Transcript
Will: [00:00:00] Hi! Knock, knock. Hi! Hello and welcome to Knock, Knock, Hi! with the Glockenfleckens. I am Will Flannery, also known as Dr. Glockenflecken. I am Kristen
Kristin: Flannery, also known as Lady Glockenflecken. And
Will: we are talking about something that’s just gonna make you smile. Hilarious! And just be happy. We’re talking about medical debt.
Medical debt! We do, we, we have a fascinating guest, a very accomplished, amazing person who’s the president and CEO of RIP Medical Debt. I’m sure a lot of you have probably heard about this organization, um, uh, which is, uh, just buying up all the billions of dollars of medical debt, uh, and, uh, just writing it out, like for just using donations to pay off the debt.[00:01:00]
And so the patients don’t have to do it. Um, and, uh, just doing unbelievable work. So we’re talking to Allison Sesso. She is the president and CEO of RIP Medical Debt. Uh, we have some experience with medical billing. Well, we sure do. Medical debt. Yeah, whenever I, I got, um, uh, when I had my cardiac arrest and got home from the hospital, we started to get all the medical bills.
Mm hmm. Yeah. Oh, wasn’t that fun? They just keep coming and coming. And it’s, uh, you know, you don’t know which ones you paid, which ones you haven’t, which direction they’re coming for, uh, which hospital, which ambulance, which, I mean, there’s only one ambulance. Imaging company. Which companies. Yeah. Yeah. They just come from all over.
Everywhere. All over the place. And it’s so confusing. Then you get the explanation of
Kristin: benefits. Right, which is not a bill, but looks like a bill. It says not
Will: a bill. It says not a bill. It does look like a bill though. Yeah. And you get it like eight times. Yeah. They keep
Kristin: sending it Like, are they
Will: making adjustments?
Our, our recycling bin was [00:02:00] full for quite a while after
Kristin: that. I filed
Will: those, but sure. Oh, not all of them. Not the ones I got to. Oh boy. I just shredded those things and yeah, I’m not, I’m not the best, uh, record keeper. Uh, but it was, uh, we, I had a lot of surprise billing and that’s something we, we, I don’t know if, I don’t think we touched on it too much.
We kind of mentioned it, but yeah. Surprise billing is, um, we talked about in the context of the No Surprises Act, which was, a piece of legislation that went into effect January of 2022, I believe, uh, that outlawed the practice of surprise billing. So what happened to me,
Kristin: which was in May of 2020. So prior to,
Will: prior to, prior to the act, uh, being passed, um, when I had the credit caress, the ambulance took me to an in network hospital.
Yeah. That was nice of them. Very nice. But some of the doctors in that hospital. We’re out of network, because I didn’t check [00:03:00] before
Kristin: I died. Right. That was pretty irresponsible of you, honestly.
Will: Big mistake. Yep. And so I got like tens of thousands of dollars of charges that insurance was like, nope, sorry.
Out of network. Can’t cover it. And, uh, I was like, oh, I was unconscious. What was I going to do? Right. And so it was like a nine month process to eventually get them to, you know, forgive the debt or I don’t know what they did, but, uh,
Kristin: Well, and at the same time that you were experiencing that issue, we were also working on, I was having a medical billing issue where About four months before your cardiac arrest, I had had a cervical disc replacement, and I had done my due diligence to make sure, you know, got all the prior authorizations, make sure it was all good to go with the insurance company before we had the surgery, because I, unlike you, was not unconscious.
You know, I had time to prepare. So, went through all the, all the, across the The T’s and dot the I’s, and then [00:04:00] turned out when I, you know, got the bill, the insurance company said they were going to pay for exactly zero dollars of that surgery. That’s a low percentage. Yeah. Yeah. That was a problem. So we were doing both those bills at the same time.
It was pretty stressful.
Will: Yeah, it was, it was, it was bad. And, and, and it was, it was stressful and confusing for us. Like I, I kinda, I kinda know my way around the, the health care, you know. Right,
Kristin: you’re, you’re on the inside. I’m on the inside part of it.
Will: Not the billing part though. But, but still, it was a little bit easier I feel like for me compared to someone who’s not, not in medicine at all.
And is just experiencing this for the first time, you know. So, and it’s just awful what we put people through. And, uh, and so it was… It was great to talk to Allison about just something that’s being done to help, you know, and, and it’s, we talked about, you know, that, you know, forgiving the debt and, and paying off the debt is, is great, but also a lot of other work needs to be done to [00:05:00] like fix the things that’s leading to all this debt.
And so, um. Yeah.
Kristin: That’s kind of a bandaid Yeah. For this, this broader issue, but it is a really very effective
Will: bandaid. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they’re up over $9 billion now of medical debt that they have paid off, and, uh, just millions and millions of people that have benefited.
Kristin: So yeah, a really interesting model too that they use to, to do that.
So, great work. Definitely. So let’s stick around, check it out.
Will: We’re excited for you to hear this, uh, interview and so let’s get to it. Here is Allison cso.
All right. We are here with, uh, Alison Sesso, uh, president and CEO of RIP Medical Debt. We’re so excited to have you on. Thank you for being here.
Allison Sesso: I am thrilled to be here. Thank you so much for having
Will: me. Yeah. And, um, you know, we’re, we’re talking about, it’s just quite an uplifting topic today. Um. Medical debt.
[00:06:00] It’s hilarious. Yeah, but, but it’s also such an important one and, and something that, you know, for the past like year and a half, I’ve been talking a lot about is the healthcare and, you know, um, healthcare system, insurance industry, everything. So this is, uh, I think a lot of people will be very interested in this topic.
Um, and so I, first off, just want to ask you if you could just give us a scope of the problem. Of just medical debt in general. What, just put it into context for people. What are we talking about here?
Allison Sesso: Yeah. Well, in the United States, over a hundred million people have a medical debt. Uh, so it’s pretty substantial and the, to the tune of at least 195 billion of medical debt.
So it is a big problem in the United States of America. I can’t
Will: even fathom that number. That’s too big. I didn’t, I didn’t realize it was that much. Because I saw on, uh, because you’re on Twitter, that’s, that’s, I’ve seen your, your Twitter account and kind [00:07:00] of followed, you know, some of the, um. I believe you mean X.
Oh, sorry. Oh my gosh. X. The X account. That’s right. It’s no longer Twitter. That’s right. I can’t keep up. Um, and I, I just saw, it was about a month ago, RIP Medical Debt just passed. By like the 9 billion mark, my, my initial reaction was, Oh, okay. Well, that’s gotta be like all the medical debt, right? That’s it.
Like how much more could there possibly
Allison Sesso: be? Yeah, it’s a small dent, I feel like in a large problem, but for those people that we’re helping, I think it’s really a significant dent that they need to have happen, but yeah, we’re actually, I think we’re going to hit 10 billion next month.
Will: Oh my gosh, so it’s just like exponentially growing in terms of, uh, um, you know, the exposure and, and people learning about what you do.
And, uh, I want to get into the process for how RIP medical debt works because it’s, it’s totally unique. It’s very interesting. Uh, [00:08:00] first, how did you get into this position? I’d like to hear kind of a little bit more about your background. Yeah,
Allison Sesso: sure. I’m happy to talk about it. So I’m a, I’m a Queens girl.
I’m from Queens, New York. That’s where I’m calling in from right now. Um, I did a lot of my work, uh, working in social services in New York City. So I actually represented social service providers, about 200 of them that provide various social services, everything from the homeless. feeding the homeless, to housing the homeless, to providing aftercare for kids, helping seniors, all those good things.
Um, but a lot of social services are really cleaning up the mess of broken social programs or social situation systems. And, um, so I was there for a long time and it was sort of time for me to find something new and This thing came across my desk that this group, RIP Medical Debt, was looking for, you know, a, a new head.
And I, I thought, huh, what is that? Because medical debt is an issue that is obviously an economic issue, but it’s also clearly a broken healthcare [00:09:00] financing issue. And it’s sort of the same people that I’m helping, if you will, right? Like if I was representing these people that are getting social programs and getting a lot of help through social programs.
Medical debt is an issue that they’re dealing with. But what I thought was so cool was the return on investment. I mean, 1 gets rid of 100 of medical debt in this model. And so I, you know, I, I had a conversation with, uh, the head hunter and learned a little bit more about the history and it was a very new organization.
We’re not even 10 years old. I came here about four years ago. Uh, they were at the time looking to abolish about a billion dollars of medical debt was like their big audacious goal. And now we’re, you know, close to 10. Um, and so I, I, you know, I looked at the organization, I looked at the, the opportunity and I thought, you know, this is another way I could spend my time and my energy and it’s national in scale and I can like say something about this issue in the process.
Like, I’m not just going to relieve medical debt. I’m going to like, Scream from the rooftops like, I shouldn’t have a job relieving [00:10:00] medical debt. We shouldn’t have this problem in the country. I felt like, well, I’m doing it because I’m really a policy wonk at heart. And a lot of the work I did for social services was not like, I wasn’t delivering the services.
I was representing those organizations and lobbying government really hard to try to give them better. Resources to do their jobs better and like raising those issues effectively. And so I thought I could do the same thing here. And it turns out we can.
Kristin: So you mentioned that every 1 contributed gets rid of a hundred dollars of medical debt and who just.
You can trust me as a general layperson, that sounds like monopoly math, so can you tell me how that works, exactly? It doesn’t sound like it should
Allison Sesso: make sense. Yeah, I know, and it’s why everyone is like, are you for real? You’re a scam, like it’s a whole mountain we have to climb constantly. Yeah, so I mean, this is, it took, I’ll be honest, I took the shot.
I didn’t understand it either. I was like, what, how does that happen? So again, but I’ve become good at, I think, explaining it, but you’ll tell me right now. So [00:11:00] basically there is a market for medical debt, like it exists. And not, not only for medical debt, by the way, for other kinds of debts. The United States of America, everything’s a commodity in one shape or form.
Right. So. Uh, medical debt is no different and there are for profit debt buyers that will go to a hospital or other healthcare provider and take all their bad debt and say, you know, and name a price to buy it all. But in order for that to be profitable, the price they pay has got to be dirt cheap because the people that are owing the debt that they would collect from don’t have the money.
It’s like getting blood from a stone, right? So they don’t have the money. So they make the price super low, literally pennies on the dollar to make it profitable and worthwhile. So they basically make it a dirt cheap offer, but to the provider, who’s already probably tried to collect or made a couple of a collection attempts and dot, dot, nowhere, it’s value, especially in a collective amount, all the bad debt getting something, it could be a billion dollars for 300 [00:12:00] million worth of debt, but.
That’s a million dollars you didn’t have and that you were just sitting on this bad debt. So you make the deal and you know, you, you sell it. And then the debt collector’s like, great, anything I make above a million, I have 300 million worth of attempts to try to harass people, uh, take them to court, do whatever I got to do to get my money’s worth.
And so anything above a million is, you know, is profit. Right. And so we take advantage of that market that it exists. Except we are not trying to make any money back. We’re just trying, we’re flipping, flipping the script completely. And we’re just taking donated dollars. People actually care about medical debt and want to see us succeed.
And they make donations to us. And then we send letters to people and say, we bought your medical debt, just like a debt buyer, but you are free and clear of the debt, and we would never, ever collect on any of the debts. Our mission is to get rid of debts. And we are for nonprofit, a hundred percent.
Kristin: Right, so you buy it for cheap because there’s that market and then donations cover that cheaper [00:13:00] price.
That’s right. And the individuals are free of it. That’s awesome.
Will: I think it probably surprises a lot of people to hear, like, buying the medical debt. Because I think a lot of… I probably thought this, in fact, I know I thought this for quite a while, just even as a physician, that, you know, if things were sent to collection, it was just like, okay, this is now, I’m just giving this.
I think a lot of people assume that, that it’s just given to the collection agencies.
Kristin: Right, that you’re still paying the hospital.
Will: Right. I didn’t realize for a long time that it was actually the collection agency that’s purchasing the debt
Allison Sesso: itself. Well, it depends, actually. So that’s, there’s not a, there’s not a. Hard and fast rule on this. A lot of hospitals, so not all hospitals do sell their debt. In fact, a minority do too. I want to be clear about that.
Um, but there are enough hospitals that a market exists. Um, so that, that’s how we established that. But there are a lot of collections agencies that do [00:14:00] just get a percentage of what they collect and then do not own the debt. So it’s, but then this is part of the problem, frankly, like it’s opaque to the patient.
That’s like, this was, it’s so confusing. It’s because there’s no hard and fast rules and you don’t know who owns your debt. Right,
Will: right. And then my other another question I have is how are How do hospitals and I guess, you know Any kind of private practice anybody that uses collection agencies and they’re selling this debt for pennies on the dollar How is how is that you mentioned like, okay, if it’s like 300 million in debt You’re at least getting something back, but I still don’t understand how that can how hospitals can like stay afloat By, by just basically getting rid of 299
Kristin: million dollars of what they’re supposedly owed.
Is
Will: it just because prices are so high that they, I mean, how is, I’m, I’m, the, the financial just doesn’t seem to quite make sense.
Allison Sesso: What I’ve learned is that hospital financials are not for the average person to [00:15:00] understand. And that is why, honestly, like, I get the pricing transparency conversations and why people want that, but you can’t shop for healthcare.
I mean, it’s just not a reasonable thing that we expect of people. How would you know what’s a reasonable price for a, you know, gallbladder surgery or, or, you know, I don’t know, name anything. It’s, it’s not, it’s not reasonable to expect people to be able to shop for these things. And what I’ve learned is hospitals pricing is not based on like what it actually costs them.
It’s what they, like, and that’s, and that’s like, because that there’s this middleman that pays for most of it, which is the insurance company. So it’s convoluted how the pricing works at hospitals in the first place. And yes, frankly, they have to take, if their, their accountants have to take into account the fact that they’re not going to get paid anything for a lot of the care that they provide.
So the higher prices are building in a loss. And that’s just real. And I don’t think, you know, you can expect as a first patient that goes to a hospital for your price to be [00:16:00] based on what the hospital expenses are for your particular surgery. They’re basing the price on their total costs, I think, in a lot of ways.
And so that’s, I think, the concept that is foreign to most people. And that aren’t in, you know, revenue cycle, which I’m not, but I’ve learned from somebody on my team who is amazing, Ruth Landay, like knows all this stuff. And she’s, that’s why she is in charge of talking to all of the hospitals where we get the debt from, because she understands how they think and how they set prices and how the sort of system works a little bit more intuitively than your average person.
But that’s why consumerism in healthcare just doesn’t work.
Kristin: It’s so funny, too, because people think of, um, you know, universal health care or models like that, um, you know, that’s one of the problems they have with it is they don’t want to pay for other people’s health care or whatever, but they are anyway.
Correct. They
Allison Sesso: are. And also through subsidies. I mean, through our tax dollars. Government subsidies for health insurance and for medic, you know, for all that stuff. We are paying plenty of for
Will: health care So medical [00:17:00] debt is a marketplace. Is there a lot of competition in this marketplace? Right? Like are you?
It’s not like
Kristin: you can just like go online and find a cheaper price somewhere else, right? Like it’s not like you’re going to Costco for paper
Will: towels. Are you fighting for medical debt like with other? Like debt
Allison Sesso: collectors? We’re not, we actually do actually buy it directly from a medic, from, from, um, debt collectors as well.
So we have, we bought by both directly from hospitals and from what we call the secondary market, which is the, the debt buyers. And the reason why we’re not in competition with them, as far as I’m concerned. is because of the fact that we’re a totally different business model. Like we’re not trying to make money back end.
We’re actually focused on the low income individuals more so than anybody, which is by far the majority of people in the files. Um, but they tech, they technically want the people that do have means, right? I mean, that’s for their business model. People at the high end are more attractive while for us, like the lower end people are more attractive.
So I don’t see it [00:18:00] all one to one comparison.
Will: Well, I, I, you know, I wish you could get all the medical debt and have the funds to, to forgive it all. But, uh, uh, at least that’s, that’s good that I guess as long as these other organizations, these, they, you know, are getting the, the debt off their books and they’re getting something back for it.
That’s probably all they, they, you know, really care about. Um, and.
Allison Sesso: I don’t know if that’s true. I think that that, in terms of the hospitals, at least, or the providers that sell it to us, honestly, they’re not in it, most of them are not in it because of the money. They do recognize that medical debt is inherently a part of the system and hard for them to solve individually.
And they see it as a, like a community benefit. Oh, that’s good.
Kristin: Yeah. Yeah, I think, well, I don’t know, this, this, like you said, it’s all very complicated, but I think, you know, there’s maybe different levels of, of roles at the hospital that, that care about different things. And I think certainly at the provider level, you know, just from knowing you and other, you know, physicians [00:19:00] that we’ve met along the way through med school and just everything, Most people get in it because they want to help people.
They want to heal people. Um. So, I don’t know, I’m sure there’s somebody somewhere who, who is really caring about the bottom line, but I think the majority of people in the healthcare system are trying to help
Allison Sesso: people. Absolutely. And I think what’s happening is medical debt is getting in the way of people trusting the healthcare system, and it’s really, really a big problem that we need to pay better attention to.
I will say, one of the things we do when we work with hospitals, Is when we’re done doing the medical debt relief. So we have a feedback loop. We have an anthropologist on our team whose job it is to talk to those who benefit it. That’s great. It’s a capture, right? It’s like the capture, like, what are these stories?
What are the common themes? We actually have a qualitative database. We’re building up all this stuff so that we can understand the issue of medical debt sort of more concretely. And so she does this great thing where we create a venue of stories. That of individuals with their pictures and what it meant for [00:20:00] them to have the medical debt we’ll need that we give back to the hospitals or other providers.
And they then share that oftentimes with their teams, like their clinicians who are thrilled and they feel great about where they work. And so it ends up being actually like a retention tool for them. Oh,
Kristin: interesting. That’s interesting.
Will: That’s very cool. Yeah. I think that actually we physicians, as we’re going through education and training, we’re a little bit too insulated from this world.
And that’s a big problem. Like I didn’t really grasp a lot of like the health insurance industry and kind of what goes into billing and, and medical debt, uh, you know, until I was a patient, I started to experience it myself. And, uh, then that’s a big problem. And so I think, you know, Kristen, you’re right.
Like we’re, we’re, we’re always so focused on like, we just want to. We just want to treat people, help people treat disease, all these things, but we can’t separate it from the, the, the [00:21:00] healthcare industry. And it’s just becoming, uh, more complicated and there’s more problems, not just related to medical.
Well, everything that goes into it, you know, from, you know, claim denials and prior authorizations and all this
Allison Sesso: stuff. Well, people aren’t going to follow up on your advice. I mean, they’re not going to follow up on your advice, right? Cause they’re going to realize how much it’s going to cost them. I mean, if I’ve heard our stories where.
Uh, the, the nurse is trying to like give an IV or, you know, somebody like in the emergency room and they’re like, wait, wait, what is this going to cost me? I mean, I can’t even imagine if someone’s like in the middle of a crisis and you’re trying to help them and they’re resisting it because they’re worried about, you know, what it’s going to cost them.
I mean, it’s just, that’s not what you, what you signed up for. It’s, it’s, I think your point. Yeah,
Will: exactly. What are. What do you recommend that patients do when they’re, they have medical debt? Like what is, do you have anything that you’ve learned through this, through being in the position you’re in, this industry?
What advice would you give to a [00:22:00] patient with medical debt?
Allison Sesso: To push back. I mean, that’s the other thing. Unfortunately, it’s The system is set up so that you have to like advocate for yourself and you have to push back. So if you have it, then you can negotiate it down. You can find out from your insurance company, if they’re trying to deny it.
You can, you know, so there’s just, just don’t just pay what you owe, like go and have a conversation with everyone you can, your insurance company, if you’re, if you didn’t have insurance, like maybe you can sign up for Medicaid retroactively. It depends on where you live. Like there’s different things you can do.
But I also hate that that’s my advice, honestly. I sort of feel like it’s like analogous to like, why’d you wear that short skirt? Like, right? I mean, it’s sort of like, like it’s not the person’s fault. And honestly, there’s also like racism built into that. Like we know that Black people do not get the same deals when they negotiate for buying a car or anything else.
As white people. Or women. Or women, exactly. And so, it’s inherently flawed that that’s our expectation. Right. Both that you’re a consumer and that you should be negotiating. Like, [00:23:00] it feels so… Disconcerting and gross. It’s just not okay.
Kristin: And these are people who are in a very vulnerable position. They’re very sick.
They may not, you know, they may have very limited energy. I mean, depending on what the illness is and what the debt was for, like, to spend, you know, their, their precious energy and their mental. You know, an emotional capacity when they’re already dealing with something like a disease or something. I mean, it just is, to me, that just feels evil.
Allison Sesso: Yeah, and like stress is great for healing, right? Yeah,
Kristin: exactly. Right. Everything we know about how the body works and what it needs, we’re doing all the wrong things for patients in this case. Ugh, it’s so frustrating. How can people find out what their options are? Because I think, you know, speaking as patients ourselves, it, there’s not, it’s not like there’s a handbook somewhere, right?
That, that tells you what you can do. It feels very scary to receive a medical bill because, you know, it just seems so official and it’s, it’s [00:24:00] hard to understand and it’s complicated and there’s not like a, you know, an itemized list of all the things and what you’re paying for them. So how do you know, you know, Where to go?
Do you have resources for people to understand how they can
Allison Sesso: push back? Well, so we don’t really specialize in that. And honestly, I’m not a big fan of trying to do too many things. Because I feel like you can do, you know, one thing really well, which is what we do. And, and, you know, not do or do a bunch of things sort of pass the That’s not my approach.
Right. So we do not. You know, try to be too helpful with individuals, um, on purpose, right? But there are groups like Dollar 4, which I recommend people look at, um, that do help people navigate financial assistance programs at hospitals and help them push back and have a lot of resources. There’s like the National Consumer Law Center, which has great resources.
So there’s lots of organizations that provide resources, um, to the consumer, if you will, facing patient about what their options are. It also, [00:25:00] frankly, varies state to state. So that’s the other thing, you know, but there are financial counselors, there are resources available and out there to help people, but I do have to say, you do have to look for them.
And your
Will: state, your state health authority or your state health association can, can also be a big, um, big benefit. I’ve, I’ve reached out to them, um, on my behalf and some of my patients behalf before, so it’s, that’s another. What are they,
Kristin: what can you Google to see? If you’re just a, a, oh gosh, lay person.
I mean like your state
Will: health association. Yeah. Like, yeah, like, like Oregon Health Authority, like there’s always, every state, uh, has lay, I don’t know if they call it a health authority, but there’s those types of resources
Allison Sesso: out there. Yeah. Like Department of Health, you could usually, yeah. Department of Health or whatever.
I think you could just say like Department of Health at your state and then may maybe. Right. Like medical debt. Yeah. They do
Will: have resources for sure. Now you mentioned that the whenever you came on the the initial goal for RIP medical debt was 1 billion Okay, well you’ve achieved that goal [00:26:00] pretty handily.
So what’s the like? Where where are you going now? Like what’s what’s the I mean hundred? What’d you say hundred and ninety? 160 billion. 195 billion. 195 billion. Oof. Alright, so I guess, I guess your goal is 195 billion now, right? I mean, what is
Allison Sesso: it, what’s the next step here? It’s a really good question. I mean, I think at the end of the day, We are going to keep help.
I mean, yes, we’ve done 10 billion compared to 995 billion. That’s not, you know, that’s, that’s not a lot, right? I mean,
Will: no, it’s amazing. I think it’s amazing. Well,
Allison Sesso: it is. I was going to say, it’s incredible. Our goal is to help as many people as we can and just keep going. And, but in the process, like I don’t. I want to put ourselves out of business, honestly.
I really want us to fundamentally, and not, and by the way, not necessarily by getting rid of all the medical debt through our, our approach. I want to do it because I want there to be a better solution, bigger solution, more systemic [00:27:00] solution to this problem that doesn’t require us to be in existence. I mean, maybe it’s, we solve it in a more fundamental way or for a lot more people.
And then we, you know, just work on what’s left, you know, something like that would be fine. Uh, but I, I, that’s why we’ve sort of very intentionally invested in this anthropologist, which I mentioned to tell the stories of the individuals so that we’re pointing to the system and not the individual, like it’s not a personal failure, the system is set up against you very clearly, uh, you know, you could do everything right and still absolutely end up in medical debt.
Uh, in fact, most people do. Uh, you can’t, insurance is out of reach for a lot of people. Like the premiums are too high for the plans that don’t have I deductibles. So a lot of people are underinsured. That’s what we’re finding is that we’ve solved sort of the insurance problem. Like over 90% of people now finally have insurance.
After, um, the ACA passed, you know, the Obamacare also known as, um, but still a lot of people end up in medical debt cause [00:28:00] they have, uh, high deductibles. So there’s a lot of things that I think are going on. So for us really focused on telling those stories. We have a public policy team now whose job it is to engage.
I was just in, um, in Biden’s company recently because he announced some stuff about junk policies and, uh, having limits on, uh, Medicare, out of pocket prescriptions. And so there’s, there’s all this stuff that I think could be done to tighten up the situation that we have now. And that’s what we’re focused on, is really trying to tell this bigger story and make medical debt a prominent issue that people are grappling with so that political pressure is there for bigger changes beyond us and in the meantime, get as much medical debt out gone as possible.
Will: Couldn’t agree more. I think personal narratives are so important, especially on social media because, because you can have a story that goes viral and just gets the attention of people, uh, that, uh, that says, you know, look how big this problem is and, and there have been some [00:29:00] legislative wins like the, the No Surprises Act.
That was a, you know, a pretty big deal that went into effect last year. Uh, and, um, And I know the FTC is like, you know, really starting to look at these vertically integrated health insurance companies and some of the practices and, and so, um, you know, but I, I totally agree with you. I think, uh, just getting, getting stories out there and just reaching more of the public, making them aware does put pressure on, on some of these companies that are enacting these policies.
That lead to 195 billion in medical debt. Yeah.
Allison Sesso: Yeah.
Kristin: Do you guys do anything directly, you know, working, I don’t know, with or lobbying against, I guess, or, I don’t know what the appropriate term would be, but… How many enemies have you made? The insurance companies is what I am getting at, because even if you have insurance, you know, we have learned that they deny…
Just in [00:30:00] batches, right? They just mass deny things, um, and people don’t always know that you can appeal that or they, they don’t know how to appeal it. Um, do you do anything on, on that front too?
Allison Sesso: Uh, yeah. So basically, I think our philosophy overall is that we actually want people to continue to engage in this conversation.
I think. Making enemies is not a good approach to getting people to seriously talk about this issue. Um, honestly, I mean, how I see this problem is like hospitals also get beat up left and right, right? About medical debt, right? And a lot of times for good reason as do insurance companies for good reason, but they’re not.
On either side, they’re not all bad actors either. The, the system has incentivized them to do exactly what they’re both doing. Um, however, they’re, you know, they’re, they are at odds with each other and they point fingers at each other. And then the patients, it’s like this tug of war going on with the patient smack in the middle of it, and that’s the problem that I see.
So we go after both if it’s appropriate, but we also don’t go after both in, in an unreasonable way. [00:31:00] Uh, we’re thoughtful about, you know, a lot of hospitals are trying to do the right thing. A lot of insurance companies are trying to do the right thing. A lot of them aren’t. So, when we see something that’s problematic, we’ll call it out, but at the same time, we want to highlight good practices that are happening and try to have a reasonable conversation because frankly, You know, politically, they’re both big lobbies.
So if they don’t get on board with something that wants to change, then it’s not going to happen. I hate to say it, but that’s the truth. Like there’s, it’s really hard to get beyond the lobbying power that both hospitals and insurance companies have. So we’re going to see progress. We need to make sure that we’re moving them in a direction and being politically smart and strategic that gets them on board with changes.
And that sometimes means taking time, but I think we can get there.
Will: Agreed. Let’s take a quick break and we’ll be right back.
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Alright, we’re back with Alison Sesso, president and CEO of RIP Medical Debt. Uh, you, we always ask for stories from our guests and you have a couple of good ones. Now you’re in, you’ve been in leadership positions and, and, you know, there’s an. Ongoing theme in like, uh, you know, humor in medicine. I’ve, I’ve touched on it a lot and a lot of people do and make fun of, of, you know, executives and people in [00:34:00] charge for some of the less than helpful solutions that they present for certain problems.
And one of your stories you sent us highlights that to a T. So why don’t you go ahead and tell us.
Allison Sesso: Yeah, I’m happy to, although it sort of brings back some crazy memories, but boy, um, so I was the deputy executive director, so right behind the executive director, um, and, and I was working at this, uh, association of, of non profit human service organizations in New York City, as I mentioned, um, and we were facing a budget fall.
Uh, this was a small organization, you know, no more than eight people, I think. Uh, and we were discussing in a, in a meeting with the full team, uh, what we might do about that budget shortfall. And, you know, we were actually talking pretty seriously because we could have had furloughs in front of us. You know, so people having to actually lose money and it was a, you know, you could feel like the weight of the heaviness in the room.
And the executive director like suddenly like snaps his fingers and you can almost like see the light bulb [00:35:00] balls in his head and he’s like, I have a great idea. And so everyone’s like, great. Like, thank goodness. Right. So she begins to explain. Then he was just talking to this woman in his synagogue about these great kazoos she hand whittles and how we could have her whittle kazoos with our logo on them and sell them.
What? Yeah. Oh, man. I was like, this is like a bake sale, you know? I was like, what? And I like, I honestly thought I was going to faint or like throw up. It was like terrible. And, you know, I just noticed that everyone in the room obviously was deflated and like, oh my, this is our leader. And so yeah, it shows you like leadership matters.
Will: How is the hand carved kazoo market these days? With the
Kristin: logo, no less. That really just, like, adds insult to injury. Like, everyone will want one of these things with our logo on it,
Allison Sesso: right? Right. Exactly. It was, it was pretty, uh… I still, to this day, I remember that [00:36:00] moment, and I was just like, What are you talking about?
Yeah. Oh
Will: boy. That’s probably a good lesson for old people that you experience something like, you’re like, okay, this is what not to do. Like whenever you’re in this position. Probably helped you out down the road.
Kristin: How many kazoos do you have to sell to make one full time position? I wonder.
Allison Sesso: I was like, what, are we going to become kazoo salesmen?
By the kazoo, too, but come on.
Will: Uh, and then you also have a story that, um, really speaks to me as a, as a self proclaimed internet comedian, ophthalmologist, um, and, and actually the, the history of RIP Medical Debt, uh, John Oliver. Uh, he did a story, I think he did like an episode that was centered on medical debt and probably raised your profile, um, quite a bit.
Uh, and it, it speaks to this idea of using humor to get your, your point across. Uh, and I know that’s something that you [00:37:00] have employed at times as well, right?
Allison Sesso: Exactly. Um, I, I, I think humor is a really good tool. Forgetting a serious point across it. And you know, John Oliver, I think is exact example of how that’s done well.
Uh, so I was now the executive director of this kazoo, same organization. So obviously that was the same group. Great. Same group. But I was the executive director now.
Kristin: Um, was that related to the kazoos or No, I mean, yeah, we moved on,
Allison Sesso: we moved, we moved on. I think that was, that
Kristin: guy’s not there anymore?
Allison Sesso: No, you’re in charge now.
I was in charge. Um, thank goodness. Um, but so there’s the same, you know, association and, um, the ma vast majority of these nonprofits get their funding from government contracts and the government contracts are not good. They underfund them by a long shot. And so our job was to represent them and point out all the inadequacies in the government contracts and funding.
Um, but you know, this is a group that isn’t a very powerful lobby in general, right? So it’s kind of hard to get government’s attention and be a priority. So I had this [00:38:00] idea to, uh, tell this story using Jewler. Um, and I said exactly what you said. I said, let’s channel our, our inner John Oliver’s on this one.
And, um, we had this, so I actually interviewed a number of potential, uh, media supports, like to help us tell the story and write the script. And all of them thought it was crazy. And we’re like, no, that’s not going to work. Nonprofits don’t do this. You’re big risk. But I found this one group, Key Ideas, and they were like, totally got it.
And we’re like, yes, we would love to do this. Please hire us. So it was a match made. So, we had, like, an owner of a made up pizza place. Be treated similarly to like a social services provider experience, like with government, how they treat them. And so a lot of people, you know, we’re like, this is really not going to work.
And then we decided to debut it even worse. I really raised the stakes at our, our event, like our fundraising event was like 300 people there, which was all the providers that get these crappy contracts, plus the government leaders, like commissioners, et cetera, like the deputy mayor for health and human [00:39:00] services that give out and responsible for this, and we aired it and.
It was a huge hit. People loved it. It’s on YouTube. It’s called Everyone Deserves a Farrah Slice. And it led to policy change. Government actually started taking overhead rates, just the most boring topic in the world, you know, to normal people, but really important to nonprofits seriously and made some policy changes that changed things.
So, you know, I think you’ve got to use humor and take risks.
Will: Yeah. Absolutely. People, if you’re listening, you got to understand like, there’s no laughter in the government like ever. Right. And so if you could just inject a little bit of humor and just make some people smile and laugh. Oh, you’d have no idea how far that’s going to go.
So good on you for taking the leap of faith. And putting that out there. I think humor
Kristin: also is a really good vehicle for highlighting the absurdity of issues, you know, that of even serious issues where, um, we can get caught up in just arguing about the, the details or the, you know, bottom line or [00:40:00] whatever, but just to, to be able to put it into a pizza place like that just really highlights how absurd it all
Allison Sesso: is.
a similar one. We did a similar one at RIP recently called The Collector, which does like a Netflix series on revenue cycle folks. So that I think is also worth checking out. So I keep using it. Thank you. Very well
Will: done. All right. Well, uh, let’s, let’s get to our little, this, we’re going to play a game. It’s called State of Debt.
State of debt. I just want to do this to just highlight, put it on a little bit, maybe a little bit more personal level for people listening, the scope of this problem. So, um, I’m going to, I’m going to switch between, uh, you Allison and, um, and Kristen. So Kristen, you’ll go first. So this is, this is a matching game.
Okay. It’s a matching game. So I’m going to give you three states. and three numbers, okay? The, uh, numbers are the percentage of individuals in a given state with medical debt collections on their credit file. Okay.
Kristin: Okay? Like, they [00:41:00] currently owe
Will: money. They have a medical debt collection in their credit file.
So it’s there, it’s affecting them, yeah. Um, this is coming from, by the way, the 2022 U. S. Government’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Report. So this is like official… Official. Official stuff here. All right. So Chris, ready? All right. So, um, again, I’m a, these are, I’m just giving you these random three states and then the three percentages and you tell me which state matches up with the percentage.
Okay. Okay. So the three states we have Louisiana, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania. Okay. Okay. The percentages, I’m going to round, round these off a little bit. 2%, 10%, 22%. Okay, uh, 2, 10,
Kristin: and 22. I’m gonna go Louisiana, 22. Pennsylvania 10, Minnesota 2.
Will: Very good. Is
Allison Sesso: that right? You got it. That’s great. Yep.
Will: Yep. Very good.
Yeah. Minnesota is 2. 25%. [00:42:00] Pennsylvania is 10. 4%. And Louisiana is 21. 8% of people have medical debt in their credit file. That’s, that’s a scary number. That’s not
Allison Sesso: taking up the Medicaid expansion. That’s what happens.
Will: Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Okay. All right, Allison. So, your three states South Dakota, West Virginia, Wyoming, okay.
Your percentages 4%, 18%, 25%. Okay.
Allison Sesso: South Dakota,
Will: West Virginia, Wyoming. Let’s see.
Allison Sesso: Um, okay. I’m going to go West Virginia. The stakes are high here. I know. I don’t know if I’m getting this right. I’m going to go West Virginia 25, Wyoming 4, and South Dakota 18.
Will: Actually, no. West Virginia you got right. South Dakota is at 4.
4% and Wyoming is at 18%.
Allison Sesso: Wow.
Kristin: Okay. I’m noticing a Midwestern [00:43:00] trend here. Yeah,
Will: Midwest is kind of
Kristin: low, South
Will: Dakota is Midwest. I would
Kristin: consider
Will: that Midwest ish. We might get some people that Midwest.
Allison Sesso: I don’t know. Maybe it is. Maybe it
Will: is. Okay. All right. Yeah, I was surprised by that too. I guess I would have had, I probably would have had it the way you had it,
Allison Sesso: Allison.
Okay. That makes me feel better. Thanks.
Will: Yeah, yeah, I’m just, you know, I’m here to help, I’m here to help. Okay, so, uh, round three. Let’s, let’s, let’s actually, let’s stick with Allison on this one and then we’ll have Kristen do round four. So, here are the three states, Maine, Oregon, and Texas.
Kristin: Oh, I see why you, you gave this one to her.
Maine,
Will: Oregon, and Texas. I’ve lived in two of those three states. That’s right. Um, alright, the percentages are 21, 16, and 5. Okay.
Allison Sesso: Okay, um, Maine, 5, Texas, 21, and Oregon, [00:44:00] 16.
Will: It’s Oregon, 5, Maine, 16, Texas, 21. Yeah. Wow. Interesting. Yeah. Maine, Maine is higher than I thought it would be.
Allison Sesso: My mates, yeah. Obviously,
Will: but maybe there’s a maybe it’s because it’s a very I guess a large part of it’s a rural area Maybe that yeah that affects things.
Yeah,
Kristin: do you see that in your work at all?
Allison Sesso: But it’s a percentage of population. So that shouldn’t I guess it wouldn’t matter right? Yeah, it shouldn’t matter I think I mean honestly it has a lot to do with policies. It also frankly has to do with whether or not The hospitals there actually report to credit agencies.
It’s not all of them do. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah, so this is a particularly hard game. Yeah
Will: That’s right, all right, well the last one so Kristen, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and South Dakota. I already know Pennsylvania How do you know
Kristin: Pennsylvania? Because that was in the other one. [00:45:00] That was first, was in the first question. The first, oh, did I already do that one? No, it’s just Pennsylvania was in
Will: there.
Oh. Oh, I put it, oh, it’s in there twice. Yeah. Okay. But that’s okay.
Kristin: Oklahoma, Pennsylvania. Do you remember though
Will: what it was I day it was 10. God. All right. All. So Oklahoma and South Dakota then. All right. Oh, and South Dakota
Kristin: was in a different one. Did,
Allison Sesso: yeah, you did do that one. Uh oh, I screwed
Kristin: this up.
That’s all right. Okay, but I don’t remember South Dakota, so give me the numbers. Oklahoma…
Will: 4, 10, and 21.
Kristin: 4, 10, and 21. So 4 was South Dakota, 10 was Pennsylvania, so 21 is Oklahoma. You got
Will: it. Yeah, Oklahoma is an average of 3,
292 of medical debt. So what’s going on in the South? I think it’s the Medicaid
Allison Sesso: expansion, right? Yep, exactly right. Medicaid expansion. Do you know
Will: a couple other, are there any, what other, are there any other big factors like that, that, that really obviously
Allison Sesso: [00:46:00] contribute to this? I mean, poverty rates, right?
Like the more, more people are poorer. Um, Uh, I think also, uh, just in general, the hospital policies, if they have good financial assistance policies, a lot of places are increasingly focused on that and trying to get hospitals to, um, have more robust financial assistance policies. And again, even the hospitals themselves or, you know, other providers or even the debt collectors, like if they actually put it on people’s credit reports or not.
It has a big, it has a lot to do with it.
Will: Okay. Well, thank you for playing State of Debt with us. State of Debt. Alright, let’s, let’s take one more break and then we’ll be right back and finish up.
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All right,
we are back with Allison Cesso. President and CEO of RIP Medical Debt. And we are going to take a look at some of our favorite medical [00:48:00] stories sent in by the listeners. All right. So we have a story today from Wanda. Wanda says, I was working in the recovery room in the late 1980s, which was adjacent to the operating room and preoperative areas.
My friend Craig was a surgical tech and told me this gem of a story. The patients were brought down prior to surgery on their stretchers and put in the preoperative area. And at the time, they put a 3×5 card at the foot of the bed, with instructions or information to get them ready for their surgery.
This was the 1980s. Yeah. Index cards, 3×5 index cards at the foot of the bed.
Kristin: Did they get them out of the card catalog,
Will: maybe? Uh, Craig approached a patient and said, Sir, I’m going to get you ready for your surgery, which is going to involve me shaving around your anal area. Difficult situation there the patient agreed and Craig did the shave prep then Craig realized that the patient was there for a knee surgery[00:49:00]
And the question in my mind has always been What did that patient think we were going to do that needed us to shave his behind really well?
Kristin: And why did they need to shave their
Will: behinds? There are some things that make you think, you know, it’s probably glad, it’s probably a good thing we moved to an electronic medical record, because I imagine something, someone probably wrote something very unintelligible on the card, I imagine.
Oh,
Kristin: okay. That’s probably what it was. I’m a little worried that someone getting anal surgery had
Allison Sesso: their knee shaved. Well, and did they charge them for that? That’s, that was my question. Right? I go right to like, what was the bill on that? Did you get charged on that?
Will: Yeah. Really? That must, that must be how you think about every single thing, right?
Allison Sesso: do, like, did they actually send him a bill on that? Because that’s not okay.
Will: I have to imagine you probably asked for, uh, itemized receipts on all of your medical, uh, . Do
Allison Sesso: you know what I do? You know, one of the things I [00:50:00] do is like, I actually, when I, you’re supposed to sign those, those. Forms and the doctor cross things out and I just like hand it back to them like like where it says like basically You’re responsible.
No matter what I’m like, no. Yeah.
Will: Oh, man, we can cross things out I
Kristin: didn’t even know that was an option I don’t know. I
Allison Sesso: mean, honestly the front desk people like what I mean, I almost like Like, I’m always like a little like, are they going to call me out? But they never do. They don’t even look at it.
They’re busy.
Kristin: See, these are the things I’m saying, like, people don’t know what their options are. I would never have even thought you could do that.
Allison Sesso: I know too, basically, because now doctor’s offices have these screens and you have to like sign sometimes, so there’s like no option to do that. So then when I take, but when it’s, when it comes time to sign, I just write no.
And then I submit, which they also don’t check.
Will: Like that’s your signature. Wow.
Allison Sesso: No. So if it came back, I’d be like, I wrote no. Yeah. That’s
Kristin: my signature? I did not agree
Will: to this. I’m sure that would also hold up in the court of law as well. Well, that’s my question.
Kristin: I wonder if they [00:51:00] would.
Allison Sesso: I have no idea. I have no idea,
Will: but I’m like, you Yeah, yeah, I guess so.
Well, um, well, we’re gonna let you go, but uh, uh, because you’re, I’m sure you have a thousand, you have a lot of debt to clear right now, so we’re taking you away from that, but um, uh, Is there anything you want people to know about, want our listeners to know? Obviously, RIP Medical
Allison Sesso: Debt. Yeah. I mean, obviously donate to RIP Medical Debt.
I, we really do need as much support as possible. We did just issue a, uh, uh, one in three series of, uh, that goes a little bit more in depth about the issue of medical debt called insurance alone. It’s not enough, which you can find on our website. So that was in partnership with this great group, Neighborhood Family Trust.
So if you’re, you know, interested in these issues, um, I encourage you to, it’s a very short issue brief. It’s like three pages, something like that, that, uh, you can take a look at.
Will: I think r i p medical debt is also on, on social media, so you can know. Check them out there. Instagram.
Allison Sesso: Yep. Facebook. What’s it called now?
[00:52:00] Not, not Twitter. X X, X,
Will: X. And you are also on X at Allison cso. Um, and so, uh, thank you again for, just for the work you’re doing and the organization is doing. ’cause it’s guy, I guess like think of how many lives. I’ve been impacted by what you’re doing. It really is. I can’t wrap my head around, you know, 195 billion, much less, much less 9 billion.
Like that’s, that’s a, just an enormous number. Over 7
Allison Sesso: million people have gotten letters from us. So it’s good.
Kristin: 7 million people. So people want to help you. They can donate. They can, they can share. Check out your website. Anything else they can do? Lobbying assistance?
Allison Sesso: Anything like that? Tell stories, right?
Tell their stories. Talk about your issues of medical debt or your, you know, even if it’s not debt, the fact that you had to pay some ridiculous high amount of money and what you didn’t be, what you weren’t able to do because of that. Yeah.
Will: Yeah. Good advice. Well, thanks again for joining us. Thanks for having me.[00:53:00]
Well, I feel like I understand a little bit more about medical debt. Yes, I
Kristin: had no idea that there was all of these things involved. It’s
Will: unbelievable. The whole market. Yeah, and what a, what an awesome organization. I know! It’s such a, it’s a brilliant idea. Yeah. Just like taking the system that’s already there.
Right. But just turning it around. And using it for good. instead of evil. Right. Instead of trying to kill. Tried to, to, you know, rake people over the coals for, for just getting medical care. They’re just taking that debt by, and like paying it off.
Kristin: Yeah, so everybody, if you’re able to, please consider donating because that’s how they are able
Will: to a 1 for, uh, 1 donation.
Kristin: Yep, it wipes out 100 of medical debt for someone.
Will: 100 bucks. That’s,
Kristin: that’s awesome. I guess that gives you a little insight into the markups that are
Will: happening. Yeah, that’s like, that’s like… Two units of insulin. I don’t know, I have no idea, [00:54:00] but uh, probably. Anyway, uh, it’s, uh, what a, just a great thing that they’re doing.
So, and thank you for the stories as well, uh, and let us know what you thought of the episode. Um, and, you know, we try not to do too many depressing topics. Uh, we’ve done a few in a row here, and so, uh, maybe at some point we’ll, we’ll get back to, uh, there’s really not a lot of lighthearted things about the U.
S. healthcare system these days, but we’ll, we’ll, we’ll do our best, uh, uh, to, to not, you know, become too depressing.
Kristin: Well, you know, you have to laugh so you don’t cry. So it’s a big part of
Will: it. Yeah, well, let us know what you think or if you have any ideas of topics We could we could touch on or any specialties you want to hear about or any guests We like to hear about those two lots of ways to hit us up email us knock knock high at human content.
com Uh, we’re on all the social media platforms. Just go to one and search us up.
Kristin: Just make sure you’re finding the real one. There are some imposters out there, so watch out for that. There
Will: are some imposters. [00:55:00] Yeah. Uh, then you can also hang out with our Human Content Podcast family on Instagram and TikTok at Human Content Paws.
They got some great podcasts these days. Yeah, they really do. Uh, also, thanks to all the wonderful listeners leaving feedback, leaving, uh, specifically The positive feedback. We like that more than any of the other types of feedback. We will accept
Kristin: constructive criticism. We like that too. That’s fine. We’ll accept that too.
We just don’t
Will: like insults. Yeah, the insults make us feel bad. We don’t want to feel bad. If you subscribe and comment on your favorite podcasting app or on YouTube, we can give you a shout out. Like, Undercover KC on Apple said thanks for the beautiful Dr. Mike Natter interview. I just finished watching it.
I am a fan of Dr. G, the ophthalmologist. Who is just one of the most inspiring doctors. Dr. Nader sounds like a really great doctor. I’m very grateful for all the doctors that help us today. I am trying to become a surgeon. Um, a female Somali Muslim. So I am [00:56:00] very determined to be it. Thanks, Docs. Well, good luck to you.
I hope that you achieve your dreams And thank you for those kind words. It’s very very thoughtful We also have episodes of this podcast up on my youtube channel every week at DGlockenflecken We also have a patreon lots of cool perks bonus episodes where we react to medical shows and movies We have a nice little community a little growing community.
We’re huge. We’re active in it. We’re there. We’re You’re huge. You’re very tall. Physically, I am quite tall. Uh, lanky. It’s all limbs. Anyway, I don’t know where I’m going with this. We have early ad free episode access on Patreon, interactive Q& A livestream events, more of me talking about how dangly my limbs are.
Do you have some
Kristin: Baileys in your coffee this morning? What? What’s
Will: going on here? No, I’m just feeling good. I don’t know. Patreon. com slash Glockenflecken or go to Glockenflecken. com. Speaking of Patreon, community perks, [00:57:00] new member shoutout to Jimmy W. Hi Jimmy! Hello Jimmy W. Welcome Jimmy. And shout out to all the Jonathans, as always, Patrick, Lucia C, Sharon S, Omer, Edward K, Steven G, Rossbox, Jonathan F, Marion W, Mr.
Grandaddy, Kaitlyn C, Brianna L, Dr. J, Chaver W, Jonathan A, Leah D, Kay L, Rachel L, and Ann P. A virtual head nod to you all. Patreon roulette, random shout out to someone on the emergency medicine tier. Shout out to, I should say it as the emergency medicine, the emergency medicine doctor, kind of talks like this.
He’s kind of like Cronk from Emperor’s New Groove. Remember Cronk?
Kristin: Wow, that is a deep cut.
Will: Yeah, that’s how he kind of talks. Yeah. Shout out to Jessica H. for being a emergency medicine patron. And to Cronk. And to Cronk. Thanks for listening. We are your hosts Will and Kristen Flannery, also known as the Glockenflexens.
Special thanks to our guest today, Allison Sesso. Our executive producers are Will Flannery, Kristen Flannery, Aron Korney, Rob Goldman, [00:58:00] and Shahnti Brooke. Editor and engineer, sorry Rob, Editor and engineer is Jason Portiza, our music is by Omer Ben Zvi. To learn about knock knock highs, program disclaiming ethics, policy submission, verification of licensing terms, and HIPAA release terms, you can go to Glockenplugin.
com. Does anybody, if you’ve gone to Glockenplugin. com to read those, let us know. We want to know all about you and your life and the things you decide to do with it. Reach out to us at knockknockhigh at human content. com with any questions, concerns, or fun medical puns, if you have to. Knock Knock High is a human content production.
Goodbye.
Hey Kristen, let me tell you about Dax. Who’s Dax? Yeah, Dax is a nuanced dragon ambient experience. They call it Dax. I kind of like the name. It’s AI powered ambient technology. It sits in the exam room [00:59:00] with you and does so much. Most importantly, I think it helps the patient physician relationship. How so?
Well, it’s have you ever been in the room with your doctor and felt like they were more focused on the the medical record system versus you? Yeah, like if
Kristin: I’m talking and they’re looking at the screen and typing and stuff.
Will: Yeah, we just have so much to do, so much documentation that it just makes our attentions pulled in different ways, but DAX, it captures all the relevant information and helps with your administrative burden and, and just allows us to talk with each other.
I like that. Yeah. To learn more about the Nuance Dragon Ambient Experience, or DAX, visit Nuance. DAX. That’s N U A N C E dot com slash Discover D A X.
