Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Kayla, welcome aboard to the show today. I'm so happy to have you.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:00:04] Speaker A: I've got to say, I have never had a healthcare experience where I've been that was great. Nothing surprised me blindsided. It's just I feel like we have so much to improve in this country, and that is part of your mission.
So I want to jump in with a difficult question.
What are the big problems that you have set out to solve?
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Yeah, we set out to solve quite a few hefty ones that at first, people were like, good luck. And so to answer your question first, it's.
The main part is how disempowered people feel and are within the healthcare system of America. It is evident how stacked against how car. How the cards are stacked against patients, not only from a pricing side, but just from an emotional side. Right. Your health is something that you like. You can't go to work if you're not healthy. And so that is a central part of just life, in my opinion, is your health. You really can't do much else without your health. And so not only emotional aspect of something wrong with your body, but also the emotional aspect of feeling like you're at the mercy of either your doctor, your nurse. And not to say that they aren't because they are amazing, but you kind of feel like you're left out on your own. Right? And so the large mission that we have is to make is to help people get their power back. That is the mission in and of itself. The layers behind that is a lot. Right? So we've got the pricing part where there's a lack of price transparency all around.
There's the part about understanding how the system works, right. The average person doesn't know, for example, they don't know that you can negotiate your medical bills. They don't know that you can negotiate with your insurance provider. None of these things are taught to us, and it's not mainstream knowledge, and it's set up that way. And our goal is to make it so that people can advocate for themselves in an easy manner. So it's a big task, to say the least.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: So I got to stop you there. What do you mean you can negotiate your medical bills? I mean, they send you a letter. You have no idea how many of these letters are going to arrive, right? And they're like, so when we had my daughter, everything was in insurance. But then the person that came to look at the result was out of insurance. We didn't know. We couldn't say no to that. So suddenly this hefty bill. Like, what do you mean? You can negotiate. Talk more about that. I'm sure our audience is curious.
[00:02:56] Speaker B: Yeah. So a stat that always makes my heart crumble is the fact that 70% of medical bills in America are, they have some sort of overcharge or error. So that means that the likelihood that the recent medical bill that you had had some sort of error, it's very high, that likelihood. Right. And so what that means is when you get the bill, if you're not looking for it, you don't know. You don't know what to look for, and you don't know to identify that. So there might be overcharges. Right. So the c, so there are things called CPT codes, like the billing codes that the hospital puts on your, whenever you get a procedure done, sometimes there's an error. Right. It might be the wrong code, and those codes are associated with the prices. It's the same thing as, like, when you're going to Walmart and they, like, scan the barcode. It's essentially the same format. So sometimes those are wrong. There are other times where they charge you twice. Right. They may have, you may have gotten, I don't know, let's say, an iv infusion. They may charge that to you twice or three times or. And you're just not looking for it, or it doesn't even register. Right. That. Oh, why did I get billed for that three times?
Sometimes they'll even go as far as to, like, put on there like an assist. So they'll say, like, this surgeon assisted in this surgery. Well, unfortunately for the patient, sometimes that assist is just them looking over the other surgeon's shoulder. Right. And, well, that's a lot of money for another surgeon to come in and assist. I mean, we're talking thousands of dollars, but the patient doesn't know that. And so there's all sorts of different ways that the system tries to increase your medical bills and also just errors that you're responsible for as a patient, unfortunately. So you have to look for those.
[00:05:00] Speaker A: What's the best process for somebody like, obviously not you because you're an expert, but somebody like me who knows nothing about this, to know what are the right questions to ask or to know how to approach something like that?
[00:05:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I actually had this process happen with my grandma, so I am right on track with you. So always ask for an itemized bill. And what this is is essentially line by line, everything that they are billing you for.
So that helps. Just so that you can have a full snapshot of everything. Next you need to go through. And one, see, are there any charges that are twice, you know, duplications of one another? That's a telltale sign that, you know, there might be, there might be an error here because usually they don't charge for things twice.
And they also have to tell you, right. They have to tell you when they're doing something. So that's another thing is making sure that what happened aligned with what you got. Because they may say like, she got XYZ medication, and you're looking at your pills and you're like, that's not what I have here in my hand.
So that's another way to look for those errors. And then when you do find, you know, those overcharges or those errors, you go and you call the billing department and, you know, you ask them, or you ask them about, you know, your bill and you say like, hey, I see something here that I'm not sure if this is correct or not. And you explain to them what it is. You always have to do it in a kind manner because it's a tense situation, right. And you go through that process and usually they're very good about, you know, being like, yeah, that's, that's an overcharge because it's quite easy to tell. You just have to be able to look for it.
And, you know, that's what I always tell our patients. And we also on the navigator app, we have an AI that does that for people because it's a very, people are scared to do it. It's an intimidating situation. So, like, we provide a script for them on what to say and what to look for and et cetera. But those are the four main things I would say that would really help.
[00:07:19] Speaker A: Hey, La, that's amazing. I had my own story wherever. Both my kids had the exact same problem, but went to different doctors. One of the, and literally it was putting cream on a skin condition. One cost hundreds of dollars, the other cost nothing. It was basically just part of the visit. So when we looked into this, one of the doctors coded it as a surgical procedure. And I was like, you put cream on my son's foot. Like, why is that a surgical procedure? And now I have this hefty bill. So this is definitely a real thing. I've encountered it myself. I noticed that you also on your website, you have direct access to lab procedures. Tell us. And you have the price right there. I mean, to me, knowing the price of something before getting it in the healthcare world in the United States is kind of revolutionary. So you got to tell us that story. What are you doing there? What does that mean?
[00:08:11] Speaker B: Thanks. So for the lab specifically. So the navigator labs, it provides low cost labs to people.
I don't know if you've ever, everyone in America has gotten labs right? But not many people in America check for pricing because it seems at this point everyone's like giving up. They're like, it is what it is. Just bill me and I'll have more medical debt than I can afford. And people just really have, like I said in the beginning, felt disempowered. And it's just like, it is what it is.
But especially with the economy right now where everyone's battling inflation, we've seen such an uptick of people trying to just get some sort of grasp over these healthcare costs. And so one thing that we did was the navigator labs, which again, is low cost labs, where we partnered with national lab companies to provide an average of 50% off your labs. So let's say, I don't care where you are in America, you go anywhere in America.
[00:09:15] Speaker A: And, Kayla, I'll say I went on your website, I put in my zip code, and there were immediately, and I was like, okay, there's no chance this is going to work immediately. I saw twelve labs. So this works. It is anywhere in America. So I appreciate your comment on that.
[00:09:30] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it doesn't make sense for us to only do it for, like, certain amounts of, you know, cities or whatever. It just, it doesn't work. It doesn't make sense. At least in my book it doesn't. But, yeah. So you're able to go to any Labcorp location and able to get the same lab. So it's the same lab test that you would get regardless because most people, you either go to Labcorp or you go to quest. And so it's the same lab test, same people doing it, literally just the price is different. That's the only difference there. And so we've able to save people at the very minimum about 50% off all of their labs, which is crazy. Crazy. And it's something I'm really proud of.
[00:10:13] Speaker A: And is this dependent on what insurance you have? Is this somehow tied into who you are, what you've got? Are you working? Or is this independence of the insurance?
[00:10:22] Speaker B: It's independent of insurance.
[00:10:25] Speaker A: That is pretty crazy. I got to say that impresses me. It just seems that the whole pricing around healthcare is dark black box of not knowing what's gonna happen and what you're gonna be hit with and the bills just, you know, after my daughter's pregnancy, the bulls, they just keep on coming. It's like you never know when it's gonna finish. That's pretty amazing.
[00:10:47] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:10:48] Speaker A: What drove you to this mission? What was the. If I. If I may be so bold to guess, did you have your own personal bad experiences with the healthcare system that drove you to this mission? Because it really is a mission.
[00:11:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, it's actually twofold. So everyone's always shocked when I tell them this, because where I am now is completely different to where I was for the whole seven years of my career in corporate healthcare. So I was actually on the side of corporate hospital systems. Right. So.
And I had.
I always say it as an opportunity, I had such a great opportunity to learn from some of the world's best CEO's of hospitals in America and hospital systems, the corporate side of healthcare. And I really got that deep dive into that world. And I was, honestly, I was on track. I had it made, if I'm quite honest. I was liked by all of the higher ups and I was, you know, on track to really just excel in that area. And I. I loved it up until I realized what was happening, in a sense. And to make that a little bit more clear, when you're in the corporate world, you're not thinking the same way other people are thinking. When I see our revenues jumped by x percent, I'm not thinking like, oh, that means that more patients, their prices increased or whatever. You're not thinking in the sense that patients are people. In that sense, you're more thinking of them as numbers. Right. We got to grow revenue. We've got to increase, you know, shareholder opportunity, etcetera. That's what you're thinking. And it wasn't until my grandma and I'll talk about her a lot because I love her, but it wasn't until my grandma actually had an incident where I saw firsthand how, like, on the other side of things, right. I saw firsthand how difficult it was for her just to navigate the system without being, I don't want to say the word conned, but with. Without being taken advantage of, to be quite honest with you. Right.
We would go to doctors visits with her, and I could tell that there were some, like, orthopedic surgeons that were just trying to get more money out of her, right. I knew that this. I knew that they didn't need, she didn't need this procedure because I. And I wouldn't tell them. I wouldn't tell them that I was in the corporate healthcare world, and I just wanted to see how they would treat us. And I. It just left such a sour taste in my mouth. And then when I went back to work that next week, I was like, I just looked at everything differently. Like, the meetings that we were having, they weren't really meetings to, it didn't feel like they were meetings to help people. It felt like they were meetings to get more money out of people. And, you know, not all of corporate healthcare is bad, for sure, but that aspect of it really, I just couldn't. I could not change the way I was seeing things anymore. It was almost like I had rose color, you know, glasses on, so it just rocked me, and I just couldn't do it. I felt, like, icky inside. So that's when I decided to make the change and find some way to right the wrongs that I was a part of. I'll take full responsibility for it, but I feel like if you have the ability to do something about it, then you should do it, because you're gonna die one day. Right. And I wanna make sure that when I die, I can look back on my life and be proud of what I did.
[00:14:41] Speaker A: Wow.
That is not a trivial thing. Starting a company, becoming an entrepreneur, incredibly difficult. And 90% of the companies shut down within a short amount of time of being started.
You embarked on an incredibly difficult journey.
Tell us a little bit about that. The beginning, the first couple years of that journey.
You were working with volunteers at the beginning?
[00:15:09] Speaker B: Mm hmm. Yeah. So you did your research? I did, yeah. So in the beginning, I.
It wasn't even a thought in my mind of it becoming a company. It truly wasn't. I was just doing it to.
Just because I was interested in it. And the idea of me being able, you know, I had some, you know, coding experience, a little bit of experience, not that much. I had that healthcare background and the business background of it.
I'm of a generation where all we know is technology.
I just thought to myself, it would be really cool because I would be coaching my grandma on how to navigate the system. I'd be advising her on things.
At one point, I was just like, it'd be really cool if she could just have this in the app. Like, if she could just go to an app and literally just have me on her phone, basically. And so I first just did it just as like a. Just a project. It wasn't really anything. It wasn't supposed to be a company. And it wasn't until we met with Rice University, their HR department, and they were like, we want this, as in our benefits. And I was like. And I was trying to play it off all cool, and she was like, how much is it? And I was like, I kind of just made up a price.
It wasn't a company at the time, but they clicked on my mind, like, this could actually be something. And so. And that's just how I started rolling it with it. But at first, just making the project in and of itself, it was interesting because at first it was just pocket doc. It wasn't even the navigator at that point. It was literally just pocket doc, which is our advanced physician search system. And then I just.
I almost started vomiting ideas left and right as we continued to develop it. And so, you know, now it's grown from, like, one app to eight apps in one platform, all doing completely separate things. But I think the.
The beginning was interesting because all of the people on my team, the volunteers, they were kind of, like, looking at me like, this sounds cool, but I don't really know if this is going to work. And I just had in my mind, like, it's going to work. And again, I didn't have any background of any other platform that did something similar. I just had it in my mind that it was going to work and we were going to figure it out one way or another, or I was going to die trying or something. And it was almost like something supernatural where, you know, every time we'd hit a roadblock, God kept giving me ideas on how to solve it. So there has never, and I can proudly say that there's never been a roadblock that we've encountered that we have not created a solution for. And, you know, it's not easy because there's a lot of roadblocks when it comes to this kind of stuff, not only just healthcare, but tech wise, but it really was the struggle of showing people the vision, like, the world, and then also making sure that they realize that it's not about how hard something is, it's about, is it worth it or not? Because the hard thing is going to end at one point. You're going to get done with the project at some point. The app is going to be done at some point. It may be hard, but it's going to be done at some point. And then think about all the people that we can help after the fact. Right? And so it's doing that sort of internal work that I really had to hit home, which was hard, right. Cause not everyone has that mindset.
[00:18:55] Speaker A: I would make an argument that if you're doing something easy, then other people are gonna do it. So doing something difficult and hard is actually a barrier to entry for your business. It what gives you a competitive advantage. So I make the argument that, you know, do hard things, because then that creates some really important assets for you and tools. So I think that's a really important point that you made. Kayla.
Some of our audience are young people going on their first steps of their journey.
What would you advise, in retrospect, looking both at your corporate career and your entrepreneurial career?
[00:19:33] Speaker B: Ooh, that's a good question.
So many things.
Wow. There are so many things. I think, first, if we're talking about the corporate side, I would say first, never.
And I was. I unfortunately had this thought in my head that I had to wait for permission. Like, I needed someone else's.
I need someone else's go ahead. I need someone else's, you know, validation to go for the position or ask for this XYZ. I always felt like I couldn't just go for it on my own. And in the corporate world, especially if you're young, especially in America, there's definitely that sort of hierarchy thing where the younger you are know your place, and that's below everyone else, and you're gonna have to like it. And I I don't know if it was. I guess it's just me being an only child, but I've never really grasped the whole, you know, adults are here, and you're here. That's never. I've always thought that everyone was like, here. I don't care how tall you are. I don't care how much older you are. You could be 80, and I would still look at us as equals. Not in the sense of, like, disrespect, but just in the sense of, like, we're two humans, and that's, you know, we're just two humans. And I think that's been a blessing because I've gotten along with older people because of that. But also in the corporate world, I struggled with that because I was told many times, you know, know your place, you know, you're young. I was so into. I'm still into innovation, but in the corporate world, I was trying so hard to push innovation. It was like pulling teeth. I was trying my hardest, and I remember I had one vp. I still remember her till this day, and I think I will always remember her, because she's really. What was a push for me to even make the healthcare navigator, because I remember she told me one day, she was like, you're too young. To innovate anything, and you're just gonna have to wait your turn. And when she told me that, I was just like, we'll see about that, we'll see about that. And I honestly was like, thank you. That's exactly what I needed to go and do the very thing you don't want me to do. Because if you don't think I can innovate, watch this. And that. It just set a fire on me. I was like, you're not going to tell me what I can and can't do, especially if I know I can't do it. There's a difference if I'm not good at it, but I'm good at innovation.
That was one thing that I, I knew I could do well. And so I would say to young people, don't let anyone tell you, even older people, it doesn't matter who you are, don't let anyone tell you you can't do something. If you feel like you can do it, or even if you're interested in doing it, just try it, because you literally never know what's going to come out of it. And you could be missing something great that could set you into a whole nother realm of your life. But, you know, you're, you're taking the advice from someone who most likely hasn't even done the thing that they're discouraging you from doing. So I would just say, be bold, and if you, whatever you want, go after it, go get it. You know, work as hard as you can to go out and get that thing. For entrepreneurs, I would say make sure it's a product that people are going to use. So it needs to be easy to use. That's a huge thing no one wants. Everyone wants Amazon now, right? Everyone wants one day shipping, next hour shipping. Everyone wants that sort of thing. So make sure that it's easy to use, make sure that it actually works, and mentally make sure that you have, or at least that you're training your brain to be mentally tough, because it's a journey, right? It is something that you have to really be steadfast. There are going to be days where, like, you feel like nothing's happening and what the heck? And then there are other days where everyone is calling you all at once and you're like, where were you guys when I was a, when I had the time to talk to you? And so it's just kind of riding that wave and being mentally strong in that aspect, I think is really important because a lot of people give up a lot of people give up and they don't know it. But if they would wait a little bit longer or suck it out just a little bit longer, that breakthrough is right on the other side.
[00:24:24] Speaker A: Usually, I say a lot of people call it a roller coaster.
I call it almost like bipolar disease. One day you feel like you're the. The happiest person in the world. The other day you're borderline depressed.
That really is the. And no offense to anybody actually suffering from that terrible disease, but that's how it feels to be on an entrepreneurial journey. So really, it isn't for everyone. If you're looking for stability and knowing what tomorrow holds, entrepreneurial journey is probably not for you. But, Kayla, I absolutely adore your message of commitment to believing in oneself. I think there's too much of this narrative of victimism in today's world where we're saying that, oh, I can't do this because I'm a victim. And your message of, you know, you can do much more than you even know is so refreshing, and I deeply, deeply appreciate that.
Yeah, you have been an absolute delight. I want to ask you a difficult question. As our last question, what would you advise 20 year old Kayla?
[00:25:35] Speaker B: Well, that's a really difficult one. Let's see. I would advise. I'd advise her to be a little more open minded.
I was the type of person, and I'm still working on it. I'm not even. I'm not there yet. You know, I'm not all the way there yet, but I used to be the type of person where I very much tunnel vision. Right? Like, I know what I want. I'm going after it 1000%, not holding back. The world be damned. I gotta get this thing done. And although that's good for work ethic, it's great for work ethic. It is great for obtaining whatever it is you want.
But being open minded in the sense of even if it's not your goal, like you didn't write it down in your goal book or whatever, still think about, you know, other opportunities. There have been so many. The partnerships that we have, have. In the strongest ones, I will also add the strongest partnerships that we have right now, all are just from me and my team being like, let's just see what they have to say. Because although it's not traditional, although it's not what most people in the insurance space do, let's just see what they have to say. And that's honestly one of the ways that we've continued to foster innovation is because we're partnering with organizations that, you know, you don't normally think to partner with, and you're, it doesn't make, you know, sense in the traditional realm of how it would work, but just thinking of the possibilities and even if it wasn't your idea, just being open to it and seeing, you know, where it could take you because that's, you know, that's how we got freedom meds, our low cost medications. That's how we got the labs. Right? Who's what healthcare navigation platform is doing labs and medic like, low cost medications. And that's the same thing with, you know, the data center that we just launched, which is essentially market intelligence for insurance brokers. And again, like, that's not something that's in the traditional realm of healthcare navigation, but it's because we were open to anything. And just seeing where it takes us, that's really has been the bread and butter of us continuously innovating.
[00:28:04] Speaker A: Kayla, you are an absolute delight. I was so grateful to talk to you today. Thank you so much for joining the show.
[00:28:10] Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
