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Imagine finding out that your doctor documented a growth in your breast and didn’t tell you about it. Imagine that growth being cancer. In this incredible conversation, Jessica and Brandon sit down with Jessica Baladad, a five-year breast cancer survivor, diagnosed at age 33! Now that she’s done beating cancer’s ass, she’s an advocate for others navigating the impossible field that is our US healthcare system. From $20k scans to demanding refunds, her experience will give you (chills) and insights on just how you can advocate for yourself and question everything. Jessica's journey, from being dismissed by her practitioner to becoming a staunch advocate for healthcare literacy and financial literacy, is nothing short of inspiring.
Learn about the No Surprises Act, how to audit your medical bills, hold insurance companies accountable and so much more. This episode is not just a testament to Jessica's resilience and determination, but a call to action - for everyone to be proactive about their health.
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How did it all come together that you're like, wow, I need to hold these companies, these insurance companies accountable? Where did that all start? Where did that fire start?
Speaker 2:When I got the $20,000 bill from my biopsy because I was out of network, that's where it started. When I got to see the amounts that big of an amount I'm like this is really messed up. And that's when I just kind of went to work and when I negotiated that went down to basically hundreds of dollars and it was. I'm like wow that you know they. I applied for charity care, I negotiated, it was. I don't remember everything I did in that moment. I haven't written down, but I just like this was hard but it wasn't impossible. More people need to know about this.
Speaker 1:Hey everyone, welcome to the Sugar Daddy podcast. I'm Jessica and I'm Brandon, and we're the Norwoods, a husband and wife team here to demystify the realm of dollars so it all makes sense while giving you a glimpse into our relationship with money and each other. We are so glad you're here. Let's get started.
Speaker 3:Our content is intended to be used, and must be used, for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment based upon your own personal circumstances. You should take independent financial advice from a licensed professional in connection with, or independently research and verify any information you find in our podcast and wish to rely upon, whether for the purpose of making an investment decision or otherwise.
Speaker 4:Hey babe, what are we talking about today?
Speaker 1:Well, it is October, which means it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and I know this is a month that is special to us, because we have women in our lives that have been affected by breast cancer, and the reality is is that one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime, so it's pretty much impossible to not know somebody who has been affected by this disease. And so today we have a very special guest, a breast cancer survivor, with us, jessica Balladad, who is going to detail her journey. We're going to get into some of the finances and the cost of cancer and what that means, and then she is also the creator of the Feel For your Life app, so she has created an app that helps women and men remember to do their monthly breast exams, so that early detection is the best prevention, and so it's going to be a really exciting conversation, and we are so thrilled to have Jessica in the studio today. So, jessica, thank you for being with us.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. I am so grateful for our conversation today.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, yes, of course, so we do want to make sure that our listeners know who we're speaking to today, and then we'll get into our conversation, because I'm really excited about it. Jessica Balladad is a five-year cancer survivor who became a passionate advocate after a practitioner dismissed a malignant lump in her breast during a clinical exam. Thankfully, jessica learned how to do a self-breast exam after having a benign tumor removed while she was in college, and it was a routine that she maintained throughout adulthood. Two weeks after her clinical appointment, jessica was doing a self-exam in the shower when she found a lump. The same lump her practitioner failed to tell her about and documented as normal. Jessica was later diagnosed with Stage 2 B invasive ductal carcinoma. She underwent 16 rounds of chemotherapy, a double mastectomy, 24 rounds of radiation, a hysterectomy and a 10-hour flap reconstruction. Oh girl, you've been through it. She started Feel for your Life as a social media outreach project to encourage women to be their breast health advocates, and in 2021, jessica became the first breast cancer survivor to create an app that provides resources for doing self-breast exams and getting screened, allows users to track and monitor their changes and lets users set reminders for doing self-exams. Since launching the app, she's helped write legislation in the state of Tennessee to promote risk-reducing measures against cancer and disease. Build as the Feel for your Life Act. It requires high school students to learn about self-breast exams, testicular exams and skin exams. Additionally, jessica has spoken before members of Congress to eliminate PBMs, pharmacy benefit managers, quality scores, quality adjusted life year and co-pay accumulators. These efforts will help ensure patients get better access to healthcare without the bureaucracy of insurance companies. We all know insurance is a scam. Right, we'll get into that. When Jessica isn't advocating, she enjoys traveling and exploring new places, attending sporting events with her husband and photographing animals. Wow, you have been through it. You channeled it into something amazing to help other women. I mean just a round of applause because this is absolutely fantastic. So I'm so thrilled to have you, jessica.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I never said, hey, when I grow up, I'm going to get cancer and become an advocate and create this app and all of these resources. It's something that happened and, because of my experience, I wanted to use it to serve other people.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, we can't wait to dig into all of that. I know we touched, I'm sure, just the surface of what has been your life and now your life as a cancer survivor, but we do want to keep with our normal structure because it is a financial literacy podcast and I know that you are super passionate about the finance behind insurance and how scammy and predatory it is and all of that. So I know we're going to talk about that, but we do want to start with your first money memory. What is that?
Speaker 2:My first money memory was well, I grew up. My mom was an accountant, actually, and I remember when she was in college for that, she would come home with these books with numbers on spreadsheets that you, this was before Excel, so I just remember dollar signs on everything, on these pages, with all these grids, and I recall, you know, after I go to bed, if I happen to get up and want something to eat or drink, kids just always seem to want to get up in the middle of the night. I just remember going into I'd have to walk through the dining room to get to the kitchen and seeing my mom with a calculator, one of those big, bulky calculators that makes all the noise. You can hear each type and the receipt and she was, you know, paying the family bills. So that's the first memory I have of like money and dollar signs and to understand that things have a value and they cost to survive.
Speaker 1:Did she talk to you about what she was calculating? Or did she say things like oh my gosh, the light bill this month was so expensive. Or was it more of a passing Like oh, I see mom working on numbers.
Speaker 2:It was a passing. I see mom working on numbers. It wasn't until my parents divorced when I was nine, 10 years old where I saw money. It really understands how money gets involved in family matters and the cost of living, because my parents were very confrontational and upfront and transparent about all of that in front of me and my sister and with attorneys and everything. So I was in it when they were going through it.
Speaker 4:When your parents were together, was your mom the one that took the lead as far as handling the finances.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 4:Oh, it's very interesting because the reason we ask that question is because I think how you interact with money as an adult and your feelings towards money as adult is very much based in your earliest memories of money. So what are that? A negative experience, positive experience? It very much leads into how you view money now.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, I agree. They say you build your perception of money by the age of seven, which is like crazy.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, because I just I mean, I was five, six years old. You know those memories that I just recalled for you all, thinking about my mom paying bills and yeah. So around that age is when I started to understand that things cost money to live and survive.
Speaker 1:Well, speaking of surviving. You are a cancer survivor. Congratulations. That is amazing. I was reading through the stats getting prepped for this call and it is wild how pervasive breast cancer is right. I mean, everybody knows someone that's been affected colleagues, friends, acquaintances, you know, family members and it's just.
Speaker 4:I mean cancer in general is just one of those things where I've never in my life met someone that has that doesn't know. Someone close to them in the sense that you know has been affected by it. It's just one of those things where you think about like so many things in your life that you can prevent, and cancer is really one of those ones where you can be the health Doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:Who you are Doesn't matter.
Speaker 4:It doesn't discriminate. You know every socioeconomic class. That's why I always say like I feel like there's a certain diseases out there that there are cures for just as common people don't have access to. But you still see wealthy billionaires dying of cancer. You know.
Speaker 2:Yes, so yeah, you know you were talking about one in eight women. I was 33 when I was diagnosed and every year 12,000 women under the age of 40 are diagnosed with breast cancer. And it's just, it's crazy. I was in the best shape of my life. I don't drink, I don't smoke, I'm not a prude, I'm just a really cheap date. And so I'm just the designated driver. It's better than anything. And so I when I mean I'm the fourth generation on my dad's side of the family to have breast cancer and no known gene mutation has been found as of yet in my family. They don't know why it's happened. 11 women in my family have had breast cancer. I found out right as my aunt aunt on my dad's side, my oldest aunt was getting ready to pass when I got the diagnosis. So it's just kind of been one after the other, after the other after the other, and it's just insane. But a self exam saved my life and that's why I'm here, to be able to talk about advocacy, and I'm grateful for that.
Speaker 1:Amazing, oh my gosh, 11 women.
Speaker 4:So like growing up in your family, since obviously it's so pervasive in your family, where their conversations had as far as like hey, you know, this kind of exists in our family, you know we need to start doing monthly breast exams and you know, getting checked, things like that and my dad was just very blunt about it, very transparent, like your aunt has cancer, this isn't good and she might die.
Speaker 2:That's how I got the cancer talk very young and it was just something that I grew up with. It started with you know both. I mean technically. He grew up with it, seeing his grandmother, my great grandmother with it, and then many of his aunts, and then his sisters and then his daughter, and it was just something that I grew up around. It was. When I say it was normalized, I'm not undermining anyone's experience, but it's something we talked about all the time that came up, so I was very cognizant of it. So then at 18, I accidentally stumbled upon a lump in my breast. I assumed it was cancer because, hey, a woman in my family, if she has a lump, it's cancer. And I thought am I too young to get cancer at 18? It turned out to be a benign tumor called a fibroidenoma, which occurs in women of menstruating ages, and it was that experience that put me in the habit of doing self-exams. 15 years later, I remember when I turned 30, I told myself make sure you stay on your self-exams because cancer is prevalent in your family. And so, sure enough, right after I turned 33 is when I found the lump in my breast and it was cancer.
Speaker 1:But that's when you you were gaslit right Because didn't your doctor at the time say you're only 33? It's not cancer, we don't need to worry about it, or what was that experience?
Speaker 2:So I had gone to my well woman's exam in March of 2018. I remember January I did a self-exam. February I did a self-exam. March I skipped my self-exam for that month because I thought, hey, I'm going to see my practitioner she who better than her than to do a clinical exam and be more thorough? And she'll tell me if she finds anything. I've been seeing her for 10 years at this point. You know why would she not be open with me about that? Apparently, she did the exam, didn't say anything, marked it in my documentation as normal. I even have copies of it where she marked it as normal. And then it was two days later of is. I was scheduled to do my routine exam. I was in the shower, I went over the right side, everything was fine. I went over the left side, started at the very top of my breast and came around to about one, two, three. I remember three, four o'clock is when I felt something and I, my heart just sank. I'm like, wait, this can't be. No, I just went to the doctor. Surely she would have told me about this. And I'm like I'm fine, I'm in the best shape of my life, everything's going to be okay. And I'm like wait, I'm too young at 30. Yeah, you don't hear about 30 year olds getting cancer. At least I didn't. Women had been in their 40s and older, to my knowledge in my family. I'm fine. I'm good she would have told me about this, and the lump sat in my breast for about four months when I realized this thing is not going away and I need to go back to the doctor, and that's when I started confronting people and getting documentation, the short of it is. I was informed that she thought I was too young for breast cancer and that's why she didn't tell me about it at my initial appointment in March of 2018.
Speaker 1:Okay, I feel like I'm going to skip way ahead, but I'm missed now. Also the fact that she documented it without doing a biopsy, without doing anything to verify that it is benign versus malignant. Can you sue for that?
Speaker 2:See, I had people reach out to me about this and here's what I am able to say. I did go to the state of Tennessee and I filed the right complaints with the right departments and the right licensers, and I'm going to say that a good portion of my medical bills were paid for up front because of that. That's all I'm going to say.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm glad that you did that, because that is infuriating and I think I've had a lot of health things nothing as major as cancer but I have a lot of specialists and, yeah, you have to go back and look at the notes that they write and you can't. I think too many people and I'm sure you'll agree with this too many people put too much faith and confidence into our practitioners and, at the end of the day, they are just people and even the best of the best, you might catch them on an off day where their kids were awake in the middle of the night and they come in sleep deprived and they skip the step where they say, hey, you have a lump in your breast. I don't think it's anything, but what would you like to do? Right? And I think at this stage in life and I've said it before, I've said it on this podcast if I feel dismissed, if I feel like my questions aren't being answered, if I feel like you're rushing me out of the room, if I feel like you're not giving me the time of day, you will not be my practitioner, right? Because this is, it's so important four months, I don't know what it did for your treatment or what it did for your diagnosis. We can definitely talk about that, but four months of cancer in your body can't be good. So had she done the right thing, right Like what could that have changed, you know?
Speaker 2:I think about that all the time. You know what would have been different about my treatment plan? I think my treatment may have been very similar because when I found out and knowing that my aunt was passing at the time, I was familiar with the pathology within my family before my diagnosis and I knew about the treatments they went through. And the oncologist who treated me had treated two generations before me one of my aunts and my grandmother, and so he was very familiar with our family history and I said, bring it on, like I'm going to go hard on this, just, whatever needs to be done, let's do it. Because of the growth rate of my cancer, it was right you have three stages of it. There's a one or two and a three, and mine was at a level two. I was right in the middle, so it wasn't super aggressive and it wasn't slow growing either. It was right in the middle, and right in the middle it may have been aggressive because I wanted to go aggressive as well. Thinking back four months previously, maybe I wouldn't have had as much radiation, maybe I could have just had a double mastectomy, maybe I would have only done chemotherapy. But thinking back, I realized I would have had the book thrown at me I would have wanted to have done everything, but perhaps some of the physical limitations that I have because the radiation and the double mastectomy and just the surgery I've had to my chest has been so aggressive I'm a very athletic person and I work out in the gym I do have physical limitations that frustrate me. Even though mentally I've gotten past a lot of the mental health issues related to cancer, I still grieve my body every day because I can feel it from the surgery and the cancer where it was and what had to be done to fix it. So it's an ongoing process, the relationship with my body there.
Speaker 4:What's crazy to me is the fact that the practitioner was familiar with your family history and that scenario. I would just prefer to be overly cautious than to be dismissive. I don't know, that's just baffling to me that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you tell me you have 11 people in your family that have had cancer. My inclination is we're going to check every mole and dot and speck on your body when something comes up. No, it's not nothing.
Speaker 4:Especially when it comes to cancer. So I'm thankful that for the most part of my family we don't have cancer. It's not prevalent Individuals as they got older, like 80s, which I feel like almost if you make it to a certain age, you're going to have some form of cancer probably. But for me, as a black male, I know that we are more susceptible to different types of cancer. I think it's based upon the lack of us actually being proactive and going to the doctor to begin with. But I remember when Chadwick Boseman passed away from prostate cancer and I was like I'm not going to wait until like 45. I'm going to get a prostate check at 40. And I don't even have that in my family, let alone for a practitioner. To know what your family history is and skip over something. It's just kind of just crazy to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I can ask why all day. That's where people start to get quiet when it comes to the why. Because I think they don't want to make the situation any worse for themselves, and it already is, and you know there was a financial resolve to it and something that I've learned why is a gut question when we start asking why? It doesn't really come from our brains, it comes from our hearts and our gut, and so I'm like I don't want to fixate too much on that because I'm trying to move forward in so many ways. But yeah, I mean it's, it's infuriating, and I do honor my feelings in that whenever I experience them.
Speaker 1:What was the? So you went back and you said hey, I have this lump, I found it. Then you find out oh yeah, I documented it, I wrote it down as normal. What happened next? What was the process after that? Besides rage, obviously.
Speaker 2:Oh, the rage continued. Watch how you lied too. So I was at the appointment. I actually saw a different provider that day, same facility, different provider, but the nurse who was there I could tell she was defensive that I was there and she knew who I was. Like me, mm. So when the second provider this was the end of July of 2018, she had performed a clinical exam of my breast, she didn't say a whole lot and she's like, all right, get dressed. And then I got dressed and I'm like okay, and she just kind of asked me some questions about my family history, the history of the benign lump I had when I was 18. And just general questions about how I was feeling. And I know at that time over the summer I was starting to get tired a lot and I thought, well, I'm in my 30s now I guess You're supposed to take two hour naps in the middle of the day because you're getting old. And I thought I was sleeping seven, eight hours a night. Now I'm sleeping two, two and a half hours in the middle of the day. I can't keep my head up because I'm so sleepy. And I thought it was just normal because I'd never been in my 30s before and I'd never had cancer before. So I'm telling her this and she's just kind of writing it down and she leaves the room and she sends in the nurse, the nurse I'm familiar with. And the nurse said, hey, we're gonna schedule you for a mammogram. I said why? And she's like, because that's what they want you to do. That's just the next step. I said, well, what did she say? What the practitioners say about the lump in my breast. And the nurse turns around and looks at me and says I don't know, I'm not a mind reader, and, and, and, and.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have so many thoughts.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, there's a lot of rage that continues. And I said, well, can you go, look? And she like Rolls her eyes, like visibly rolls her eyes at me and turns her head and just stomps out of the room like a toddler I'm exaggerating a little bit, but she was. She did not want me asking questions, she was very uncomfortable and she went and I guess she came back a few minutes later and she just repeats three words to me Firm, smooth and dense. I said, okay, well, is it indicative of anything malignant? Is it benign? And she was like I don't know. I don't know. We're just supposed to schedule you for a mammogram. I said, well, I have questions. Well, the practitioner, she's busy right now. And I said, well, I'll wait. And so she's like fine, and then she's getting. This woman is like in her 60s, I think she's. I'm not gonna come up with excuses for her, but the way she treated me was poor and regardless. So she leaves and I waited in my little patient room for an hour and a half before the practitioner came in and addressed all the questions that I had and the last thing the nurse told me was just like don't go Googling anything. I'm like what do you think I'm about to freak in here?
Speaker 1:You're like an hour and a half to Google. I'm done Googling.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, and I had Googled up into that point anyway. So I could hear the microwave. I could hear people chatting and laughing. They wanted me to leave. I know they did. They were trying to wait me out and I was just like I'm not leaving until I get the answers that I deserve to have about my body and about my health, I'm not leaving this room. And so eventually the practitioner comes back in and she's got a somber look Like her face. Just told me a lot and she was very empathetic and sincere and she answered all the questions that I had. Well, she answered them, but she wasn't giving me answers because she could only tell me so much. I said what is this? What's it indicative of? She's like I only know it's a lump. Right now, that's all I can say. It's a lump and I thought, ok, I tried to ask her in different ways and she just she really couldn't tell me. And I understood why. And she shared a story that someone in her family I believe it was a sister of hers had just passed away of cancer and her eyes were just filled with tears. And then she asked she actually asked if she could pray over me and I'm like, yeah, I'm a person of faith, you can pray over me. And she did. And she looked at me and that moment and said no matter what happens to you, god's going to use you through this. And I thought, well, no one has ever told me that when I've had the sniffles or a UTI, this is probably cancer. I left crying because I think I knew, even though I was holding onto a little bit of hope. I think I knew in that moment, but I hadn't really told anybody up until that point, not even my husband. I mean, he knew I was going to an appointment to address a lump in my breast, but he didn't. He just thought, oh, it's just a normal girl thing, that's just what's supposed to happen. She goes, jessica goes to doctor and she gets things checked out. And I remember the night I told him I said, hey, I'm going to the doctor, I have this lump. And he looks at me and is like, oh, can I get this pair of sneakers? And I'm like, yeah, so that he's in his ignorance that he didn't realize how serious it was and the fact that I was hiding a lot of it too. So then, when it was time for the mammogram, I had to have a little bit more of a serious conversation with him and said, hey, they're not sure what it is, but I have to have screening, and I kept it pretty neutral with him. He's like, well, ok, he's happy, go lucky, loves life, super optimist. I envy about that in him so much because I didn't want to tell him until I had to tell him. So yeah, I can keep going from here, or if you have questions I can answer.
Speaker 4:I mean, that's I don't. I'm just baffled at the audacity of someone to be upset because you're questioning them in regards to your health, which, literally, in this scenario, was a life and death scenario. Right, like I don't, like I can't. You're nicer than I am.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I would have gone out into the waiting room with my robe on like screaming at that point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I would have thought Fear kind of held me because I mean I was by myself and I was angry and I was scared and fear was starting to take over the anger that I had. But I will tell you, fear and anger, anger definitely took over eventually, and not in a rage-filled way, but in a way, I believe, fear tells you that something's wrong and something needs to change and it prompts action. So, like I've lived with this productive anger for five years and that's why I do the advocacy work that I do, because I'm angry and I'm not afraid to admit that- yeah, but you're channeling your anger into something really great and powerful and to help prevent what you went through for others.
Speaker 1:Because there's so much to unpack, right From the way you were treated initially, from the documentation that you weren't even told about. Right, Like if there's something on my body and you think it's important enough to notate, why do you not think it's important enough to at least mention it? And then let me decide what to do from here. Right, Exactly, Exactly.
Speaker 4:I would also say this One thing that I've started to kind of help my clients understand in regards to going to the doctor is that anytime you go to the doctor, for whatever reason may be, they're going to put notes in your file, and I'm like you need to be very proactive in what the notes are and being able to ask them hey, what are you putting in? I would like to see this for one. Obviously there's a scenario that you had, but then also on the other end, like sometimes doctors don't take good notes and when you go to you know, apply for life insurance, disability insurance that stuff's going to pop up. And I've had incidents where, like I had literally had someone where the underwriting was like, hey, did you know this person's an alcoholic? I'm like this person is not an alcoholic, I don't know what you're talking about. And that silly question when they just simply asked like, hey, how much do you drink on? Like you know it's a social drinker, like someone that I know, like, so I know this person is not an alcoholic. And he was like I have no idea where this came from. And obviously we had to go back for the doctor, but like the doctor's short-handed notes was interpreted completely differently than how it should have been.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, yeah, you know the advocacy work that I do. No one teaches you really how to go to the doctor. It's just like you go to the doctor and you listen to what they say and when they know best, and if they give you the pills, you take them. If you, you know you're supposed to follow everything they say to a tea and it's explained to you in a way to disregard your feelings and what you're feeling. And it's not to say that. You know, all doctors are bad, but we are conditioned to just obey and not go straight outside the lines, because when you have this professional and a white coat with letters after their name, you assume that everything that they say is the gold standard and everything that they're going to tell you is right and everything that they document is to be followed to the tea and that it supersedes anything like your reality which may not be reflected in what they the notes that they take. That's insane, oh my gosh.
Speaker 4:It's very much like I've seen people you know have exclusions and disability insurance policies because they went and saw about a sprained ankle wasn't broken, no ligament damage, but they had a sprained ankle. Went to the doctor. The doctor was like, okay, stay off of it for a few weeks. Here's some pain meds if you need it. And then now it's an exclusion as far as if anything happens to your ankle and you can't work, we're not covering it. Like it's just, it's very like. It's one of those, like you said, it's the predatory, predatory, I can't even say the word now predatory nature of you sometimes, you know, with insurance in the medical field in some aspects.
Speaker 1:It just all feels scammy.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely. You know. I was having a conversation with someone not too long ago. You know, doctors hate insurance companies, patients hate insurance companies when I was in DC. If you want to bring two like red and blue together to, if they're fighting to say insurance companies, and they'll come together and have an amicable conversation because they hate them to both sides hate insurance companies.
Speaker 4:Insurance companies are driving doctors out of practice.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, I see more doctors getting away from insurance models and doing something more like a monthly or annual subscription based model. Come see me. You'll get so many six sick visits. You know labs well visits. You know cover well, this will be the amount and you know you pay this by the month or per year. These are the services that I can provide to you, and it's they're finding it to be a better business model for them that way, because it skips all the insurance bureaucracy and they don't have to. You know they're getting paid, you know, so they're able to run a business a little more efficiently than they would if they would have to wait to be reimbursed from insurance companies.
Speaker 1:Right, well, and two, I mean not too far off track here, but there's a doctor's office just like you described. They don't accept any insurance. You, you can either, you know, pay per visit or you can give them, you know, the whatever $2,000, $3,000 upfront. They run all your labs, do an annual like baseline of what your labs are and then, yeah, you can go there as primary care, you can bring your kids, etc. And we've even talked about that is like okay, do we not accept the insurance through everybody's on my plan because I'm with a tech company? Or do we do something like this where I honestly feel like we would get better care, right, because then they're not fighting with insurance? Or, you know, sometimes you randomly will get a bill six months later and you're like I, when did I even see this doctor? I don't even remember because it takes so long to even process, you know, I mean, or just a few weeks ago I got a check back which not complaining, from a visit. I think I'm like the beginning of the year and I'm like, okay, I'm glad that, like they went through the process and they cut me a check. But also, why did it take nine months for me to get a $62 check back, right? I mean it's just so convoluted. And who really understands insurance and co pays? And I mean, every time I go to the doctor and they're like okay, you've met your deductible, but you have your 20% co pay in my head, I'm like what does that mean? I don't understand. And Brandon's explained it to me a billion times and I still am like, okay, here's my card, do do what you want with it.
Speaker 2:It's just so easy for you to pay for and difficult for you to understand. It was designed that way on purpose.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's so frustrating. Okay, so let's go into you. Okay, so you've gone through all of these treatments which, oh my gosh, I mean the term survivor is truly applicable, right, because it sounds like you went to war.
Speaker 4:I would say, take a step back and say, like once you had the verification that it was cancerous, what happened after that? As far as the next steps, um, you know conversations with your husband how he felt once he actually found out.
Speaker 2:Oh, y'all are going to make me get into the sad stuff a little bit.
Speaker 1:Um, we don't have to whatever you're comfortable with.
Speaker 2:I'll just say, telling my husband and my dad was, um, it was the hardest. It was the hardest, especially my dad, um, because my aunt was passing, I had to miss her funeral to start chemotherapy and that really hurt. So, um, there's just a lot wrapped up into that. Um, my husband, yeah, just started a new job at the time and, uh, we just had a change in our insurance. And I just remember thinking, oh God, here we go. Uh, I really didn't know how to use my insurance until I got my very first scan and they were asking for money up front, but I just like I didn't. We were three years into our marriage and we were still kind of newlyweds and so we were in loving life, traveling the country and just enjoying our careers. And then there was, you know, my dad and what we had faced in our family, and it was just I remember it was the, the two I was at the doctor's office after. After the mammogram, they sent me for an ultrasound and the ultrasound, the radiologist comes in and pretty sure, this is cancer. And, like I just went blank, um, had to get a nurse to help me make the phone calls because I was by myself and they're like we're not going to let you leave by yourself. Someone needs to come and get you. And like, good, call on that, cause I could not drive out of here right now. Um, so I had to call some people, called my husband, called my dad, who called my stepmom to come pick me up, and that was, yeah, that was I mean it was. It was just hard, like the hardest part was saying it over and over yeah, I have cancer, I probably have cancer, it's looking like cancer. And then, because just the more you say it, the more real it becomes, and it was just hard to accept, cause I'm like I other than these naps that I take, I feel fine, what are you talking about? So after that appointment, I had the biopsy. I was actually out of network at the facility where my biopsy was, and this is 20. Yeah, they didn't tell me either. Of course they didn't.
Speaker 1:And this never do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, brandon, you may be familiar with the no surprises act. This was before then, the before the no surprises act, where they are now required to tell you if you're out of network. They didn't tell me till after the fact and they sent me a $20,000 bill, but I did not pay anywhere near that, and I can get into that later. But after the biopsy I went for a CT scan and an MRI and that's where I discovered they're like oh, you have blah blah, blah deductible and, by the way, if you can pay this amount right now, we'll reduce it by 20%. And I'm like, well, I don't have that much, but I have a little bit less than that. Well, you take this. And I'm like, yeah, and I'm thinking that was too easy. I'm like I could have probably got a lower. And that's when, like in that moment, bell started going off in my head. I'm like this is how it, this is how it works. And then I got the EOB from the insurance company and then I saw I started to see what I paid and what the insurance company said I, what they credited to me for my out of pocket max and my deductible, and I started saying, hey, I didn't pay that much towards my deductible. And then I'm going to start negotiating all of this. So I started negotiating my bills and then the insurance company was you know. They were saying oh, you're, you're deductible has been met. You've met your. I'm like no, I didn't, but you don't have to know that. So then my deductible was met. I started going back to these providers and say you owe me a refund. You owe me a refund. You owe me a refund, pay me my money.
Speaker 1:But the fact that you were doing that while like actively going through a cancer diagnosis and then treatment plan, right, like I think honestly that they bank on people being like I don't understand it. It's too overwhelming 100%.
Speaker 2:What is?
Speaker 1:this monthly explanation of benefits that I'm getting. Let me shove it in this folder and never look at it again. And you were like, absolutely not, cause I know these bills are going to be rolling in and I'm going to negotiate. And it's so true, you can negotiate everything. Good for you, it's great.
Speaker 4:And that scenario that, like it was beneficial, but then, it's sad that that has to occur, right. Like it should be like it should be so much easier, especially when you're talking about, within the medical field of life and death, situations where you have, in the United States, way too many people dying from things that they shouldn't die from Right.
Speaker 1:When you should have been focusing on your health and getting better and your emotional and physical well-being and not. You know I can. I can just picture you right Like all of these explanation of benefits and receipts and all these things like spread out on a table and you're like matching things up, like that's not where your energy should have gone, because it is. It is energy that you are exerting on these things and mental taxation, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2:It became a second full-time job for sure Cause I was. I've worked from home since 2014 and in different areas of marketing, so I was doing that while I was undergoing cancer. And then they really hope that you don't have the energy to do any of this and it's not like a jump, like just chemotherapy depleted my energy, but I just remember who I was fighting for. You know, the people in my family before me, the women who may come after me, you know, and just I'm like in patients in general, I'm like this isn't just a me issue and I'm like I've got to tell people about what I'm doing and I need to document this and I need to talk about it when I'm ready to talk about it. And it's been worth it. If everything that I've been through can teach someone else how to Advocate for themselves, it's all worth it, because no one should have to go through the financial crisis of all of this while they're going through a medical crisis.
Speaker 4:The number one reason that people declare bankruptcy is medical expenses. At least in the United States, in this country, yeah, in this country, yeah, in this country, yeah, just the amount, like I mean, it's unfortunate that within our country, when you have such a diagnosis that is so dire, and you know in that scenario that, unfortunately, often what follows right behind it is how am I going to afford this? You're literally getting a diagnosis about your life and it's about your life, and then the immediate thought afterwards is like how do I pay for this? It shouldn't be that way, like it shouldn't be. The healthcare system should not be a for-profit, and that's the biggest issue right there is that it's a for-profit industry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't have a problem if you're paying for your operating cost and the people who work for you. That's one thing. But when you have CEOs making, I want to say I saw an article yesterday the CEO of a Pennsylvania hospital makes $7 million a year. And then you have people at insurance companies with private jets. I'm just like, yeah, you're profiting off of sick people and it's just okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's disgusting, is what it is. Well, and I think too, like one of our children is in therapy and the provider we were looking at getting some additional testing done and the provider was saying, oh well, you have this insurance and they're notoriously hard to work with for reimbursement, and so we've even been talking about okay, during open enrollment, do we change to the other option just to make sure that we can comfortably work with the providers that we want for therapy? Mental health we believe in all the therapies. Let's get it started early, and it's just so frustrating to have to again spend time and energy figuring out okay, well, we want our child to see this provider. They're saying that this insurance is hard to work with. Should we change for that reason? And then you know, as soon as you change, it's going to be that insurance company that's hard to work with, right? And then what else are we going to be sacrificing? Fine, maybe they're better on the mental health side, but maybe they're worse on, like I see a rheumatologist. Maybe they're worse on that side, like you're just upshits Creek. Regardless, you know, that's how it feels.
Speaker 4:And the crazy thing for me is that we have good insurance. You know we are not. I mean, we are thankful and we are fortunate. You know the situation that we're in from a socioeconomic level, so I can only imagine how it is for the majority of everyone else that is not in as good of a situation as us and it's not as educated about. You know how to navigate this landscape. That it's just, it's terrible. Yeah, it's impossible it needs to be fixed, and I don't even know if it's fixable, because at this point in time it's mindless to be torn down and started over again.
Speaker 2:Right. I completely understand why people feel that way. I don't have all the answers, but I work every day to get more answers. One thing that patients can do is, even if you think you don't qualify, look into charity care, if there is a. I want to say 80% of hospitals operate as nonprofits and I put that in quotes and such a loose term with hospitals and saying that but they operate as nonprofits and the federal government requires them to reduce or offer free care to patients who meet certain financial thresholds. And they have it listed on. They they bury it within their, their website, just like they do with price transparency. They they bury it and they make it very opaque. One facility actually requires you to submit a request for charity care via snail mail, which you know that can. Oh, we didn't get it. Yeah, that sort of thing. But they are required to reduce or offer for free if, by federal standards, if you meet certain thresholds. So I've helped patients who have had six figure medical debt get it reduced to zero and get money back Because they met certain thresholds. But no one's ever told them that before. You just have bill collectors and you know hospitals and people saying, hey, you owe this, you owe this. They're sending you letters and they're sending you statements with big red fonts and amounts circled. And hey, you know, submit your credit card information here and or just go online and here's the QR code and you just do it. They make it so simple for you to pay for and they, they, they don't want you to fight and they make it difficult to fight if you do, but there are so many resources and things available and it's just kind of what I do.
Speaker 1:When did you get into that advocacy work? Right, you're going through your own battle with cancer and recovery and then, like how did it all come together that you're like wow, I need to hold these, these companies, these insurance companies accountable. Like where did that all start? Where did that all start? Like where did that fire start?
Speaker 2:When I got the $20,000 bill from my biopsy because I was out of network, that's where it started. When I got to see the amounts that big of an amount I'm like this is really messed up, and that's when I just kind of went to work and when I negotiated that went down to basically hundreds of dollars and it was. I'm like wow that you know they. I applied for charity care, I negotiated, it was. I don't remember everything I did in that moment. I haven't written down, but I just like this was hard but it wasn't impossible. More people need to know about this. So during my cancer journey I created Feel for your Life as a social media project and then I launched it into the app. And when the app went viral during the pandemic because so many women were missing their, their, screenings self-exam saved my life, so that's why I created the app. It shows you how to do self-exam, track your changes and set monthly reminders. So then I started hearing from women all over the world. The app went viral. They're doing their self-exams, they're getting screened, they're, you know, taking care of themselves. And it's like, hey, what's next? How do I find a doctor? How do I handle this medical bill? What does my insurance mean? And I just realized there is a huge gap in financial literacy and healthcare literacy. And I'm like okay. So here I was, solving the problem of women empowering themselves by loving their bodies, to do self-exams. And then I I remember my journey having casual conversations. Now I'm hearing from women all over the world well, mostly the US and a couple of European countries of struggling with medical bills. And I was just like all right, there is something here that I've I've got to tackle. I'm going to figure out how to do it. I'm only one person, but the hearing from so many people is what drives me to empower them and to make them feel good and more confident in the care that they get, and to take down these insurance companies, just a little bit at a time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you could teach courses on this. I mean, I'm sure, I'm sure something's ruminating for you, you definitely no, you definitely can.
Speaker 4:The hard part is is that, like you know, most people that are, you know, have you know that are employed and they're kind of leaning on their HR person to explain this to them and I could tell you that this is not the main area of HR. It falls underneath their umbrella, but they do not know the ins and outs. Majority I'm not going to say all, but majority of HR individuals do not know the ins and outs of how these plans work.
Speaker 2:Oh right, I think they know so much and they know that the more people use their plans, the more that their deductibles go up and what they have to pay for towards their employees goes up. In my experience I found HR reps are almost kind of like on the side of the insurance company because they're representing the company that you work for. They don't want people going to the doctor either, because then it costs the company more money when the deductibles go up. And if part of your benefits is that the company is going to pay for half of your, your not deductible I'm sorry your premium, I'm using their home If your benefits is for the company to pay your premium, half of it, all of it, the company doesn't want you using your insurance either. Is what I found in my experience. I know they're all in bed together.
Speaker 4:Well, the way that, the way that a plan is set up, is that it's based upon the demographic of the employer. And so, for example, if you have an employer that has a lot more younger people, younger people tend to be healthier, tend to go to the doctor less, and that's more beneficial because they're going to pay less for the plan. It's compared to if your demographic of your employees leans more towards the older end, because those individuals tend to go to the doctor more, tend to be less healthy. So it's all based upon that idea. So like, like I actually said before, they prefer that we have a demographic of people that don't go, because then we pay less.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, I kind of think it's funny where, like, if you see me, you would have never known, like what I've been through, especially like we see me at the gym and I'm killing it, but like it's just like, oh, by the way, I've gone through this, this, this, this and this. But yeah, I know an employer who told an employee who they were having a panic attack and they thought it was a heart attack. And the HR person said, well, instead of calling an ambulance, can someone just take you to the hospital? And I'm like, really, did I just hear that and that sounds like a liability.
Speaker 1:Yeah, We'll see if it was actually a heart attack.
Speaker 4:That is yeah, that is no it's yeah.
Speaker 2:So someone took them and their vehicle just drove them to the hospital instead of calling an ambulance for, you know, a potentially.
Speaker 4:I lucked out it wasn't more severe, because that is 100% a lawsuit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely Absolutely. But yeah, that's why I try to empower patients and people. I do host workshops. I started to design a course, but when I started laying out all the numbers and everything, I'm like this is kind of boring over video. I feel like when I engage with people in person and I can be a little more livelier and be more hands on and make that face to face connection, the workshops just go over so much better. So I do visit different companies and different advocacy groups cancer groups and I put on workshops as well. And then I even created the Feel for your Life Medical Advocacy Planner that just came out a few weeks ago to show you how to stand up to medical gaslighting, find a doctor talking about insurance and your medical bills and stuff like that. I go over it briefly in there, but yeah, it's just some of the tools and resources that I produce as part of Feel for your Life.
Speaker 4:Everyone needs that education because at some point or another in your life, whether it's you as yourself, family member, whatever, maybe you're going to encounter this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, either you will be a caregiver of someone who goes through it or you will go through it yourself. I mean, like you said, breast cancer one in eight, and that's just one cancer. I don't know the statistics on the likelihood of someone getting cancer, but I figure the longer you live, the more likely your cells are going to go rogue and mutate and it's something is going to happen where you have to face a medical issue that requires attention and takes away from your energy and your finances that you will have to go after and tackle.
Speaker 1:Well, I just want to say I downloaded the app, of course, and it's beautiful, it's easy, right, like, sometimes you do you download apps and you're like, how do I even navigate this? Yours is? It's so cute first of all, the images and it's pink and like a burgundy color and I love it and it's just easy to navigate. Like, oh, go here for your reminders, go here to log what you found or what you didn't find or what it felt like, I mean the resources in there. I know that you're going to continue to build those out, but it's, honestly, I can't believe that that didn't exist before. Right, like hello, let's prevent something that maybe is preventable, or early detection makes an extreme difference. But then, going back to insurance, my company offers preventative mammograms as part of our plan for no cost, no matter what age you are. So if you're coming in fresh out of college, 22 years old, you can go get a mammogram for free. So I've had several. But every time, even though my insurance plan it's free and it's part of your preventative care, I still have to write my PCP and ask for a script, right? Or ask for yeah, I guess the you know the request or the what is it?
Speaker 2:Just a referral.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like a referral. So it's like one more step that I have to take, even though the entire company is allowed to get mammograms and it's covered by our insurance plan. But I still have to go through that extra step and every year it's like you don't need to come back until you're 45. You don't need to come back. And I'm like I'm coming back every single year and you don't tell me what to do.
Speaker 4:Okay, right, it made me think about when I was 23 years old and I was just going to the doctor just to have a general exam, check up, physical, and I scheduled. When I came in, they're like what are you doing here? Like they were like surprised. They're like you don't have any issues. Like no, I feel healthy, I don't have any issues. I just, you know, I got a new job insurance, let me go, just make sure I'm fine. And they were like so shocked and very much like are you sure there's not something you're not telling us? Just like and almost in the sense of saying like you don't necessarily need to be here If you know you're 23 years old and you're healthy. And this is without having gone through any of my medical history stuff.
Speaker 1:It's just, it's just weird, Like let me check on my body, Like let's draw some labs.
Speaker 4:Like I'm paying for the insurance.
Speaker 1:I'm paying for the insurance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, get that baseline so that you know, and then every year you have something to compare it to. So if something is wrong, wow, that is. Oh my gosh, that's, that's upsetting.
Speaker 4:And I think that also kind of leads into like why one of the reasons that men don't live as long as women's because we don't go to the doctor, we don't have regular checkups in by the time, like something's wrong, we didn't catch it early and there's nothing you can really do about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think men tend to dismiss themselves and, oh, it's just stress or whatever. I'm a guy, I should, I can power through this. You know? Fatigue, what's that? You know I'll just whatever. Because after my parents divorced I was raised by my dad and then I saw, you know, he was actually really great about going to the doctor and I think, because of our family history and you know, both of his sisters had breast cancer and then his older brother got kidney cancer and it was caught super early because my uncle was having stomach pains and they found it and were able to take care of it. And my dad immediately goes to the doctor after his diagnosis. And basically this is what my words with my dad said I want to scan from my neck to my nuts. I just want to see if they're seeing it wrong.
Speaker 1:I like your dad, I like him. I say, how many times a year do you hear me say, if you, even if you don't have insurance, but like, if you have insurance, why can't we just get a full body scan, just scan my whole body, like once a year, and like let's just see what's going on? Like that's what I want my insurance to cover, you know?
Speaker 4:I'm the type of person where, like especially they sure don't.
Speaker 2:They're like oh no, don't find here. Here's what I found in my experience with breast cancer when it comes to self exams. There is a cancer, a big, big cancer nonprofit that is against women doing self exams. And yet they're all like get your mammograms. We love, you know, we support breast cancer, but don't do yourself exams, just kind of be aware of them and just be familiar with them, but don't do routine self exams. And when I followed the money trail and I saw that this, this nonprofit, receives a significant amount of money from insurance companies, I said, there, it is right, there you have a cancer nonprofit who's funded by insurance companies. I saw Blue Cross, blue Shield United and I was just like, yeah, that's why they don't want you to do self exams. And then you start looking at their board members. Oh, you share board members with insurance companies. That's why you don't want women doing self exams because 80% of women's breast statistically check with your doctor on this. But they're benign because there are many reasons women's breasts are lumpy and then on when it and the chance that it is malignant, you know, especially in a younger woman, the insurance companies want you to run out of options. They want disease to advance because it's easier for them to deny clinical trials and advanced options because you're just spend, you're, you're just a money waste to them. So they they don't want you to get those full body scans and catch things that early.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, there are companies.
Speaker 4:Now though, there are companies. Now, though there are companies.
Speaker 1:now, though there are companies now though, if you go and pay out a pocket, you know, three, four, $5,000, they will do a scan and then you can take whatever findings to your doctor. But yeah, I mean it's a huge. I mean what Chris Kardashian did it on the last season of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, which it's like okay. So you have to be Chris Jenner, rich to you know. I have these, these scans done? I mean.
Speaker 4:I always say, it's just much easier to have in your mindset that these companies that you think are supposed to be helping you they're not. They're not there for you. So it just makes it easier for you from a mindset standpoint. Like I don't expect the you know health, the insurance company to be on my side at all. Yeah, so I already have that mindset that I'm going to have to be my own advocate. I'm going to have to fight for myself and even in scenarios like I'm not saying doctors are bad, because we have friends. I have friends that are doctors and they're phenomenal people and you have to make sure that you find the one that is going to listen to you and be an advocate and help in regards to your advocacy.
Speaker 2:Right, absolutely, I say. You know, find the right doctor. That's great for you. Do yourself exams, get screened, advocate for screenings If you're under 40, know your breast density and understand your genetic risks, because that's going to empower you to get the right screenings that you need and take the action steps that you need to fill out and then from there, when the when the bill comes in, you know, first, understand your insurance, your copays, your deductibles, your out of pocket maxes. Audit your medical bills, because 80% of medical bills contain at least one error, and there are several online sources for doing, you know, auditing those medical codes. I have them listed on feel for your lifecom, but be aware of balance building, know what the no surprises act is and be familiar with unbundling. That's everything in a nutshell that I talked about.
Speaker 1:Well, I was. I was about to ask what do you want to leave our listeners with? But I feel like that was. That was the perfect wrap up of you know, the checklist of everything that needs to be done and obviously feel for your lifecom and the app. We will definitely link it in the show notes. Is there anything and I know we could do like a part two, part three, part 10 with you on all the research and all the advocacy work that you're doing? Is there anything that we haven't talked about today that you want to leave our listeners with?
Speaker 2:Don't trust insurance companies.
Speaker 4:I'm there with you. I'm there with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we basically, you know, covered all that, but thank you all so much for having me and allowing me to speak into this Visit, feel for your lifecom, for all the resources that I have, and you can reach out to me on social media. I'm super active Instagram, facebook, tiktok. Feel for your life, all one word all together. But yeah, but I am happy to serve anyone in the capacity that I can, because I'm so passionate about this.
Speaker 1:Well, you're doing great work and I know that our listeners are going to be visiting all of the sites and reaching out and download the app because you need to. Every month you need to be feeling for your life, literally. So, jessica, thank you so much for being with us today and for your wisdom and your knowledge and your efforts, and happy anniversary survivor anniversary as well to you. So thank you so much. I appreciate that. Don't forget. Benjamin Franklin said an investment in knowledge pays the best interest. You just got paid Until next time. Thanks for listening to today's episode. We are so glad to have you as part of our Sugar Daddy community. If you learned something today, please remember to subscribe, rate, review and share this episode with your friends, family and extended network. Don't forget to connect with us on social media. At the Sugar Daddy podcast, you can also email us your questions you want us to answer for our past the sugar segments at the sugar daddy podcast at gmailcom, or leave us a voicemail through our Instagram.
