
if I point out, I give away theability to solve that problem.
If I'm like, it's my fault, I can fix it.
So that's just my stance on everything.
It's,

Jerremy Newsome (43:06):
Which I like.
I like that.
I think there's a lot more peoplethat just need to have that
stance in general, where it'slike, Hey, this is all my fault.
This is all my doing anyway.
I'm gonna take onus for everything.
And then everything else outsideof that, I hope it helps me, but
realistically, this is all my shoulders

Nick Hiter (43:18):
and think about this, if everywhere I go, there's, most
of the roads in this town are 40 to30 to 50 mile an hour speed limits
except for the interstates, right?
If everywhere I go, I'm driving 80 or 90if when I get caught enough times, they're
gonna be like, dude, you're not insurable.
Think about what people areputting in their bodies daily,
every day, years on end.

(43:39):
It's habitual behavior that'snot healthy and it's bad.
So it's and then we expect theinsurance company to step up and
take care of all of our bad habits.
Again, golly man.

Jerremy Newsome (43:49):
I know it might be obvious, Nick, but what are some
examples of those things that people areputting into their bodies that are bad?

Nick Hiter (43:54):
Man those seed oils, those processed foods, fast food
fast food used to be like whatyou ate when you were in a rush.
Some people eat it every day.
That's all they
So what again, I was always taughtin the world of business, you could,
it something's whatever you buy isgonna be good, fast, or cheap, but
you can only pick two of them, right?
So if it's good and fast,it ain't gonna be cheap,

Jerremy Newsome (44:16):
Yeah.

Nick Hiter (44:17):
right?
If it's cheap and fast,it ain't gonna be good.

Jerremy Newsome (44:20):
Yep.
My dad taught me the same thing.

Nick Hiter (44:22):
the same way.
And think about that with your healthcare.
Think about what that, with the foodyou're putting in your body, like even
the medication and stuff you're puttingin, like people take more medication
than they too vi than they too vitamins.

Jerremy Newsome (44:32):
Yeah.
I know one of the big questionson a lot of insurance forms is
ask about, alcohol and tobacco.
Do.
This might be a randomquestion, but do you think, is
it tobacco or is it nicotine?

Nick Hiter (44:46):
So nicotine's got a lot of positive health effects
if it's taken in the right

Jerremy Newsome (44:49):
I've been reading about these.
Yeah, that's kind I didn't know if thatwas a sprinkle of kind of my question, I

Nick Hiter (44:53):
so the tobacco, it's, in my opinion, it's the tobacco
it's the tobacco, not the nicotine.
Because the tobacco, what's causesthe gum cancer from the snuff being
in your lip or the lung cancer fromthe cigarette smoke inhalation.
And all the, and again, whatare, what's all the chemicals in
those filters and stuff, they'reputting in those cigarettes.
So it's not just, it's not justnatural raw nicotine you're getting
it's nicotine with all these chemicalsthey've lumped together with it.

Jerremy Newsome (45:15):
Yeah, no valid point.
And I think to your level, I think thebig shift that my ultimate dream and goal
is to create into this country is gonnabe a much more robust, much more refined,
much more expansive education system.
Because I think a lot of the things thatare gonna stem from what you said earlier,

(45:37):
most Americans are overweight, and themajority, I think it's 58% are obese.
34% of America, which is one in threepeople are morbidly obese, which is over
a hundred pounds overweight, which islike you're knocking on diabetes and
death doorstep if you're morbidly obese.
That's a humongous problem.

(45:57):
And again, yes, a lot of it, as youmentioned earlier, we can blame the
food, we can blame the, in the creatorsof the sugar and all the things.
And or we can also blame the educationsystem for not being the number
one proponent of teaching everysingle child to the best of their
ability, what it is to eat healthy,how it works, the ingredients.

(46:19):
So if we start creating this shiftwhere that's really the main focus
or a big proponent focus, right?
Financial literacy, health literacyand to your point, insurance taxes.
Every parent I talk to in America islike, yeah, why isn't this being taught
in school when you go through some actualreal world things that we need to learn?

Nick Hiter (46:42):
The application is, there's no application being taught in most school.
It's a whole lot of knowledge, but you'renot it's like reading the Bible and not
knowing how to apply it to your life.

Jerremy Newsome (46:52):
Oh shoot.

Nick Hiter (46:53):
It's empty,

Jerremy Newsome (46:53):
Oh, shoot.
Yep.
I love that point.
Nick, thank you for your time today, man.
You've given people a ton of value today.
Where can they go to learn moreabout you, about insurance and
to protect themselves even more?

Nick Hiter (47:05):
Nick heider.com and team heider.com specifically
for the insurance stuff.
And again I appreciate youguys having me on today.
It's an honor and a pleasure.
The true rockstar witness.
So my wife has a very unique stancein this industry, and the fact that
she's a I'll put her up against anyagent or broker on planet Earth.
And the big biggest, one of thebiggest reasons is because nobody's

(47:26):
gonna care as much as she does.
But she used to run a big old doctor'soffice, so she's been, she's the one of
the few people that has been the consumer,
And the agent for the insurer.
So she's covered all three ofthe branches and she knows how
to navigate through those things.
But again, folks, freedom is the key word.
You want to be free to make choices,and with that, freedom comes with
responsibility to make good choices.

Jerremy Newsome (47:49):
Come on now.
Hey, I'm gonna reach out to yourperfect wife and see if we can
get her on the show as well.
'cause we got some amazing future topics.
And again, we're just gonna really focuson if we can make and understand and
inform all the listeners, all the people,realizing that there's problems in the
country, realizing that we can comeup with easy, fast, simple solutions.
The more we can apply these, you saidthe word application earlier, right?

(48:12):
The more that we can actuallyapply some of these steps, the one
that I heard the most today was.
Just pricing awareness, pricingvisibility, having that in front
of people, just letting themknow what's available and what's
not available and what the costsare and what the costs aren't.
I think that just by itself could createa much bigger wave of informed consumers.

(48:32):
So Nick, thanks so much for your time man.
I

Nick Hiter (48:34):
got it baby.
Thank you.

Dave Conley (48:36):
Okay.
What did you learn?

Jerremy Newsome (48:38):
Oh, what did I learn?
What did I learn?
There he, man, there's alot of acronyms out there.
We said P-P-O-E-M-O-H-M-O.
Again, I think that there's a lot of thein-network pieces we started off with.
I do think that the general consumer, andthe reason I feel that way is 'cause I'm
probably undereducated in this too, isthe average American probably doesn't know

(49:03):
a lot about how health insurance works.
And one of the most interestingtakes that I heard Nick say is we
treat health insurance differentlythan we treat anything else.
All the other insurance ismore pre prehab sorry, rehab,
it's more like after the fact.
And a lot of people treat healthinsurance as a prehab, which is
like, all right before I get sick,what are some things I can do?

(49:25):
Which tells me that there's probablysome kind of business in that, right?
What if someone paid a company X amountof dollars and they would help create
coupons or discounts or programs forjust preventative health metrics.
So let's say that you had a companythat you paid 200 bucks a month and

(49:45):
they sent you the newest and latestand greatest, I don't know, fancy water
bottle that rehydrates your hydrogen,or they send you to some, biometric
labs that are in your city, or there'ssome IV programs that they can send.
I'm trying to think of I'm, Ifeel like there's probably a very
interesting business model in theprehab version of health insurance.

(50:07):
But then of course, after the fact.
One of the other things that reallyis, I think, truly a crazy easy shift,
Dave, would be visual pricing on justa lot of portions of health, right?
Like right now, if I go into a,I'm not a pharmacist, but if I go
into a urgent care center, perfectexample, and my, because my ear hurts.

(50:33):
Okay.
I don't know what anyof that's gonna cost me.
No clue.
And once I get back behind the doorand I start talking to the doctor,
there again, I have no idea what theprescription's gonna cost upfront or if
they gave me a bandage for my ear or theyput some type of special solution on it.
I have no idea what it costs.
And I don't think most people do whenthey go into a program or product.

(50:57):
Now, I will say to backend that oneof the things that me and my family
are doing is we're starting to reallyaggressively attack the HSA route.
And we're doing that in the simpleform of some of the numbers that
Nick was throwing out there.
If you have, or if I bought like acatastrophe policy where we spend
$2,000 a month, I was like, okay,if you go into the emergency room.

(51:18):
You're gonna give 50% of your staycovered, and that's $2,000 a year.
Okay.
Got anything other than that?
We take all of the money, which for myfamily, 'cause I don't know why, dude.
I'm just, I got an expensive family, bro.
Like these kids, it's like $1,700a month for all five of us.
It's like that's a lot.
So if I could take all of that,put it into an HSA account, which

(51:41):
is a health savings account,take that health savings account.
We talked about this with Sean.
Dr. Sean, take that money andthen invest it into stocks also.
You can then grow that moneyand can keep contributing to it.
And if you use it, pull it out.
Tax free, penalty free.
And if you don't use it, it's there.
And now it's a savings account.
It can grow and grow over 5, 10, 15 years.

(52:01):
That can come up to hundreds of thousandsof dollars that you can transfer,
donate, give, use, buy a house with it.
There's all kinds of things you cando with it at that point, but there's.
A lot of shifts here that are veryinteresting, but it also seems
like there's going to be yes, thisbigger, overarching scary monster
that you mentioned, Dave, where it'sokay, what about the government?

(52:22):
What about the providers,about the insurance companies?
There's probably a lot of reform inthere that a lot of people haven't
totally figured out yet, but there'salso probably some very easy solutions
upfront and early on, includingobviously, education earlier on, but most
specifically, just more visible awarenessof what things are gonna cost us.

Dave Conley (52:41):
I heard that too.
Which is like the big thing thatwould help a whole lot of people is
price transparency and and I get it.
And the other, the, I get that piece.
And the other piece that, I dunnoif I'm struggling with it, but I'm
still challenged by it is I'm not adoctor, I'm not an insurance expert.

(53:02):
I'm not a lawyer.
I'm not an expert in any of these things.
What I did learn today and justreconfirmed what I already knew,
was, the providers and the insurancecompanies, and the pharmaceutical
companies and the pharmacies,they're all built to make money and.

(53:23):
Your outcome, whateverit is incidental to that.
They're not there to, to really, tokeep you healthy or to, to even, the,
they, the most optimal outcome for themand the most optimal outcome for you.
Can be and are often misaligned.

(53:45):
And a lot of that has to do aroundprice and service and not knowing.
Like medical stuff is my secondbiggest expense right below my housing.
And it's because I'm, I'm a differentbear, like I, I spend not only money on
insurance, but also on a medical provider,a doctor who acts as my primary person,

(54:09):
running medical tests and nav, helping menavigate the medical, landscape of things
in order for me to focus on vitality.
And not, and prevent,preventative maintenance.
And that was another piecethat we learned from Nick.
It's these are different things, whenthe bomb goes off, that's one thing.
And keeping you healthy is another thing.

(54:29):
And, accidents are another thing.
What I do know is that, the personalresponsibility that more people need
to take from this is that right now I'mgonna imagine that most of our listeners
and most of the people in the UnitedStates spend almost no time thinking
about their health, their insurance,their preventative the accidents.

(54:53):
They don't spend any time on that.
And it truly is your responsibility toengage with professionals like insurance
brokers to be like, okay, how's a waythat I can do this that makes sense for me
and my family to talk with the providersand say, okay, what does this cost?
It's and what, how can I pay for this?

(55:14):
And is it in network?
And learning some of that language, soit, in order for health insurance to
work in the current system, you have to.
Everyone, I'm gonna say,everyone listening to this

Jerremy Newsome (55:29):
Yeah.

Dave Conley (55:30):
carve out time,

Jerremy Newsome (55:32):
Time.
Yep.

Dave Conley (55:33):
every day, or every week or every month, and learn it and get the
professionals around this so that you,because I don't know if there's, anything
more important than somebody's health.
And that's what I learned.

Jerremy Newsome (55:48):
We hear all the time, man, health is our greatest wealth.
And I do think that there, and thissystem is pretty ripe for disruption.
One of the questions I just didn'tthink to ask is, do you have to
have a broker to get insurance?
Can I just go directly to the source?
I. Of an insurance policy and just buyit and not pay a company or a brokerage

(56:09):
company, their monthly reoccurringrevenue because that's obviously
going to eat into my costs, right?
So just another thing to be common, Idon't know the answer to that question.
I'm sure we'll findout in future episodes.
In fact, for our amazingesteemed listeners, we really
do want to hear your stories.
Have you had a nightmareexperience with healthcare?
Have you found a healthcaremodel that actually works?

(56:32):
Share your thoughts.
Tag us on solving America'sProblems podcast on Instagram.
And if you have Twitter also now knownas x solve USA pod message us there.
Both myself and Dave arevery active on social media.
We would love to pour into you andhelp you as much as we possibly can.
And ladies and gentlemen, thankyou so much for being a part

(56:53):
of this incredible movement.
Thank you for listening.
Thank you for being a part ofthis awesome mission and impact.