Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Steve Harvey Saturdays, and you were right in
the middle of what time it time? That's what time
it is? I got one question for you. Is there
a doctor in the house, Yes, there is. Getting ready,
we're gonna talk about health issues. We're gonna talk to
one of the baddest brothers in the land. He is
going from a practicing physician to an executive physician, from
the bedside to the boardroom. Put your hands together for
(00:22):
Dr David K. Butler. Hey, Tommy, how you doing? Boys?
I'm glad that it's under these circumstances. What's upday? I'm
not calling you with with an ailment. I'm not calling
you saying something wrong with me today. I'm just calling
nothing that we need to talk about on the radio
right now. No, and if it was, we would definitely
wouldn't be talking about it on radio. We're not bringing
up my problems. But you know what, man, I wanted.
(00:46):
I wanted people to be able to hear from a
doctor because healthcare keeps changing is confusing. We're gonna start
with this first, how the health care has changed. Then
I'm gona ask you about how I go to pick
up a prescription and man, the deductible is this world? Wow,
Well that's that's a solid topic. I'll give you the
one line on how health care is changing from a
(01:07):
doctor's perspective and the hospitle perspective. Way is changing is
that doctors, we are now more accountable to populations of patients,
meaning it is about your hypertension when you come in.
But more importantly, what we're asked to do by the
various governments as Medicare, MEDICAIDS, as well as your insurance companies.
They're asking us to, hey, can you help manage all
of our high blood pressure patients better than you have
(01:29):
been doing in the past. Can you use technology to
reach out to those patients to let them check their
blood pressure at home and send it in so that
our nurses are staff can help out and that way
they don't need to come to us as a doctor immediately,
and they let the doctors do what doctors do on
a larger on a larger scale of what we're licensed
more license to do. Right, So what you'll notice is
(01:50):
a lot more in the futures, we're using technology to
help get things like from your fitbit, your Apple watch
if you have one, or you may actually see your
doctor give you one because they want to make sure
that they can keep you out of the doctor's office.
We're moving from quantity means the number of pages we
see a day to quality how well we see those
patients medication costs. Of course, I have my sister. I
(02:13):
think you already noticed day because you helped my mother
and my sister out quite a bit. With my sister.
My sister suffers. She's been battling with crons for so
many years. She's a trooper, man, she's a warrior with
this thing. But I have been just blown away by
the cost of medication. It amazes me. Man. And and
then even the size of the deductible that has to
be met before it can get to a level low
(02:35):
it's not costing as much, and that might be going
through half or three quarters of the year before you
even get to that point. Oh solid. So if you're
hitting on one of the number one issues in healthcare
right now, and that is cost cost cost right now,
we call the GDP. Let's say, let's say percent of
every dollar you spend in life, well, right now, about
eighteen cents it's been on healthcare, Thomas, And so you're
(02:57):
hitting on a good point. Medicare cost is also huge.
And you mentioned the word deductible just just for the crowd.
The word deductible means the amount of money that you're
gonna spend out of your pocket before the insurance company says,
then they'll kick in. Okay. What we've seen over the
past fifteen years is that the deductibles have gone from
say three hundred dollars to three thousand dollars. And so
(03:19):
now that you have a deductible of three thousand dollars
before your insurance company will pay, what that means is
now patients are really wanting to know how should I
spend this three thousand dollars the best or they're starting
to ask you ask me this stn't ask me Dr Butler,
Do I really need that m R? Because I'm gonna
pay fifteen hundred dollars for it? Right? And if so,
(03:40):
is there a cheaper place to get it? And so
what you see is a lot more position offices and
a lot more even applications or websites dedicated to helping
you find the lower cost alternatives if you're spending that
three thousand dollars deductible money, right, And so wait, wait, wait, wait,
backup Dr Day, so I can find my medication online somewhere, Yeah, Target, Walmart,
(04:03):
right a, Walgreens, all of these places. When you take
your prescription from me to the pharmacy, they will likely
have some sort of program called the four dollar medication
or one ten dollar medication program. It may not have
your exact same medication, but it may have one chun
like it, or you may have to take it twice
to day instead of want today. And so what that
will do is give you an option and say, wow,
(04:26):
I'll pay sixty dollars for this one month's apply or
I can pay four dollars for a month's apply of
similar to they'll contact and doctor make sure that it's
a suitable alternative. A lot of patients don't even know.
We don't even know that, yeah exactly, a lot of
folks don't know that they have the option not to
use your insurance and pay out of pocket and that
will be cheaper. So which one would you pick? Insurance
(04:46):
out of pocket cheaper to build three dollars exactly. So
those are things that we just need to make sure
that our culture and people are aware of, not only ours,
but everyone. Every page should be aware of this right
that right now, the insurance companies and are dot com
they have a lot of their beholding to a lot
of their shareholders. Also, the big former company sometimes also
beholding to the shareholders, not necessarily to the patients. Of course,
(05:08):
that's a delicate balance making some generalizations, but that's what
we need to understand. Okay, So we have choice here.
We can ask our doctors, is there any cheaper medicine
that would actually do help me more than this one?
But I have also seen those patients to come into
me and say, Dr Butler, I need a Z pack,
I have a sinus infection. The wrong because what happens
(05:29):
is I may actually give you the zpac but your
insurance is not gonna cover it. You're gonna spend sixty
bucks of that Z pack and where there was a
cheaper medicine for you. But you kind of tip my hands, right,
It makes a lot of sense, all right, So Dr Butler,
let's do this in wrapping up, give me a take
home message on how we as as a people, we
as a community period to keep an eye on our health.
(05:50):
Just kind of summarize it all up for them. I
think overall, what we talked about was one. Uh, you're
gonna have to take care of your own health. Educate
yourself on healthy food, diet, wall king, exercise, things like that.
What goes in your family history. That's one. Just awareness
of these things will go a long way with our community.
Number two, so when you do visit the doctor, make
sure when you go to the doctors of River precious
(06:11):
times and moments, because sometimes you waited six weeks to
get there. Make sure you have a list of one
or two things that you really really are concerned about.
Even though your list may have ten things, help the
position and their staff focus on those two. That way
you'll leave with the wind, they'll leave with the wind,
and they feel good about things right. Uh. Number three
is at the end of every visit, every doctor should
be providing you with a list to cause something. Sometimes
(06:33):
they call it an after visit summary. Sometimes they call
it an after encounter summary. And she's like one or
two sheets on what went on during that visit. So
get that cheat shared with the family, put place on refrigerator,
whatever you need to do to remember what did the
doctor say? And last year is like whenever you order
medication tests, things like this in this new healthcare environment,
the costs are a lot higher, deductibles are higher. Just
(06:54):
know that you do have a choice, and there may
be other options out there that you need to research
or ask a doctor about or your pharmacist about. Lower
cost medication, lower cost studies, you know, tests like m
ris Chess X rays, things like that. So those are
some things that that that you just need to be
aware that exists. That is doctor David K. Butler giving
(07:15):
us some help knowledge. It's time of time. We were
talking to ordinary people that are doing extraordinary things practicing medicine, Sacramento, California.
I love you man, appreciate to keep up the good work. Doctor.
It's time to time ordinary people doing extraordinary things. We'll
be back with more to Steve Bobby Morning, Jill