367: Reimagining Healthcare with CrowdHealth CEO Andy Schoonover
On The Essential Oil Revolution, we try to focus most of our conversations around essential oils, not because they are the ONLYtool, but because they are one of our favorites. They're powerful and accessible, and they just plain work.
But we know that essential oils can't cure everything. There are circumstances where we need to go to a doctor, the hospital, or urgent care. And if you're anything like the average American, then your experience with the healthcare system has been less than enthusiastic.
Today we dive into a solution for reimagining healthcare, with Crowdhealth founder and CEO, Andy Schoonover. Discover a new way to approach medical bills and health insurance that helps protect our most vulnerable populations.
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Bone-Tired Body Brain
From: Jodi Walters | Chattanooga, TN
In a glass jar mix
Ingredients:
5 drops of copaiba
5 drops peppermint
5 drops of eucalyptus,
Direction:
combine ingredients with magnesium oil and coconut oil
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Episode Transcript
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0 (1s): If you're like me, my health and fitness are two things I am extremely passionate about, and my favorite source for accurate fitness and health information is the Mind Pump Podcast. The hosts are funny, entertaining, and they're always there with the most up-to-date and applicable fitness and health information. If you're looking to lose fats, build muscle, or improve your health, search mind pump on your favorite podcast app and give them a listen. That's mind pump. Wherever podcasts are found,
1 (25s): If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete. Jack Cornfield
2 (33s): Empowerment in education. Two powerful elements that will help you break free of convention, a transform your passion for wellness tool level beyond the status quo, the essential oil revolution where you're given the tools to supersede an ordinary everyday lifestyle, inspiring speakers, DIY recipes, healthy living tips, and more. You'll discover it all here, so tune in and get ready for a wellness revolution.
1 (1m 3s): Hello and welcome to the Essential Oil Revolution. I'm your host Samantha Lee Wright. Thanks for tuning in with us here today. Now on this show, we try to focus most of our conversations around essential oils, not because they're the only tool available to us, but because they're one of our favorites. They're powerful, they're accessible, and they just work. But we know that essential oils can't cure everything. There are circumstances where we really need to go to a doctor, a hospital, an ER room, an urgent care. And if you're anything like the average American than your experience with the not just healthcare system, but health insurance system is well less than pleasant.
1 (1m 54s): In fact, I don't know if I've ever met anyone who has ever been enthusiastically in love with their health insurance plan. I think we can all agree that the system is a bit broken, but instead of focusing on what's broken about it, as we sometimes do here on the show, today's episode is going to dive into solutions, one solution in particular called Crowd Health. Today I get the honor of interviewing the CEO and founder of Crowd Health, Andy Schoonover. Stay tuned for that and more. But first, let's pull a recipe out of our D I Y dugout.
1 (2m 35s): This is the segment of our show where we pull a recipe out of our dugout that's been submitted by one of you, our amazing listeners. And today's recipe comes from Jodi Walters in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Her recipe is called Bone Tired Body, brain. To make the bone tired Body, brain, all you'll need is five drops Copa Iba, five drops peppermint and five drops, eucalyptus oil in a glass jar. Combine the essential oils with magnesium oil and coconut oil and apply. That's a powerful combination right there. Thank you for your recipe, Jodi.
1 (3m 15s): We appreciate you. Don't forget to submit your recipe into our DIY dugout for a chance to win our monthly giveaway of a bottle of Orange essential oil and our favorite ebook full of DIY recipes. Email us at diy revolution oils podcast.com. Well, I'm here with Andy Schoonover, who is the founder and CEO of Crowd Health. He is a 20 year healthcare veteran and is raised over 150 million in investments to grow. Two companies both focused on helping the most vulnerable people in our country. He's here today telling us a more about Crowd Health, which is an official sponsor of our show.
1 (3m 58s): And I couldn't be more proud of that relationship because as soon as, as soon as this came across my desk and I started poking into Crowd Health a little more, I was just blown away that one. I've never seen this kind of thing before. And, and two, it just what a creative solution. This is two, what we talk about a lot on the show here, which is just the difficulties of our modern day healthcare and, and health insurance system. So that's a long way of introing you and asking. How are you, let's start there.
3 (4m 32s): I'm good. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be on the, the show if listen to a number of episodes and it just feels like what you all are about and what we're about are just so aligned. So I'm excited to have the conversation.
1 (4m 46s): Well, let's, let's start by describing Crowd Health a little bit or let's frame it as what do most people experience with their traditional health insurance and how is Crowd Health changing that?
3 (5m 3s): Yes, I'll, I'll tell you a little story if you don't mind. I, I, I have two little girls. A few years ago I sold my previous healthcare company and didn't have health insurance cuz a lot of us get health insurance through our, our companies. It's a no whole nother conversation whether that's the right thing or the wrong thing. But I, I sold my company and so I didn't have health insurance anymore. And so I went to healthcare.gov where many of us who don't have corporate health insurance go. And I got a plan that was $1,200 a month and I, that was my, really, my only option at the time. And I kind of joke it, it worked until I had to use it.
3 (5m 44s): My little one who was one at the time was having recurring ear infections. And so if there are parents out there, I'm, I'm sure you can feel our pain of somebody, you know, a little one having recurring ear infections. It keeps her up at night night, it makes her cranky. And so we went to the ear, nose and throat doctor who said, oh, she's got a, a hole in her ear. She's got a perforated eardrum and so you're gonna have to go and get tubes in her ears. Like, okay, that sounds reasonable. So went to the local hospital, 15 minute procedure, got tubes in her ears, got the bill a few weeks later and it was $8,000. That was like $8,000 for 15 minutes. Wow. You know, and this is a pretty
1 (6m 24s): Benign, that's a common procedure.
3 (6m 27s): It's very common. It's very common. I don't know what percentage of kids get twos and years, but it's a pretty high percentage. Yeah. You know, this is, this is something that could happen to anybody. And I got stuck with an $8,000 bill, but I was like, Hey, this is what health insurance is for, right? Like, this is the whole point of having health insurance. Well, little did I know that the health insurance plan would come back and said it was medically unnecessary. And so they would, they refused to pay for it. Wow. So got my ear, nose and throat doctor who was the one who recommended it and, you know, and I said, Hey, will you please talk to this health plan? He's like, I delayed my vacation by a day. The ear, nose and throat doctor said this, I've delayed my vacation by a day.
3 (7m 8s): Cuz I was so worried about Caroline's ears that it was gonna lead to long-term hearing loss. And so, but still, the, the health plan refused to pay for her tubes, Andres. So I had to stroke an $8,000 check to the local hospital, and as you can imagine, I was not happy. Yeah.
1 (7m 28s): Because you're on top of that, you're paying how much per year for the
3 (7m 32s): Health check. Yeah. 1200 bucks times 12, you know, is, is what, $14,000, $14,400 if my math is right to, to pay the insurance company for them to help me with my bills when I have them. And they refuse to do that. And I started doing some research around this and found that, in fact, last year, 48 million claims were denied by health insurance plans on healthcare.gov. So that's one out of every five claims ish Wow. Are denied. So, you know, if you have a healthcare.gov plan, there's a 20% chance almost, it's actually, I think it's 18% chance that your, your claim is not going to get paid.
3 (8m 13s): And so I said, that's just not right. It's not right. And so I said, okay, well I'm gonna quit then. I'm not gonna do, you know, health insurance if I gotta pay all of this money just to not them have them pay my bills. And so my family has been uninsured for over three years now, and we've built some tools to allow us to operate viably outside of the legacy health insurance business. And, and we found that there's incredible freedom in that we can choose whatever doctor we want. And we've saved, our family has saved about $10,000 a year by ditching health insurance and being uninsured.
3 (8m 57s): And so in essence, what Crowd Health is, is it's, it's a, a bunch of tools that allow individuals and family to viably operate outside of, of health insurance and still, you know, get their bills paid. Right.
1 (9m 12s): Because I'm sure the first thing people will, will say when you say, oh, I've been uninsured for three years, is they go, but what if you get hit with a bus? And that's what my mom always taught me growing up. Oh, you get health insurance because even though you're healthy, what happens if you get hit by a bus and you know, you're smacked with a huge emergency bill? That, that's in my growing up, that was why I was told basically that you pay for health insurance for that. Right. That fear factor right there.
3 (9m 40s): Right. Yeah. No, and, and health insurance plans love to, to, to play into that fear factor. You know, and I, I look back at this and, you know, I've thought a lot about this over the last few years and a hundred years ago or 200 years ago. What, what, what we did as a just a community of people is if somebody in our community got hurt, then we would as a community gather around those people and, and help them, whether it's plow their fields or sow the seeds or take care of their kids or whatever it ends up being. And, and what we've done as a society is we've allowed health insurance plans to kind of come in between us and our neighbors to take responsibility for our community.
3 (10m 24s): And so what we're trying to do with Crowd Health is saying, Hey, what if we can bring community back to healthcare? And the way that we do this is we've got a community of people who've all raised our hands and have said, I'm tired of health insurance declining, you know, bills, I'm tired of really high premiums. And so what if we as a community said, Hey Samantha, if if you got hurt, I'd be up for helping you out if you got hurt, if you got hit by a bus, right. Or got cancer, or had a brain hemorrhage, or had any of these, you know, thing, these big illness, a NICU baby. Which by the way, crowd Health has dealt with all of these situations. And so, you know, what, if you had a community of people that said I wanted to, to help you without a insurance plan being in the middle of it.
3 (11m 12s): And we see it a little bit with like the GoFundMe approach, right? Where GoFundMe has the ability of I can put up my my Health event and put it on Facebook or Instagram or whatever, and people will come and give generously voluntarily to you and your health. What if we could replicate that in a little bit more of a structured way so that I can send, let's just say Andy breaks his arm. I can send that out to a community of people who have said, I want to help any other, the people in my community and give them an opportunity to give to me. And I'm happy to walk through the mechanics of, of how that specifically works. But we've had thousands of bills over the last couple of years and every single one of them has gotten paid by the community.
3 (11m 59s): Everything from a $50 pediatrician, pediatrician visit to hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of NICU babies and brain hemorrhages and colon cancers and things like that. So it's a totally different model, a totally different way of thinking about healthcare.
1 (12m 15s): Yeah. And when you say paid by the community, you're referring to the members who are in Crowd Health, who are these crowd health members? So yeah, talk, talk me through the mechanics of of that. What does it, what does it require to be a Crowd Health member and it, how does this work?
3 (12m 30s): Sure. So every month, if you're a single person, it's 175 bucks. If you're a family, it's $695. And what we do is each month you will put that money into an account that we start for you when you join Crowd Health. So if you're a single, let's just use that math, it's easiest, $175 goes into an account. We take $40 of that as a subscription fee. That's the only way we make money. It's just $40 a month and then 1 35 is still in that account. So then if, and that, that account accrue or builds up over time. And so if let's just say Andy breaks his arm then and it's $5,000, crowd Health will go to 50 people and say, Hey, will you give out of your account that you set up a hundred dollars to Andy so that he has the money to pay for his broken arm?
3 (13m 25s): And so we go and his voluntary, I go to Samantha and Samantha says, yes, I wanna help Andy and I go to Brad and Ryan and Mary and Sarah, and then when I have 50 people that money is transferred to my account. So then now I have enough money to pay for my broken arm. And and why do
1 (13m 43s): You make that voluntary? I'm is that
3 (13m 46s): Yeah, because we want it is an important part. Yeah. I mean it's, it's, we want it to go back to being this sense of generosity, this se sense of, I'm actually not by mandate, but by out of my goodwill that I am helping other people in my community. And in fact, it was one of the big questions when we start, will people actually give, and we did, I think 1500 or so asks in March, and I think we had five people that said no. So we, the vast majority of people will say yes to this. And we've had actually, actually a couple cases in the last few months where we had a, a member in Tennessee who lost four of her fingers in a boating accident and she was 19.
3 (14m 36s): And so we told this story to our members and we went out and we said, Hey, would you give a hundred bucks? And people were coming back and said, can I give 150? Wow. Can I give 200 because I really want to help this girl in her family who is clearly going through trauma. We had a miscarriage a few months back where people would came out and said, I, I dealt with that. I know the trauma of that. I know the hurt of that. Can I give more to this family to help them? And so this, this spirit of generosity, I think is a great thing to kind of reinstill into our healthcare system and it works. Yeah. People, if you give them the ability to be generous towards another person will tip, especially when it comes to their health, they'll say yes.
3 (15m 23s): You know, and that's a pretty cool, pretty cool thing. That is really cool. That is really cool. You know, never in, in, in history, I don't think, has anybody gone to their insurance plan and said, Hey, can I give more this month? Right. You know, that just doesn't happen.
1 (15m 35s): Right.
3 (15m 36s): But, but people are willing to be like, if I have another human being on the other end of this money, I know exactly where my money is going. They're like, I want to help that person. And there's just a goodness about that. Yeah. That I think is kind of the primary driver of why Crowd Health works as well as it
1 (15m 53s): Does. Yeah. That's really fascinating. Now, now for for people that maybe choose not to give for one reason or another, what happens to those funds? Do they stay within their, their personal crowd health account and then if they have a medical event, they can, they can take directly from there, almost like a savings account for like when emergencies happen?
3 (16m 11s): Yeah. They, they, the money stays in your account. And in fact, if you leave Crowd Health, any money in your account goes with you. Oh wow. So you get to take it out. So
1 (16m 23s): It's really cheap minus the $40 a month service fee I imagine
3 (16m 25s): Minus the $40 a month service fee. Yeah. You get to take that out. And so, you know, the, the one interesting thing here is if you say no to a health event, then we keep track of that. So if you have a health event, just let's say Andy said no to the last five requests, then if I had a health event, I and I, and I submit that health event to the community for funding that community can see that I said no to others in the community the last five times. Right. So they know if I'm a good member of the community or not very good member of the community. Yeah. And so they're sort of
1 (17m 3s): Public shaming a aspect to it that
3 (17m 7s): You could look at it as public shaming and just like, Hey, I, I wanna, if I want to give something to another person, like I wanna know, is that person a really good member of the community in helping others? Right. I wanna know if that person, you know, actually there's a second component of this that I haven't mentioned, but the bill that I submit, did I go to the Mayo Clinic for a flu? You know, and, and or did I go to the urgent care for the flu? Right. So we actually rate the bills too to say, Hey, this person got a good price or, you know, decided to go to the most expensive place, you know, on the planet. Right. For something that could have gotten taken care of, you know, more easily. So there's an, an incentive there to one, be a good member of the community, but two, actually do a little bit of work on your side to make sure that you're getting a good price for your, for your healthcare.
3 (17m 58s): And that's ultimately where we're, our system is getting messed up, is we're paying ridiculous prices for a procedure that has been done hundreds of millions of times with an ear tube. Right. And it's $8,000 and it's 15 minutes. I think anybody listening would take, you know, 18 or $8,000 for 15 minutes of your time. I think that's a pretty egregious billing practice
1 (18m 20s): From my perspective. Yeah. Now, had you been a Crowd Health member in that scenario, how would that have played out differently? What would there be a way to get that bill to be more reasonable?
3 (18m 31s): Yeah, there is, and one of the things that I really dislike about health insurance is that I call into a call center at whatever health insurance plan and I talk to somebody and I tell them oftentimes what's are kind of intimate personal details, right? And they're like, okay, well I'm gonna have to transfer you to this person. And so I tell the story all over again and I'm like, no, I want an ally. Oh, and by the way, in all during that time, it feels like they're looking for reasons not to pay the bill. Right? And so at Crowd Health, I want an ally who is there to fight for my health and for the, that bill to get paid by the community. And so each member has a personal care advocate internally.
3 (19m 12s): And so I can text that care advocate, I can call that care advocate. And so in my situation with my daughter, I would call her and I said, Hey, the ear, nose and throat doctor just said that my daughter needs tubes in her ears. Can you find me a really great place in Austin, Texas where I'm, where I live to, to get tubes in her ears? And that advocate then will go and look for a really great doctor in Austin to do those tubes at a reasonable price. And in fact, I tell this story often over the last couple of years, and I had EMTs, ear noses and throat docs come back to me and say they do it for $1,500 all day long. So what would've been $8,000?
3 (19m 53s): You know, what was $8,000 would've been $1,500 if I would've actually done a little bit of research to figure out a really great place to do, you know, the, the, the tubes in hers. Yeah. So health insurance, the big lie in healthcare is these big health insurance companies can use their size to get really good pricing. And in fact, what happens is if you pay in cash, which Crowd Health allows you or enables you to do, you get way better pricing than the United Healthcares of the world. Right? And so that's the crazy thing about our system is that we, we pay these health insurance plans to go and negotiate for us, but in fact they're getting really terrible pricing that we could got way better if we just paid in cash.
3 (20m 39s): That's really what we're leveraging.
1 (20m 40s): I mean, I mean, part of that too, there's a lot to that puzzle, but one piece of that is doctor, doctor offices themselves, or even hospitals, they have to hire staff just to handle insurance claims. I mean, it's, it adds a lot of expense to them in order to process through all those insurance companies and whatnot. So there's a lot, there's a big movement for a lot of doctor offices. We'll say, well, we don't accept any insurance where you're completely a cash service. Yeah. You know, and they're able, and they do that because they're able to keep their prices lower because they don't have to go through all that hassle. So Yeah, it's really, really interesting.
3 (21m 17s): And that's the last thing that the, in the, the doctors want to do is deal with administrative stuff. Yeah. You know, the doctors that I talk to, they say, look, I've been given a skill of loving on my patients well and taking care of them, and that's really what I want to do. I don't want to have to deal with the administrative components of health insurance. Right. You know, a lot of times these doctors have to get approval from the health insurance companies to provide their, their patient's care, whereas we think that it should be between the doctor and the patient, take the insurance company out of it and let them decide what is the best path for, you know, curing their, their illness or, or keeping them from having an illness that should be between the, the patient and the doctor. 3 (21m 59s): Yeah. From our perspective.
1 (22m 0s): So I'm, I'm curious who you see as the best fit for Crowd Health. You know, I, in your bio you talked about helping the most vulnerable people in our country and, and when you talk, when people start talking about paying things in cash and whatnot, I think some people kind of rule themselves out, especially if they're perhaps in a low socioeconomic place where maybe they, maybe they are on Medicaid or Medicare and they feel like, you know, why would they wanna add that expensive of cash value? But, but I also kind of wanna incorporate the, our audience here of essential oil lovers as well. You know, that really value taking your health into your own hands.
1 (22m 44s): They value having the freedom of choice for using holistic options or western medicine, whatever they feel like is a good fit for them. So, you know all that to, to ask who is Crowd Health a really good fit for
3 (23m 0s): Yeah, it's a, it's a great question. You know, 70% of Americans don't have a thousand dollars in their bank account. And so when you sign up for some of these 70% Wow. And, and you know, so what does that mean in terms of healthcare? Well, it means that hundreds of thousands of families every year are going bankrupt even though they have health insurance because of either their claim getting denied or really high deductibles. So I always tell people is like, if you don't have enough cash in the bank to cover your deductible, you're paying for something that is worthless to you.
3 (23m 40s): So if you have a three or four or five in, in some of these healthcare dot gut plans, it's 10 or 12 or $15,000 deductible, which means you pay for the first 10, 12, $15,000 of a, of an illness or any health expense before the health insurance plan will pay a dollar. So if you don't have 10 or 12 or $15,000 in the bank, you are paying for health insurance that's not going to cover you in the case of a, a big, you know, getting hit by a truck. And so, you know, 200,000 people went bankrupt last year because of a health event, even though they had health insurance. And that to me breaks my heart. And so, you know, what we do is we ask people to, to pay for the first $500 of a health event before they submit it to the crowd.
3 (24m 29s): So back to our example, if Andy's broke his arm and it was $5,000, Andy would pay the first 500 of that. And the crowd then would, we'd submit $4,500 to the crowd to help them crowdfund the rest. And what we think, and you know, people have asked us, well, why don't you have a $10,000 option? You know, it's like, look, a lot of people will take the $10,000 option because it'll be cheaper, but don't actually have $10,000 in their bank account to pay for that. So that's not what we want. We want everybody in any social class to be able to buy crowd health without the fear of going bankrupt as a result of a health event.
3 (25m 9s): And so that's really what we're about. And you know, I I think that in terms of your, your audience, the things that we've heard is that there's frustration from folks who want a holistic integrative naturopathic care plan is that health insurance companies won't pay for it. And what we say is like, look, we don't, we don't care what you and your doctor decide to do. What, what treatment plan that you and your doctor decide to do, we'll submit it to the, to the community. And so if that's a naturopathic, if it's acupuncture, or if it's a chiropractor, if it's essential oils, if it's whatever it is that you and your doctor feel is the right treatment plan for your condition, then we'll submit that to the, to the community.
3 (25m 55s): So, you know, that's, that's kinda where we fall out and that's why we think that a lot of folks, you know, in your, your community would be interested in, in this because UnitedHealthcare is not going to pay for, you know, a naturopathic option most likely. And if that's what you think is going to cure you, then we say all about it, we're all about, I go to a naturopathic doctor, I go to a chiropractor often I am a fan of some of these alternatives. And I think that the system is actually incentivized not to include some of these lower costs, more natural ways of healing the body because they actually get paid more if, if you're sick.
3 (26m 35s): Unfortunately. That's just the, the craziness of our system. Yeah,
1 (26m 38s): Yeah. It is crazy. The mechanics of that. Walk me through a little bit, Andy, if I were a crowd health member and let's say, you know, I am deciding to use acupuncture. Let's say I have to go twice a week and that for maybe I'm dealing with insomnia, let's just say an example. Would that sort, would that sort of chronic condition where, where you're doing, you know, twice a week acupuncture that really starts to add up after a while, is that a incident that you could submit to Crowd Health? Or is it exclusive to more of the kind of catastrophic category?
3 (27m 17s): Yeah, so there's a couple things that keep from kind of moral hazard. You know, you can imagine people like, wow, this is great. I only have to pay $500. So if I have to get my knee replaced, then I'm gonna jump into Crowd Health, get it replaced, which is a $25,000, you know, bill, have the community help me and then jump back out. And so what we say is like, hey, for the first couple of years you need to be responsible for your preexisting conditions. And then after that, the crowd will, it, it is fundable for the c the community. And that keeps that moral hazard from from happening. And so we think, and we think that's fair.
3 (27m 57s): You know, if you're a part of the community, you have to build into the community and then the community can build around you. Right. And so, but you know, let's just say you Samantha joins and then has a health condition in which acupuncture is what you and your doctor decide is the right course of treatment, then yes. That is fundable by the, the crowd, the community, if you Samantha Junk comes in and has a different health event and says, Hey, I think essential oils is gonna be a key component of helping me, then yes, that is fundable by the, by the community. And so a lot of these things are fundable by the community. I had back pain, you know, doctor wants to do surgery, I go to a chiropractor, which actually does great for me.
3 (28m 45s): And you know, a health insurance plan would be like, no, you're gonna go and get that surgery. Whereas I can go to the chiropractor and for probably one 50 at the cost of back surgery, get this figured out. And so yes, those are things that are fundable by the community. And anytime you have a question, again, you can text your care advocate and say, Hey, I'm having back pain, will, you know, can I go, is the chiropractor, is that fundable or not fundable? And you can always just ask. And what we'll find is, is that even some things that may not be, be fundable for whatever reason, you know, you're paying 175 bucks as an individual, which is significantly less than if you were to go on, you know, a a another plan or 6 95 for a family.
3 (29m 29s): I went on healthcare.gov and it was gonna be for this year, I think it was $1,400 a month for my family. And it was, I think it was a $14,000 deductible, which basically means that I would be paying something like $30,000 before the health plan would pay a dollar. Right. In Crowd Health I'm paying 700 695 a a month. And so I'm saving probably 10,000, $15,000, something like that this year. And so if I have to pay out of pocket for something that, you know, health insurance plan would normally pay for, like I would gladly do that. Right, right, right. As opposed to to paying the $1,200 a a month. So, you know, it's, it's we're you have total access to your care advocate to a to ask for a lot of those things.
3 (30m 15s): One more quick just detail of the program is everybody in the community gets, you know, I I said this, there's this $500 initial commitment, you know, that does not apply to a kind of an annual visit. So an annual visit is fully fundable by the community. So if I wanted to go to my doctor, I go, you know, to a doc once a year just to get an annual wellness checkup, labs, things like that, that is totally fundable by the community. So that's the, that's the one exception to that $500 rule. Sure.
1 (30m 50s): So you're kind of rewarding that proactiveness right there. Yeah, I
3 (30m 54s): Love that. Yeah. You know what I, because I what I don't want, what we don't want is people to not go and seek care that they should be seeking. Right. Because of a, a financial issue. And we think it's important for people of all ages to go and, and see their doctor once a year. And the cool thing about that too is you can decide, you can go for a pediatric visit if you have kids, a ob gyn visit, a primary care visit, you know, naturopathic visit, or you can either do a vision or a dental visit for that one wellness visit per year too. So if you, you know, wanna use it for your dental, you can use it for your dental as well.
3 (31m 38s): Yeah. Which is a, a cool component
1 (31m 40s): That's really, really cool too. Well I love the care advocate component as well. Just, it's such a kind of foreign concept to be able to just text your, you know, I could imagine, could never imagine just texting my health insurance company and asking simple questions. And that's a really cool component. Andy, this has all been so fascinating and it c I'm so excited to see what happens with Crowd health and I, I think that a lot of our members are gonna be really excited to potentially join the community. So thank you for what you've built here. I think it's really amazing.
3 (32m 12s): Yeah, we, and we, by the way, we gave you a, a promo code, so if, if any of your community wants to go to join crowd health.com, you can use a promo code essential and the first three months is $99 per person per month. So it's almost half of what you would normally pay for, for, for listeners. So yeah, go and use promo code essential.
1 (32m 33s): Thank you. We'll make sure to put that in the show notes to make it easy for everyone. For sure. Well, I wanted to ask before we move on to our closing questions, were were, were there any last words you wanted to share with the community about why you do this or, or what it's all about?
3 (32m 49s): Yeah, I mean I, I, I kind of joke with, with my, my team we're, we're just, we're on a mission, you know, mission to take care of people and really to change the way that we do healthcare. Cuz you kinda look around and I'm sure your, your listeners have tons of, of stories too that they could probably call in and be like, I got, you know, x, y, Z from my health insurance plan. I can't believe it. And so, you know, as a part of our recruiting process, we, we tell people like, look, we want missionaries, not mercenaries. Meaning we want people who are on mission to change healthcare and aren't in this to make a bunch of money. Because I think that that love of money is, is the root of all kinds of craziness in our, our society.
3 (33m 34s): And so you, if you sign up, just know that we're, we're truly on a mission to, to help you and care for you. And our company does really, really well when our members succeed in, in getting their, their bills funded. Cuz you'd imagine the blow back we would get if a member had something big like tubes in their ears and it not getting paid. So we're, we're on your side. We're an ally for you and yeah, we'd love for you to join us if you're interested in, in changing healthcare.
1 (34m 1s): Well, Andy, this has been fabulous and I I really appreciate you spending the time with us here today. Before you go, we always love to ask our guests a couple closing questions. So I'm really curious about this first one for you. Are, are, are there any things you'd say you try to do every day to stay? Well,
3 (34m 20s): Yeah, I mean I, I think I've gone through a journey over the last few years in terms of saying what do my daily rhythms look like that can give me the greatest chance of emotionally, mentally, and physically, you know, having a, a great day. And so some of this is probably just cliche, but you know, I'm up at 5:00 AM every morning. The first 30 minutes of my day is, is in meditation. So if, you know, meditation, prayers, whatever your spiritual background is, like take 30 minutes of silence before you pick up that phone and get all that, you know, blue light into your brain to really wake you up.
3 (35m 1s): Just found that incredibly effective. And then I've really, you know, refocused my efforts on, on moving, moving my body for, you know, another hour of the day. So getting up at five 30 minutes of, of meditation, prayer and another hour of working out really is, is my rhythm for the, for the morning. And, and I'm an early bird so some people can't do that at five, but I also have two kids, so they're up at, at six 30 re ready and rear end to go. So I've, I've gotta fitted in early.
1 (35m 31s): Yeah. Especially as a busy CEO of a, of a startup as well. It's a lot. Yeah. You got a lot going on. Well finally, Andy, what's just one thing that you think everyone needs to ditch completely today and replace with something healthier?
3 (35m 46s): Yeah, can I say ditch health insurance? Yeah, I thought
1 (35m 49s): You might, you
3 (35m 50s): Know, I I, you know, we actually use that as a little bit of a tagline, ditch health insurance because I, I do, you know, it's, i I it's interesting. We've had, I think we're up to six cancer cases thus far and we've had colon and thyroid and cervical and breast and all, I mean a a range of different cancers and every single one of them has a prognosis that is stellar, like probability of, of five year survival being very, very, very high. And for some of those, like especially colon cancer is one where if you don't get it early, you're not gonna get it. I mean it's a, it's a, it's a brutal disease and I man, I I just think our, our members are living your healthier, happier lives as a result of having the freedom to choose when, where, and how you receive your medical care.
3 (36m 44s): And so I know that's a, a crowd health pitch, but it's, it's my passion in life to give people that, that freedom and the opportunity to choose whoever they want for their, for their healthcare. So, and I think people are living healthier as a result of that.
1 (36m 57s): Awesome. Well thank you so much Andy. And, and again, thank you for putting your passion into this venture. You know, I, I'm all about it. I'm like a hundred percent gonna become a member of Crowd Health. I think this is such a
3 (37m 11s): Fantastic Yeah. Come
1 (37m 11s): Join us. Fantastic. Fantastic thing on so many, so many levels. So thanks again and we'll put a link below for that discount code you had mentioned as well. Thank you again for people interested. It's join crowd health.com, promo code essential. Anywhere else you wanna direct people to learn more about you or Crowd health.
3 (37m 34s): Yeah. Join Crowd Health on all the social media platforms. We'd love to have you join us. You know, we do a lot of education there and you know, we want our, our members to be members or even followers just to be most educated on, on their health. Cuz we feel like the medical industrial complex tells you one thing, which is oftentimes not the right thing. So we try to educate our members too through some of our social media program platforms. So would love to have you join us there. Awesome. Join Crowd Health.
1 (38m 5s): Well thank you. We appreciate you so much, Andy. Thanks for spending your time with us here on the essential oil revolution.
3 (38m 11s): Thanks.
1 (38m 12s): The essential oil revolution is created by me, Samantha Lee Wright, thanks so much for tuning in. If you haven't already done so, we would super, super appreciate you leaving us a rating and review. Wherever you are listening, Anne, go ahead and share with a friend. It's the best way to help this show grow. We appreciate it. We'll catch you here next week. In the meantime, keep on learning, keep on discovering, and most importantly, keep on treating yourself well. You are worth it.