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- [00:00]
Courtney Swan
On today's episode of the Real Foodology.
- [00:02]
Andy Schoonover
Podcast, we're trying to build a community of. Of these independent doctors who are typically better than your hospital system doctors, from my perspective.
- [00:10]
Courtney Swan
Yeah.
- [00:11]
Andy Schoonover
To. To allow them to be cash pay as opposed to relying upon United Healthcare and Blue Cross Blue Shield and all these other plans.
- [00:17]
Courtney Swan
Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Real Foodology podcast. I am your host, Courtney Swan, and today's guest is Andy Schoonover of Crowd Health. I was blown away by this whole episode. It is so cool that somebody is finally doing this and tackling big insurance in a community driven crowdfunding approach to health insurance. I'm not going to spend a lot of time in the intro because I really just want you to hear because I went through all of the questions. So this is a crowdfunding approach to health insurance. This is going outside of the traditional health insurance model where traditionally they don't even cover all of that. And then many times people get bankrupted.
- [00:53]
Bethany Cameron
By these kind of situations.
- [00:54]
Courtney Swan
This is your insurance. And you go to your company and you say, hey, you know, I have all these bills and. And then those bills get paid for. And then your. Your monthly bill is significantly cheaper as well. If this is at all confusing for you, don't worry. Once we get into the episode, you're going to completely understand all this. I'm blown away. I want to join now. And if you wait till the very, very end, we actually gave you a code if you want to try it out, you get three months at a discounted rate, which is incredible. So wait till the end. I hope you love the episode and I hope you join me. We'll all be in this amazing community together, taking care of each other's health. It's so freaking cool. I'm so excited. I'm like on cloud nine about this. And if you love the episode, you want to take a moment to rate and review it. Thank you so much. It means so much. It really helps the show. It helps get it out to more people. And if you're loving this episode, if you want to take a moment to tag me ealfoodology on Instagram, I will hopefully see it and repost you. Thank you so much. I hope you enjoy and love the episode.
- [01:51]
Bethany Cameron
Like many of us, I'm eating healthier. And that's why I love good olive oil. And by good, I mean fresh olive oil packs the most flavor and healthiest nutrients when it's fresh from the farm.
- [02:02]
Courtney Swan
And that's the problem with supermarket olive oils.
- [02:04]
Bethany Cameron
They're not fresh, they can sit on the shelf for many months, growing stale. That's why I get my olive oil direct from small, award winning farms, thanks to a fellow named T.J. robinson, also known as the olive oil hunter. When I tasted TJ's farm fresh oils, I fell in love with their vibrant, grassy flavors. They are incredibly delicious on salad, veggies, pasta, meat, fish, you name it. They they also make great gifts. As an introduction to his fresh pressed Olive Oil Club, TJ is willing to send you a full size $39 bottle of one of the world's finest artisanal olive oils fresh from the new harvest for just $1 to help him cover shipping. And there's no commitment to buy anything ever now or ever. Get your free $39 bottle for just $1 shipping and taste the difference. Freshest makes go to getfresh324.com that's getfresh324.com for a free bottle and just pay $1 in shipping.
- [02:59]
Courtney Swan
Andy, thank you so much for coming on.
- [03:00]
Andy Schoonover
Thanks for having me.
- [03:01]
Courtney Swan
Yeah, I'm super excited. So you created something called crowd health, which I'm not even gonna pretend or try to explain what that is. This concept is very new to me, so I would love for you to tell my audience. What, what is that? What do you do?
- [03:14]
Andy Schoonover
Yeah, I'll give you a little bit of background. I think it'll give you some good context. This is actually my second healthcare company, and I swore that I wasn't going to do another healthcare company after the first one just because of the craziness and the complexity of healthcare. And so I sold my previous company and I didn't have health insurance because most of us get health insurance through our employer. And so I went to the only place I thought I could go, which was this Obamacare, you know, healthcare marketplace thing. And so I got a plan for me, my wife, and my two kids. And it was, I think 11 or 1200 bucks a month. And I was like, all right, well, I guess I just have to pay this. And I kind of joke it worked until I had to use it. My little one was having recurring ear infections. And so we went to the ear, nose and throat doctor and he's like, yeah, she's got a hole in her eardrum. And I was like, okay, well, you know, what do we do about this? And he's like, it's no big deal. We just got to put tubes in her ears. And, you know, it's a 15 minute procedure. You know, there's a place in network for your health insurance plan to do it. So no big deal. I was like, great, let's go do it. So it was 15 minutes. We were in and out of there in 45 minutes. And I was like, that was easy. And then I got the bill, and it was $8,000 for 15 minutes.
- [04:20]
Courtney Swan
Honestly, I was gonna think, like, 25.
- [04:22]
Andy Schoonover
I was like, what thousand dollars? That's insane. I was like, okay, this is what health insurance is for. Like, this is the whole point of us having health insurance. And little did I know, a few weeks after that, the health insurance plan was gonna send me a note via snail mail. Funny enough, that was medically unnecessary, so they weren't gonna pay it.
- [04:41]
Courtney Swan
So how could they deem that as medically unnecessary?
- [04:43]
Andy Schoonover
I have no idea. And so we went through two rounds of appeals, and I think my ear, nose, and throat doc was fighting with, like, an ophthalmologist or an optometrist or something, which is doctors who take care of eyes have know nothing about your ears. And they're like, nope, we're not paying for it. So I had to stroke an $8,000 check to get this procedure paid for. As you can probably imagine, I was pissed.
- [05:03]
Courtney Swan
Yeah.
- [05:03]
Andy Schoonover
And so I called. The health insurance plan was like, I quit. I'm done. Like, if you're not guys. If you guys aren't going to pay my bills, I'm not paying your bills. And so we became uninsured. And so I went and told my wife, like, hey, we're uninsured. And she's like, so what do we do now? And over the the following, like, 12 months, I would really try to figure out, like, can we live without health insurance? Is there a viable way of doing this? And little did I know that I could have negotiated that bill with the hospital down probably to $2,000. If you go and pay in cash, it's significantly less than if you were to pay through your health insurance company. And so I was like, I bet you other people would be interested in this too. And so ultimate started another company. Despite the fact that I said I would never get back into healthcare. Here I am again. Yeah, in 2021. So we're four years in, called Crowd health. In essence, what we are is we're a community of people. We have 10,000 people in our community who fund each other's healthcare bills so that I can go and pay for my healthcare directly, as opposed to the doctor getting paid by a health insurance plan. And as a result of that, they don't have any Administrative burden. They don't have to wait to get paid. It's really back between patient and doct. Without health insurance plan and the government and your employer and all these people in between, which it's, you know, I always kind of say you work for whoever pays you. And so the doctor is ultimately paid by the insurance company. So that doctor doesn't work for me. The doctor works for the insurance company.
- [06:32]
Courtney Swan
That's a great point.
- [06:33]
Andy Schoonover
And so if I'm paying the doctor directly now, he's working, he or she is working for me and we can decide what's right for my health as opposed to having all these other intermediaries deciding what we can and cannot do. So that's, you know, crowd health in a, in a, in a nutshell. But I'm happy to kind of go into mechanics.
- [06:51]
Courtney Swan
Oh yeah, I have so many questions about how the mechanics worked. But yeah, I mean, you, what you just brought up. Actually I brought him up right before we started recording. My friend Brigham Bueller, he was actually on the podcast, actually we recorded in the same studio and we had a whole conversation about that, about how essentially how insurance is kind of a scam. And like what you just said, if you had just paid cash and you didn't even tell them that you had insurance, it would have been two grand versus eight grand. I learned this years ago because I didn't have insurance for like two years of my life life because I've always been either self employed or 1099 my whole life. And I will never forget this when I was like 24, maybe like I had just been taken off my parents insurance and I was just, you know, flying solo for like a year. And finally my dad set me down, sat me down and he said, look, I understand, like you're. Because I was already on my health journey and so I'm seeing functional doctors and I'm like, why would I get insurance? They don't even cover it anyways. Right? Like I'm on this preventative health root cause thing. I never go to the doctor. My dad sat me down and he said, look, the reason that you need to get this health insurance is because God forbid you're in a car accident, let's say you have to get life flight, you know, flown out on a, on a life flight. He goes, that would completely bankrupt your mom and I because obviously we would pay for that. We would want to keep you alive or it would bankrupt you, you know, and so that really is what initially made me get insurance. And then, you know, ever since Then like many Americans, I've been on this battle, like, similar to what you just described. I mean, I, I, it took me back to a memory of I went and saw a, an ear doctor. I had like a clog. I mean, I was in that office for four minutes. He literally did a little blowgun, gone, done. Like, I'm out of there in 10 minutes. And similar to you, I get a bill for like $2,000. And I was like, I'm calling them, going, I was there for four minutes.
- [08:38]
Andy Schoonover
What do you mean you blew a.
- [08:39]
Courtney Swan
Little gun in my ear? You didn't even do a procedure. At least yours was like an actual surgery. And so I, yeah, I just, so this is something that I'm super passionate about. And I know Americans are fed up, they're tired of it. There's so much corruption and just scamming going on with insurance. So when our mutual friend Emily reached out to me and said, you've got to talk to him because he's doing something really cool. And it's this concept that I'd never heard of before. So let's get into the meat of it because I'm sure most of my audience is probably like, I don't even understand how this works. So I'm curious, where do we begin? I mean, how many people do you have? And then how does the money actually work as far as using that for insurance?
- [09:18]
Andy Schoonover
Yeah, we have 10,000 people right now in the community, and we've funded about 20,000 bills over the last four years. And those have been from little pediatric visits to, you know, we've had two or three dozen cancer cases. We had a guy shoot himself accidentally. That was bills, almost a million dollars. Can talk more about that if you want, but like, yeah, we've, you know, we've shown that the community is able to fund, you know, bills regardless of, of the size, which is great because that's everybody's first question. Like, yeah, and it's, it's, it's the scenario in which your dad gave you, which is what happens if the big one happens? This is going to bankrupt you. Well, with health insurance, about 200, 000 families every year go bankrupt due to a medical event, even though they have health insurance. So clearly this is not working. I'm thankful that no members have gone bankrupt with crowd health over the last four years as a result of a medical debt. So that's ultimately our mission is to in financial distress if something really big happens. But the mechanics behind how it actually works is if you get hurt, I I'll just use the, the, the, the guy with the gunshot because it's a really interesting story. He was in Montana fishing and he was in bear country. So he had a, a gun in his holster and then he caught a fish, he leaned down, the gun fell out of his. His holster hit a rock perfectly. The bullet went off, the gun went off, bullet went into his calf, out the back of his calf, into his thigh, out the top of his thigh, into his chest and out the back.
- [10:54]
Courtney Swan
Oh my God.
- [10:55]
Andy Schoonover
And he said he looked down, he saw green stuff, which I think is bile coming from his chest. And he was like, I think I'm dead. Because he was two hours from the closest hospital. So we had to get medevacked out. This helicopter landed basically in the middle of a stream to get him out of here and he was in a coma, went into sepsis. So this is almost a million dollar bill. So what happens in that scenario is that he goes to the hospital. Great thing is the hospitals can't treat you differently depending upon what type of insurance or no insurance you have. So that's not to. No, nobody needs to worry about that. They have to take care of you. It's a federal law. He gets all the bills in the mail. He goes to his app, he take a picture, he takes a picture of the bill. We have a negotiations team on the back end who actually negotiate that bill down. So we got that nearly million dollar bill down to somewhere between 200 and 250,000. So then we send that bill to the community of this 10,000 people and saying, hey, somebody in Montana got a gun injury. Are you willing to help? And if they say yes, then money goes from their account to this guy, his name is Michael, his account, and at the end of the day you have all the money in your account to then go and pay this hospital bill directly.
- [12:09]
Courtney Swan
Wow.
- [12:09]
Andy Schoonover
And so we ask every member in the community once a month to help somebody else out in the community. So it's not like we're pelting you with, you know, 10 requests every day. It's once a month and you can decide are you going to give to that person, Are you not going to give to that person?
- [12:23]
Courtney Swan
And then is there a set amount when you agree? Like is it kind of where you're like, hey, we need X amount. So if, if you're willing to pay, you're going to have to pay like 10k or whatever it is or just do they just give whatever they want?
- [12:35]
Andy Schoonover
So for each individual, we, we will only ask you for up to 140 DOL. Oh, wow. So a family of four or more, it's up to $420. So it's somewhere between 140 and 420 that we'll ask you on a. On a monthly basis. The interesting thing is that every month it's. We only ask for what we need. So this month, for example, we're only asking for 85 of the 140. And that means the 55 you get to keep. We're not going to take it from you. We'll never ask you for it. You can do with it whatever you want. But the bills are so low that we only ask for what the community needs. And so if the community does well, you do well. Whereas in the insurance space, if the community does well, the insurance company profits. So it's totally flipping this on its. On its head. And like I said, We've done this 20,000 times over the last four years, and 99.9% of the time that we send these bills to get funded, they get funded. And so you might be like, okay, so what is the 0.1%? The 0.1% is when Michael submits his bill to the community for his gunshot wound. We'll see. Has Michael helped others in the community? So the last 10 times that Michael was asked, has he said yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, or has he said, no, no, no, no, no. Well, as you can probably imagine, the people who are like, yes, yes, yes, you're a good member of the community.
- [13:59]
Courtney Swan
Yes.
- [14:00]
Andy Schoonover
If you said no, no, no, it's like, dude, look, you're asking from us when. When we ask from you, you say no. And so it's kind of a community policing thing that makes this work. And so it is volun whether you're being, you know, generous or not. And so that incentivizes people to be generous to the community.
- [14:21]
Courtney Swan
So is there. And is there a fee also that you're paying every month to go into it, or is that just considered to be your. The fee when you come and ask people to pay?
- [14:30]
Andy Schoonover
Yeah, I mean, the crazy thing about health insurance is that you pay a premium and then they pay all the medical expenses, and the difference is their profit. Yeah, right. And so they actually have an incentive to decline your bills because it's more profit. The way we wanted to do it was, hey, we don't want any incentive to decline or whatever bills. And so you just pay us a subscription fee every month. Okay, so you, as an individual would pay us $55 this is 55amonth. 55 bucks. And that's what we use to pay the bills.
- [15:02]
Courtney Swan
Yeah.
- [15:02]
Andy Schoonover
And then we'll ask you this month on top of that $85 to help somebody else out in the community. So you total would be. What Is that math? 140 bucks this month for you, which is blown away by this half or a third of what you would pay for a health insurance plan.
- [15:20]
Courtney Swan
Well, I was just gonna say I'm paying 420amonth right now just for my individual health insurance. And then I just got a letter in the mail that I'm now is going up to 475amonth. So I'm already paying 475amonth. And then on top of that, we haven't even gone into the fact that in order for a lot of the stuff that, I mean, I barely use it anyways, but like let's say that I needed some treatments or whatever they're actually covered under insur. I have to meet a deductible and then I also have to meet whatever. What's that other one that you have to meet too?
- [15:47]
Andy Schoonover
It ends up being like out of pocket. Out of pocket, maximum.
- [15:50]
Courtney Swan
Yeah. So it ends up being like $7,000.
- [15:52]
Andy Schoonover
That I have to pay or co Insurance. Yeah.
- [15:53]
Courtney Swan
Yes. On top of the 475amonth I'm already paying. And then I'm listening to you saying, well, you could just be paying like 140amonth. And then I'm also helping people in the community get their bills paid off. I mean, this is so incredible. And I was thinking too, what we talked about earlier about where if you were just to go to the hospital and say I don't have insurance, they're just going to bill you like flat what the fee was versus if you say I have insurance, we know that they're stacking on like added fees on there. So that a million dollar bill that that man had for his bullet wound probably would have been, if he built the insurance, probably would have been like $8 million or something like, you know, like multiple millions. Yes.
- [16:30]
Andy Schoonover
I think what you said is important. People need to understand this because you pay a premium every month. What do you say? Is 475 going to be 475 you have a deductible which is what, 2 or 3? It's like 3,000, $3,000. Which means you have to pay $3,000 for the insurance plan to pay a. So you're basically out. What is that $8,000 a year before the insurance Plan pays a dollar, and then on top of that, 3,000. They call it CO insurance. So if you get hit your 3,000 max, then you're responsible for, I think it's like half, 10 or 20%, probably up to the next 7,000. And so there's a really funny kind of meme that went around last year was like, yeah, health insurance is great because I pay a lot of money every month so that when something else happens, I get to pay a lot more money before a health insurance plan will pay anything. And you're like, yeah, this is crazy. But with us, we just ask you to pay the first 500 bucks of a health event. So if you go to the ER, you pay 500 bucks. If you break your arm, it's 500 bucks. And the point behind that was like, not a lot of people have $8,000 or $10,000 or whatever in their bank accounts to do this. And that's why people are going bankrupt.
- [17:38]
Courtney Swan
Yeah.
- [17:39]
Andy Schoonover
Because they don't have the money to pay their deductible. And so on top of that, we, we don't have any networks, so you go to whoever you want. We don't really care if you go to your naturopathic or your holistic or your integrative or whatever. And so we don't have any, any networks that require you to go to like X, Y or z doctor in, in town. You go to the doctor that you want to go to, and we're totally fine with, with that. And even if you have a health event, you can do acupuncture if you want to do acupuncture. You can do chiropractic if you want to do chiropractic. We think that you're the best at taking care of your health. It should be between you and. And so we don't get into any of those decisions between you and your doctor.
- [18:20]
Bethany Cameron
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- [19:25]
Courtney Swan
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- [19:31]
Bethany Cameron
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- [20:41]
Courtney Swan
You deserve it. That's amazing because I was going to ask you about that too. I wanted to bring up another point also just to really reiterate how amazing this is because right now, as someone who doesn't use my insurance hardly ever, I mean there's rarely any times I ever need to use it. It's basically just there for like I said earlier, God forbid something crazy happens. So I'm essentially paying what is it like after everything else, like $8,000 a year for just in case if something crazy happens versus what you just said where if somebody has to go to the ER, they're only paying $500 for that event and that's like, these are most of the time, hopefully for people, are pretty rare events that maybe will happen once or twice in your lifetime.
- [21:23]
Andy Schoonover
Right.
- [21:23]
Courtney Swan
So you're paying maybe 500 a thousand dollars versus $8,000 a year just in case something happens. And then they still deny you.
- [21:31]
Andy Schoonover
Yeah, and they still deny you. And it's still up to them whether or not they're going to pay for it.
- [21:34]
Courtney Swan
It.
- [21:35]
Andy Schoonover
So it's a centralized system that the health insurance plan, which is incentivized not to pay, is deciding whether or not it's going to pay, which is just an absolute crazy system to me.
- [21:46]
Courtney Swan
I mean, it's nuts. So I'm curious, and I'm sure everybody listening is too. Has there ever been a situation where you're just like, oh my God, we have. This is too much. It's too expensive. Like, we're out. Like, has there ever been a situation like that you've always been able to take care of the bills?
- [21:59]
Andy Schoonover
Yeah, always been able to take care of the bills today.
- [22:01]
Courtney Swan
Wow.
- [22:02]
Andy Schoonover
So 100% of the bills submitted by people who have been generous to the community have gotten funded. And again, the only ones that haven't gotten funded. And I don't think there's been any more than any bill greater than $1,000 that hasn't gotten funded. But those are people that are takers and not givers. And so the community decided, not us. The community decided, like, look, you're a taker and not a giver. You're not a good member of the community. We're not interested in helping you with that. So it really is a kind of a community component of that, which is really, really neat. You know, the other thing I would say is one of my favorite part about the community is I know exactly where my money is going now. You know, if. If, you know, Michael got injured because he, you know, had this unfortunate accident fishing in Montana, my money is going directly to Michael, where we don't get into the middle of it. So it's a peer to peer transaction.
- [22:51]
Courtney Swan
Wow.
- [22:51]
Andy Schoonover
And I would rather do that than, you know, sending my money to United Healthcare.
- [22:56]
Courtney Swan
Yeah.
- [22:56]
Andy Schoonover
Every month. And you're like, I actually kind of feel good about helping somebody else out this month. Month. And in fact, we get situations all the time. Our number one expense are babies. We just have lots of babies.
- [23:07]
Courtney Swan
Oh, that's.
- [23:09]
Andy Schoonover
It is. It's fun. And. And unfortunately with that comes miscarriages. And so we send that out to the community. Like, hey, we have a community member who has miscarriages. You know, Will you help them with a hundred bucks? And they're like, man, I know what this family is going through. I know the pain that they're feeling. You know, instead of 100 bucks, can I give 200 bucks? And it's just like, wow. Like, it almost brings you to tears being like, people are actually want to help others in the community as opposed to sending their money to this big mega corporation. And that's a pretty cool, cool component of our. Our community. You know exactly where your money is going and who you're helping.
- [23:43]
Courtney Swan
I mean, that's incredible. And so how does that actually look like? So let's just use Michael as an example with the. The gunshot wound, because it's an easy example. When that happened, was there just a. An email that just got sent out to everybody in the community and just said, hey, look, this is what happened. This is what we're looking for. Like, how do you get that? It's just.
- [24:02]
Andy Schoonover
Yeah, we sent it out to, I think, a couple thousand people to help him. And it's just like, there's like, we. For hippo reasons, we don't say it's Michael. We just say, okay, there's a guy in Montana who had a gunshot wound. Are you willing to help you? Here's how much we're asking. 100 bucks or whatever it was. And then, yeah, you can say yes or no. But I think on that one, you know, 99% of the people said yes. And it's for the. If we have people say no, then we just move on to the next person. So we'll just keep going until it gets funded. So that's how that works.
- [24:33]
Courtney Swan
Wow, this is. So this is blowing my mind right now. And I guess there's nothing really, that. That's too big or too complicated that you guys will cover, because I'm assuming. So let's say somebody in the community gets a cancer diagnosis and they have to do radiation and chemotherapy. Those are notoriously, like, you know, bankrupting situations. So then you guys can pay for all that.
- [24:53]
Andy Schoonover
And yeah, I mean, like I said, we've had somewhere between two and three dozen cancer cases today. You know, we had a member in, I think, in. In Denver who had lymphoma, and her medication was gonna be $40,000 a month. And so we actually went back to the pharmaceutical company and negotiated that down to 2500amonth so we can negotiate with, you know, pharmaceutical companies, too, to get these bills down lower. And so, you know, what I say is the only reason that healthcare is expensive is because of health insurance companies. They're the ones that are making this expensive. It's way less expensive if you pay directly. Often times 70, 80, or 90% less expensive. Because these doctors don't want to deal with health insurance companies. They actually spend two days a week fighting with health insurance companies.
- [25:42]
Courtney Swan
I've heard the story.
- [25:43]
Andy Schoonover
So can you imagine, like, of your five days a week, two of them, you're just fighting your employer. Right. To get paid. Like, nobody would want to do that.
- [25:50]
Courtney Swan
No.
- [25:50]
Andy Schoonover
And. And they just tell them what to do. Do. Like, what if somebody was sitting on your shoulder right now and say, ask this question. Ask this question. Like, you're like, dude, like, this is what I'm good at. Like, let me do my job. And so doctors are so annoyed with health insurance. I kind of joke that, like, the only people who are. Who love crowd health more than the members are the doctors. So we have dozens of doctors, oftentimes per week, reach out to us and are like, can you please have people come our way? Because we want to get away from United Healthcare and we want to, you know, get paid in cash. So we're trying to build a community of. Of these independent doctors who are typ. Better than your hospital system doctors, from my perspective.
- [26:27]
Courtney Swan
Yeah.
- [26:27]
Andy Schoonover
To allow them to be cash pay, as opposed to relying upon UnitedHealthcare and Blue Crossbow Shield and all these other plans.
- [26:34]
Courtney Swan
Well, you brought up a great point. You know, there's a. Thank God. I feel like we're having this kind of revolution in America right now where people are really starting to wake up to the corruptness of Big Insurance, Big Pharma, you know, our healthcare systems. And, you know, unfortunately, in the process, a lot of doctors have been kind of vilified because. And look, you know, rightfully so. And I'm not fully putting it on the doctors, because a lot of this is what they've been trained in. But then they're also shackled by the insurance companies.
- [27:00]
Andy Schoonover
Totally.
- [27:00]
Courtney Swan
But the complaints that so many people have and why they're seeking out root cause, preventative, you know, functional medicine, integrative medicine, is because they will go into their doctor with a slew of symptoms, and their doctor will say, well, the blood work looks great. We're just gonna throw you on this medication, send you out the door, and then that's it. And a lot of them, they've been trained this way, but also, too, they're shackled by. I don't think a lot of people understand how shackled they are by their insurance companies because they have to be able to code everything under specific codes. And if it doesn't have a code for it, they don't really have a way to like, bill. And then they get stuck with the bill or you get stuck with the bill and it's like this whole mess. And basically the insurance companies are telling them, like, you have to, you know, hit your quotas with your vaccines, you have to hit your quotas with your medications and you got to hit these quotas. And they're sitting over there being like, well, I just like, how can I treat my patient bio individually? Because everybody's not the same and I.
- [27:49]
Bethany Cameron
Need to be able to actually like.
- [27:51]
Courtney Swan
Do what I want to do with my patient. But the insurance companies are dictating a lot of that.
- [27:55]
Andy Schoonover
Yeah. And the insurance companies are like pressing the local doctors, these independent doctors a lot. And so they're not making a ton of money.
- [28:04]
Courtney Swan
Yeah.
- [28:04]
Andy Schoonover
And so, you know, I think the average primary care visit's like 10 minutes now. It's eight or 10 minutes, which they have no time to go into root cause. And so they are forced to go the pharmacological route, which is because I want to, you know, address your symptoms and you never get down to what, what is the root cause of what's going on here. And so again, with crowd health, you can go know, to what, whoever you want. We don't really care. And you know, healthcare health insurance companies won't pay for that. You know, extra, extra care, which we think, you know, long run, that's going to save the, the community money.
- [28:40]
Courtney Swan
Oh, for sure, absolutely. You know, and another thing that I heard Brigham say once on a podcast, that really, and I was actually talking about this with my, my parents this morning because I'm trying to get my parents to understand that they need to do more preventative type stuff. My mom's good about it, my dad's been really resistant about it. But, you know, Brigham said we need to start looking at health insurance as we, the same way that we look at car insurance, which is like, it's there for like something catastrophic that happens. It's not gonna pay for, you know, the tire rotations, it's not gonna pay for the oil change. And it's kind of the same model with insurance versus, like, if you wanna go in for getting preventative care, like if you wanna do hyperbaric chamber IVs or, you know, whatever it is. So my question is, since that is the general standard health insurance model now where most of us know, like, if we're going to go See an integrative doctor that's not going to be paid for.
- [29:29]
Andy Schoonover
Right.
- [29:29]
Courtney Swan
How does crowdsource balance the line of that? You know, because for me, let's just say for me, for example, I get a lot of alternative therapies and I'm not like in a catastrophic issue right now. Like, you know, I got an IV two days ago. Is this something that crowdsource or sorry, crowd health or it's called crowd health. What did I think crowdsource crowd health would cover? Or is that more. More just I need to treat it like emergency insurance.
- [29:54]
Andy Schoonover
Yeah. And so kind of two components of that. One is we give you up to 300 bucks a year to you can use on preventative.
- [30:01]
Courtney Swan
Cool.
- [30:02]
Andy Schoonover
And so you can use it for whatever you want that's preventative. So if it has labs, I use it for labs. You know, I get labs a couple times a year. And by the way, labs, if you pay them directly in cash, are wickedly more, less expensive than health insurance. You know, I get labs, you know, a full panel, it's 100 bucks or something like that every, you know, six months. And if I did through health insurance, it would have been 750 bucks. And so that's what I use mine for. So you can use that for anything.
- [30:29]
Courtney Swan
Yeah.
- [30:29]
Andy Schoonover
And then other than that, like if you have a, a health related event, then you're, you're, you're responsible for the first 500 bucks. So anything else under 500 bucks, like Brigham was saying, like car insurance, like we don't pay for oil changes. You know, car insurance doesn't pay for oil changes and windshield wipers and tires and things like, like that, those things can be on you. But what we're trying to do is get. This is so low and less expensive than health insurance, you now have the extra money so that you can decide how to use that as opposed to, you know, a health insurance plan deciding how you can use that. So that's the key is my family saved like $20,000 last year on using crowd health. And so now we have an extra $20,000 to go and spend it on, you know, if I want to do hyperbaric chambers or I want to do, you know, know, I don't know what else is out there, but like those types of things, like, yeah, go for it. You can use that. You know, that's, that's not, you know, eligible for funding from the community, but you can use that.
- [31:27]
Courtney Swan
Yeah.
- [31:27]
Andy Schoonover
And if you have a health event that you think a health hyperbaric changer could help then that is a part eligible.
- [31:35]
Courtney Swan
That's what I would assume.
- [31:36]
Andy Schoonover
So it's more like maintenance is you big health event the community will help you with.
- [31:40]
Courtney Swan
Yeah.
- [31:41]
Andy Schoonover
And then within that kind of health event, you should go and do what you want to, to, to treat your, your condition because you know your body better than we do and there's, you know, we don't, we don't fight too, too much on that.
- [31:55]
Courtney Swan
As you all know, I am currently on a fertility journey as I'm hoping to be pregnant by the end of this year. So aging is something that has really been on my mind recently and I wanted to talk about this supplement that I really love from Qualia called Cenolytic. It's the first of its kind formula designed to help your body naturally eliminate eliminate senescent cells, otherwise known as zombie cells. And if you want to learn more about this, if any of this intrigues you, I highly recommend going back and listening to the podcast that I did with Greg from Qualia where we talk all about these senescent cells. But I believe one of the best aging breakthroughs of the last decade is Qualia Senolytic and here's why. It is at the frontier of what is currently possible in the science of human aging. Senolytics are a science field revolutionizing human aging. A big culprit behind that middle aged feeling can be senescent cells, AKA the zombie cells that I was talking about.
- [32:42]
Bethany Cameron
That linger in your body body after.
- [32:43]
Courtney Swan
Their useful function, wasting your energy and resources. Essentially the accumulation of these zombie cells can lead to less energy, slower workout recovery, joint discomfort and basically just feeling old.
- [32:54]
Bethany Cameron
Here's how it works.
- [32:55]
Courtney Swan
You take it just two days a month. I don't know about y', all, but I have supplement fatigue right now. So only having to take them two days a month just helps me immensely. And when you take this, it helps your body naturally eliminate zombie cells to age better at the cellular level level. And Qualia's breakthrough formulation is vegan, non GMO and tested by leading scientists to experience the science of feeling younger. Go to qualialife.com real foodology for up to 50 off your purchase and use code Real Foodology for an additional 15 off. That's Q-U-A l I a life.com real foodology for an extra 15 off your purchase. Your older self will thank you and thanks to Qualia for sponsoring this episode. Episode One of my absolute favorite cooking.
- [33:39]
Bethany Cameron
Fats is beef tallow and the one that I trust is from Lineage Provisions. Their tallow is wet rendered at low temperatures, which keeps all the good stuff intact. And it has a clean, buttery flavor that's nothing like the burnt or waxy stuff in most store bought versions. We use it constantly. Roasted potatoes, fried eggs, sauteed veggies, steak eat even salmon. It's seriously one of the most versatile and nourishing fats in my kitchen. Lineage doesn't cut any corners. Their tallow is triple filtered, shelf stable and totally free from weird additives. They also lab tested their tallow against conventional brands and they found huge differences over three times more omega 3s, 60% less omega 6s, which is huge. These are the fats that cause inflammation when we consume too much of them. Higher CLA plus rare fats, fats like C15 and C17 linked to longevity, metabolic health and reduced inflammation. And here's why. Their cows are pastured their entire lives. Not just grass fed, but truly regenerative. It's the best possible life for the animal and it creates the best possible fat for your body. Go to lineage provisions.com and use the code real foodology for 10% off. I can't wait for you guys to become hooked like I am. Use code real foodology for 10% off.
- [34:58]
Courtney Swan
I mean this is so cool. So I'm trying to think of all the different things that people utilize insurance for and I want to talk this through so people can really get an understanding. So let's. You brought up a prescription drug that a cancer patient needed. So let's say somebody's on prescription meds that they have to get every single month. Do they just go and pay that directly through the pharmacy and then they give you a bill back or how does that work?
- [35:19]
Andy Schoonover
And we have access to really inexpensive meds. So you can use, you know, our little card that we can use or you can go to good Rx, which is pretty good too. But we, we. And if they're really expensive, then we can find you these meds at a much lower price. But yeah, you just go, you pay for them. You go to our little app, you take a picture of the receipt and then we'll get it funded through the community. And you have the money then for that med. We averaged about seven days in Q1, so seven days later that money will show up in your bank account and you know you're good to go. So you do have to float the little stuff for a week, which is not that big of a deal, any of the big stuff. So let's just say you, you know, you're Playing pickleball and you tear your ACL and it's $15,000 surgery. We can fund that up front so that you don't have to front the money to get that procedure done. But then you'd have $15,000 to pay the orthopedic surgeon when you show up. And now that orthopedic surgeon is going to give you a huge discount because he or she's getting paid immediately and.
- [36:23]
Courtney Swan
Doesn'T have to fight with insurance.
- [36:24]
Andy Schoonover
They don't have to fight for it. So yeah, we had a woman who, who had that exact situation where she tore her acl, went to the hospital, the hospital tried to get their orthopedic surgeon to do it. I think it was $24,000. She calls us. We know a great orthopedic surgeon in town who is great, wants cash. He does a lot of the joints work for UT athletics, University of Texas athletics. So we know he's good. And he did it for like $11,000 dollars. So that's more than a 50 discount because he's getting paid at the point of care and doesn't have to fight and get it six months later and all this kind of crazy stuff.
- [37:02]
Courtney Swan
That's so amazing. That was something else I was going to ask you because obviously you don't have like in and out of networks or whatever, but do you if somebody comes to you and says, hey, I mean, you know, I have to get an ACL surgery or I'm dealing with cancer. Do you guys have any sort of network of doctors that you can send people to or, or.
- [37:18]
Andy Schoonover
Yeah, it's not a network, it's just we have a database. I think we're up to like 30,000 doctors or something like that in our database now. And we know whether they're cash pay friendly or not, whether they have big, big discounts with cash and things like that. So we've got this database. So in most, you know, major metropolitan areas and most secondary, you know, suburban areas and things like that, we, we have great doctors in your, your area. Not that you have to go to them, but if you call us, we've got this database. We were like, we've got a great doctor who'll give you a great price, you know, so just as high or maybe prob. Likely higher quality than the doctor you would go to through the hospital system.
- [37:53]
Courtney Swan
Yeah.
- [37:54]
Andy Schoonover
And a much lower price. Just call us and we'll help you do that. For, you know, I unfortunately, you know, had to go get a colonoscopy and I was looking around on my own, I couldn't find anything for under $4,000. And then I, you know, said. I was like, who do we have in our database? And it was like $800. And wow. Same same guy, you know, GI. Same everything. It's just, you know, if you pay in cash, it's 800 bucks, as opposed to going through. Through health insurance insurance. So the really cool thing about it, too, and one of the things I hated about my health insurance experience was that every time I called them, I was stuck in some call center. You know, it was like in India or somewhere, you know, trying to explain to them what was going on with my healthcare. And they're like, oh, we're the wrong, you know, department. You have to call this department and you have to wait on the line for 20 minutes and then call this department. You're like, I hate this. And so at crowd health, you actually are assigned a care advocate when you sign up. So you have one person internal who will walk you through it. So whatever's going on in life, you can call that person and you don't have to get bounced from person to person. It's like that person is responsible for you. So you don't have to call into a call center. You actually can schedule a call with her or him or her. And like, hey, you know, let's get 30 minutes so I can walk through what I'm going through. And they can help you navigate all of that.
- [39:09]
Courtney Swan
I mean, just all of this. This is blowing my mind. This is so amazing. I'm just thinking I'm. I have all these memories, just these horrible situations I've had with. With my healthcare, you know, and then everybody dreads calling their healthcare because it's. It usually takes me 30 minutes to somebody on the phone and through a.
- [39:24]
Andy Schoonover
Phone tree, press one. If there's two, you're like.
- [39:27]
Courtney Swan
And then I finally get them on the phone, and then they can't help me, and they have to transfer me to another department. And like, it's like an hour later when I finally. And then you finally get them on the phone, and more than half the time they can't even tell you if they can cover you or not. Yeah, I had a situation, like, years and years and years ago that I got a copper IUD and I. I had to call, like, four days in a row because it was the same thing. They'd, like, they transfer me to someone else, and then they'd get somebody else on the phone, and nobody could ever tell me if they were even going to Cover it? Yeah, like they just, I would finally get somebody on the phone, they'd be like, well, I don't know, we'll see. Like they just be like, well, we'll see. Like go get it. And then I went and got it and then I got a bill for $800 afterwards and was like, okay. First of all, I wasted hours on the phone trying to even see if they would cover it in the first place and they couldn't even give me a definitive answer. And I can't tell you how many times that's happened to me where a doctor's office won't even be able to tell me if they can cover something because they're like, well, your insurance is like telling us. They're like not sure. They basically have like told my providers like several times that I have to wait until after I get this thing, whatever it is, done and then they'll tell me what I owe.
- [40:28]
Andy Schoonover
Yeah, it's insanity fact. It's like, hey, here's, here's your new car. And by the way, we're not going to tell you what the, what the price of the car is until afterwards. You know, you're like, what the hell? And then you get the bill in the mail. These explanation of benefits.
- [40:40]
Courtney Swan
Oh yeah.
- [40:40]
Andy Schoonover
And you're like, this makes no sense. Like the math doesn't even add up.
- [40:44]
Courtney Swan
No, it just, it's such a, it's honestly a scam.
- [40:46]
Andy Schoonover
Yeah. And the reason why, honestly is because health care is a business to business transaction action. It's between hospitals and insurance companies. And so you're just the product of that. You know, if you're not paying for the product, you are the product. So we are just products in this healthcare system. We think we're patients, that everybody's really cares about us. It's like, no, no, no. Like this is, this is a business to business transaction. That's why all the UI that you see, UX is terrible because they're like, they, we don't even care that you know what's going on. And in fact it's better for the insurance companies in the hospitals that you have no idea what's going on.
- [41:21]
Courtney Swan
Yeah.
- [41:22]
Andy Schoonover
Because you're like, there's nothing I can really do about it. I guess I just have to pay it.
- [41:25]
Courtney Swan
Right, Exactly.
- [41:26]
Andy Schoonover
And so I'm like, that's just, it's B.S. it really. Yes. So if Apple or whatever was running the healthcare system, the UN user interface would be way, way better. Direct to consumer relationship where the consumer can leave if they're not happy. Whereas in insurance you can't even leave if you're not happy. And many times you have to just stick with it until the end of the year because there's no other place to go. Go with crowd health, start today, start next week and the following week. I mean you can start and stop whenever you want to. So we don't have these open enrollments or anything like that. So it's, it's great.
- [41:59]
Courtney Swan
This is so cool. So is there, how do you kind of safeguard, do you have any safeguards in place that prevent any sort of like abuse or overuse? Is there, what do you guys do about that?
- [42:09]
Andy Schoonover
Yeah, there's a couple policies that we have that we've kind of learned over the last four years are valuable. Um, you know, we'll let anybody in the community accept people who are obese smokers.
- [42:21]
Courtney Swan
What do you guys classify as obese?
- [42:23]
Andy Schoonover
It's a BMI thing, so I think it's kind of widely accepted bmi. So if you're obese, we, we, we give a little bit of leniency to people, but it's like if you are obese, that's, you know, you need to work on that before you're doing this. Smokers. So if you're a smoker, that doesn't work for us. And then, then for regulatory reasons over the age of 65 we can't do yet. Just because you're on Medicare population and there's some weird federal laws that don't allow us to do that, you know, otherwise you're good. The only other rule that we have, and we learned this kind of early, is that we don't want people to given you can jump in and jump out whenever you want. What we really don't want is people jumping in, getting replacement and then leave, leaving. And so you've got to be a member. If you have any pre existing stuff, you got to be a member for two years before you can share that with the community. So you know, some people don't like that, but it's the only way we could figure out like how there's not a perverse incentive to go in and do it, then jump out. Like we really want to build a community and to be a part of the community, you gotta, you know, have a little bit of an initiation into the community. So that's just for pre existing conditions. And so we actually have a lot of people join us with type 1 diabetes. And what they told me and I had these conversations, I was like, why are you here with type 1 diabetes. They're like, I'm saving so much money every year that I can. And I know you guys can find me insulin and, you know, all the products way less expensive, that it just makes sense for me. You know, I'm still saving tons of money even though I have to pay for my insulin and my supplies. So, like, it's not like we don't want them to join, and it's just, hey, if you join, just know if you have a preexisting condition, then you own that for the first two years, and then after that, the community will help you out. So those are the only little things that we have that may not make it great for everybody, but for the vast majority of people, it works great.
- [44:19]
Courtney Swan
I mean, that's great. And that was kind of. Yeah, that was a concern that I had. But I think that, you know, as someone who I'm so interested in joining, that makes me feel better because. And that makes sense to me like, that. Yeah, if you. They. You need to make sure that they don't bounce and get all their money or take all the money. So that makes perfect sense.
- [44:36]
Andy Schoonover
The only other thing that. That's a little weird rule is, you know, pregnancies are a little bit different. So if you. You have to join and then get pregnant to. To have that pregnancy eligible. So that's the one, you know, weird one. And then. Then. But we do allow.
- [44:57]
Courtney Swan
Ask you about that.
- [44:58]
Andy Schoonover
Pretty much anything for pregnancy. So a crazy, crazy fact is, and I'll ask you if you have any ideas on this, but do you have any idea how many babies. What percentage of babies are born at home in the United States every year?
- [45:13]
Courtney Swan
I know that it's going up. It's. I don't know. I actually don't know.
- [45:18]
Andy Schoonover
It's 1.6%.
- [45:20]
Courtney Swan
Really?
- [45:20]
Andy Schoonover
It's that low? Well, in March, I haven't looked for April yet, but for March, more than 50% of our babies at Crowd Health were born at home.
- [45:29]
Courtney Swan
Oh, my God. That's awesome. See, that's what I want to do.
- [45:31]
Andy Schoonover
It's. It's a. It's a. We have a group of people who just, like, want nothing to do with the kind of allopathic system and want to do it on their own and treat this as just a biological thing as opposed to a medical treatment.
- [45:43]
Courtney Swan
Yeah.
- [45:44]
Andy Schoonover
And don't want, you know, the hospital forcing them to get, you know, the vaccine at 20 minutes into their life, you know, and all these things. And so we've just got a group of people who are Just, I don't want to be a part of that. I don't want to be a part of the system. I want to be outside of the system. And so we do really, really well with people who want to be outside, remove themselves from the system, and we've kind of built a little parallel system that works, from my perspective, way better than, than the existing system.
- [46:10]
Courtney Swan
Yeah. This is epic. I'm glad that you brought. Brought up pregnancy because that is something I hope to be pregnant by by the end of this year. I'm getting married in June, going on my. Honey. Um, really hope I don't get pregnant before, before I get married because I'm trying to fit in my wedding dress. Um, but at this point, I, I feel like I'm. I've. I'm past that window and I'm good. But. Yeah, so that would be my question is like, let's say I wanted to join in the next couple months and then, I mean, hopefully I'm pregnant by like, August. Like, would that be something that would be okay or that go into that preexisting.
- [46:40]
Andy Schoonover
No. I mean, as long as you are, you know, so the way we look at it is we don't want to fight with you over when you, you know, had that moment.
- [46:49]
Courtney Swan
Yeah, yeah.
- [46:49]
Andy Schoonover
Of conception. So the way they're like, when did you exactly prove it to me? Like, those are awkward conversations. And so, you know, we asked that if your due date is under 300 days from when you start, which is basically your pregnancy time plus a couple weeks, that those are not eligible. So your due date just has to be 300 days away. So if you are. Think you're going to get pregnant in the next three or four months. Months, like join now because when you do, then you'll be totally fine. And the only reason we put on that extra two weeks is, again, I don't want to fight with you over, you know, of course, the time.
- [47:24]
Courtney Swan
And, and you don't want somebody coming in and taking advantage.
- [47:27]
Andy Schoonover
Exactly.
- [47:27]
Courtney Swan
Which this, I love this because it. All of this safeguards the community in general and helps everybody.
- [47:32]
Andy Schoonover
We're not trying to keep people out. What we're trying to do is not have these perverse incentives where people just jump it, jump in to take advantage of, of the community. So that's our primary goal. Like I said, our number one expense is babies. So, like, it's not like we're not trying to have babies. It's like we love funding babies. Babies is number one and active injuries is number two. So, you know, Our money, that's where most of our 75 of our dollars are going to, is those two things, which is like, I love funding babies. I love funding people who are out and doing stuff and being active and just have a mountain biking face plant or something bad happens. Like, I get that.
- [48:09]
Courtney Swan
Yeah.
- [48:09]
Andy Schoonover
I just looked at insurance yesterday because one of my members asked. 70% of your dollars with insurance is going to chronic conditions.
- [48:16]
Courtney Swan
Oh.
- [48:17]
Andy Schoonover
So these are, these are. And as we know, I, I know, you know, like the vast majority of these chronic conditions are because of lifestyle issues.
- [48:25]
Courtney Swan
Yeah.
- [48:26]
Andy Schoonover
So I don't really want to pay for people who've made bad decision decisions over 20 or 30 years and now they're expecting somebody else to pay for their chronic conditions. We got a group of people, our average age is 34 who take care of themselves. They don't have chronic conditions. And a neat component of this too is we actually give discounts to crowd health. If you have visceral fat levels in the bottom 25% or you have a fasting insulin, I think it's below 5 or 5, 5 or something like that. So we're actually trying to incentivize people to be metabolically healthy and you get, you know, up to a 20 discount if you, you know, have visceral fat and insulin. Fasting insulin levels that are metabolically healthy. And you can't do that with health insurance.
- [49:09]
Courtney Swan
Oh, no, know, I mean, I just, like I just said earlier, my, I just got a letter that my insurance is going up again. And I talk about this every time I get those letters. It makes me so mad because I'm over here, you know, paying and doing all this stuff for preventative root cause. And I, I exercise every day, you know, I get good sleep, I buy all organic food. I'm putting so much of my money and effort and time into really taking care of my health. And it quite frankly pisses me off that I'm, I'm over here paying for somebody that should be, you know, eating McDonald's and should be.
- [49:38]
Andy Schoonover
Yeah.
- [49:38]
Courtney Swan
Not taking care of their health at all.
- [49:40]
Andy Schoonover
Yeah. 25% are going to diabetes alone.
- [49:43]
Courtney Swan
Oh, God, it's just mad.
- [49:44]
Andy Schoonover
So, you know, and the vast majority of that is type two, and type two is a lifestyle issue.
- [49:49]
Courtney Swan
100% lifestyle preventative. Like, no question.
- [49:52]
Andy Schoonover
You can, you can, you can, you can change if you just start. I'm a carnivore, so I, I, I just eat meat, so my fiance's on.
- [49:59]
Courtney Swan
That right now too.
- [50:00]
Andy Schoonover
Yeah, it's great. I feel great. And you Know, if you just put somebody on a carnivore diet with diabetes, like, their type 2 would go away in weeks. Literally weeks.
- [50:09]
Courtney Swan
I actually was just on a panel with a doctor a couple days ago, and he's so amazing. He's just awesome. I'm gonna have him on the podcast at some point too. And he told the crowd that he had one diabetic patient in particular that came to mind, that he was able to reverse it in three weeks.
- [50:24]
Andy Schoonover
Yeah.
- [50:24]
Courtney Swan
And this person had it for like, seven years.
- [50:26]
Andy Schoonover
Yeah. Dr. Sean Baker is the one that I watched and followed.
- [50:28]
Courtney Swan
He's so great.
- [50:29]
Andy Schoonover
Awesome. And he says, look, six to eight weeks, most of these people can reverse this. And, you know, three weeks is incredible, but it's. You can do it. So you just got to make that. Those hard decisions. Yeah, And I don't want to. I want to help people who make those hard decisions and make the right decision. I don't particularly want to subsidize people who make the wrong decision over and over and over again. And that's what you're doing with, with. With health insurance. I always tell my people, like, it's one thing if I can get prices down, like, that's a. That's a win. But, man, if you can get prices down and get your people to be more healthy, healthy, like, that's like gold, right? Because I wanna. I wanna my members to be 80 years old and play, you know, playing wiffle ball in the backyard with their grandkids. Like, that, to me, is thriving. And so how do we build a community that incentivizes thriving not just today, but 30 or 40 years from now when it really starts kicking in? So that's my kind of big vision. And we're, you know, taking steps to get there, but that's ultimately where we all to go.
- [51:30]
Courtney Swan
That's so amazing. And I love those incentives because I can imagine somebody, you know, maybe somebody listening that's like, oh, I'd love to join that, but I don't hit all of those markers right now. And it's an incentive for them to get healthier so that they can join. It's really cool.
- [51:43]
Andy Schoonover
Well, we've had people who were obese, and they wrote me and they're like, look, Andy, I'm telling you, on X, they wrote me, you know, DM me. It's like, I'm too. I'm overweight right now, but I want to be a part of this community. And he sent me a picture of him like it was six or nine months later, of him and his wife at the end of a triathlete triathlon and that they had just done and, and he had just became a member because he had lost the weight, he had made the lifestyle changes, he started working out and he, and it was clearly that was the incentive to, to be a member of our community. I was like, that's pretty awesome. That's pretty cool. So we need to figure out a way to incentivize, you know, if you're a driver, right, like, and you want to go get car insurance, you plug something into your car or you have an app or whatever and it'll tell you if you're a good driver or not, you get better rates if you're a good driver, you get worse rates if you're a bad driver. That doesn't happen in health insurance. It's actually illegal. You can't do that with health insurance.
- [52:33]
Courtney Swan
Really?
- [52:33]
Andy Schoonover
Yeah, you can't.
- [52:34]
Courtney Swan
Wow.
- [52:35]
Andy Schoonover
You stratify people based upon their lifestyle. Everybody's got to pay the same. So with us, we're not health insurance. And so we can do some more things that incentivize people to get healthier. And I think that's the way.
- [52:48]
Courtney Swan
Absolutely. I should not be paying the same when I'm doing all this. And I'm, I'm in, in a, in the best way, but like fighting to like take care of my health and somebody that's not at all like, I'm sorry, but it's not fair. Like they should, shouldn't, they should be paying more than me.
- [53:02]
Andy Schoonover
Well, what it is, it's, it's welfare, not health care.
- [53:05]
Courtney Swan
Yeah.
- [53:05]
Andy Schoonover
In essence what you're doing is you're giving to people who need help because they've made really bad decisions. That's welfare, not healthcare. And so what I think we need to do is healthcare, which is a group of people who are like, yeah, I'm on, I'm on board with this. I'm, I'm going to take care of my, my, my body and you know, I want to be a part of that community.
- [53:24]
Courtney Swan
Me too. So I'm assuming, because it sounds like it, this is a very healthy, like minded group of people, but let's just say somebody in your community that's already in and had hit the stipulations initially and then maybe they gained a bunch of weight. How do you guys handle that?
- [53:39]
Andy Schoonover
Yeah, I mean the, the thing that happens when you have a big health event before we send it to the community, we will pull your medical records to make sure one, it wasn't A pre existing condition, and then two, we'll see. Like, were you actually a smoker? Were you actually bigger, you know, larger than you said you were? And if you're not, then those bills aren't eligible because you're not following the rules of the community. We also ask you every year to update your, Your weight and your status and things like that. And so if you lie, then, you know, you'll. We'll find out. So don't lie.
- [54:12]
Courtney Swan
Yeah.
- [54:12]
Andy Schoonover
And so, you know, are there some people that probably slipped through the cracks? Probably. It's not perfect, but I would say, you know, 95 of people are, you know, following the rules. And, and, and the worst thing for them is why would you pay all this money and then have a health event in which we find out you actually have been lying and that health event's not eligible? Like, why would you do that? That doesn't make a lot of sense.
- [54:33]
Courtney Swan
No.
- [54:34]
Andy Schoonover
You know, so we'll find out.
- [54:36]
Courtney Swan
Lying. It's, you know.
- [54:37]
Andy Schoonover
Yeah.
- [54:37]
Courtney Swan
Bad. It's lying. So I'm curious about more about the pregnancy stuff because you said you guys have a lot of babies and you said you have a lot of home births.
- [54:45]
Andy Schoonover
Yeah.
- [54:46]
Courtney Swan
So you guys will pay for all of that, right? Like, if I wanted to get a midwife and a doula and I want to do a home birth and all.
- [54:52]
Andy Schoonover
Of that community, the community will, Will fund those, Those births. And like I said, the majority of our births are that you can have a doula, you can have a midwife. The supplies, like all that stuff is, Is eligible for, for funding. So, yeah, that's a part of it.
- [55:07]
Courtney Swan
God, I wish my, My fiance is actually on this trip with me right now, and he's been sitting in on all my podcasts, but his parents got in yesterday and so he didn't sit in for this one. And I wish he was here because I, I am about to go back.
- [55:19]
Andy Schoonover
To him and be like, okay, you watch it later.
- [55:21]
Courtney Swan
I know. It's just so hard later to get him to listen to stuff when I'm like, you know, hounding him. He will, he'll listen to it.
- [55:27]
Andy Schoonover
But, But I'm like, he can call me if he has any questions. I'll personally answer his questions for, because love to have you on board. That'd be fun.
- [55:33]
Courtney Swan
I would love it. I'm so sold. And so now I'm about to go. I'm actually, I'm about to go back to my parents, his parents and him, and just be like, guys, yeah, we're. We're on board. We got to get on this. Although our parents wouldn't be eligible, but this is such a cool program. Wow. I'm trying to think. I mean, I pretty much got through all of my questions. Oh, actually, my fiance will love this. I think I saw something about do you guys take bitcoin or do you incorporate it?
- [55:59]
Andy Schoonover
We have a huge group of bitcoiners. So like some said, our. Our community is really fun and interesting because it's a lot of people who want to exit the system, right. And so it's exit the food system. So we have a lot of carnivores exit the kind of the allopathic, you know, healthc care system. So we have a lot of people who are naturopathic and, you know, integrative and all that kind of stuff. And then we have a lot of people who want to exit the monetary system. And so we have a lot of bitcoiners. There's probably 20 or 25% of our. Our community is bitcoiners. And what so that allows them to do do is as I mentioned earlier, the max will ask is 140, but this month we're only asking 55. And so what our bitcoiners do is they actually submit all 140, but the 55 gets converted to bitcoin. And so they almost have like their little bitcoin HSA that's hanging out there that they can use and they don't have to use it for healthcare. And it's not like a real hsa, but it's kind of like this little pile of stash of bitcoin that they can have on the. On the side that. That they. They can stack. And so we just, we. We do it because we love. We love bitcoiners and they're a huge part of our community and. And so we allow them to do that.
- [57:08]
Courtney Swan
That's so smart. Y. Wow, this is so cool. Well, is there anything else that we haven't covered as far as crowd health goes that you think is important for people to hear?
- [57:18]
Andy Schoonover
No, I think questions were great or right on. I think we got. We got most of it. You know, if people have questions, we actually have people who can talk to you. You know, you can go to joincrowdhealth.com@the very bottom of the page. There's. You just pick a. Pick a time that you can talk to us and walk you through any questions and things like that. But yeah, join CrowdHealth.com we'd love for you to join us.
- [57:39]
Courtney Swan
Okay. I actually do have one more thing I want to bring up because, you know, there's these stories that we tell us, we tell ourselves, and all of us have been so trained, like, you need health insurance in case of an emergency. Like, you know, you're. You're fucked without a health insurance. So there's a story in my brain right now where I'm super, super excited about joining crowd health, but I'm also admittedly, a little bit nervous. Like, oh my God, I'm gonna let go of my. My normal health insurance. What would you say to somebody like that?
- [58:05]
Andy Schoonover
Yeah, you've been conditioned, we've all been psyoped in a way to think that health insurance is the way it's not too different from, you know, we've all been conditioned to think that if we have high cholesterol, we have to have statins. Yeah, we've all conditioned to think that if you don't go to your regular run of the mill doctor doctor, then, you know, you're doing and you're going to this wackadoodle, functional person. Right. Like, I think the people who really like crowd health are the ones that, like, look, the narrative I've been told for my whole life is not true. Like, let's use some, some cognitive ability here to figure out what is true and what's not as true. And look, fear, you know, is like baseline on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? Like the fearful response. And so I totally get that, you know, but all I can say say is, you know, we've done millions and millions and millions of bills, 20,000 of them, and they've all worked. And how is health insurance working for you? Like, do you. Are you fearful when you have a big health event that your health insurance is actually going to pay for it? Yeah, I think most people are. And in fact, you know, one in five medical bills are denied by your health insurance company. So you got a one in five chance. I, unfortunately, was the one. And I, I've been fortunate. I have the $8,000 to pay it. I would be more scared, scared being on health insurance than I am with, with crowd health. I don't have health insurance. I just have crowd health. You know, it's when somebody gets worried, gets hurt. What do they say? They're like, now I got to go fight my health insurance company to get this paid. Whereas crowd health is like, hey, you and I, we're going to go into battle with each other as allies to fight this system so that you don't have to Pay that egregious bill. Right. And so I think it's just getting over that hurdle and also recognizing that we've been conditioned for a long, long time with just falsities. And I think fortunately our culture is getting to this place. Like, we just got through Covid. Like, if you can't, you know, acknowledge that the, the, the system has told us one thing that wasn't true. If you can't get past that, then you're probably not right for crowd health. Like, you know, it's just. And that's okay. Like continue with health insurance.
- [60:14]
Courtney Swan
Exactly.
- [60:14]
Andy Schoonover
But if you can look at things like that and be like, no, like the government who's supposed to be there to protect, protect us, are not actually doing that. We've been told lies. And so I think health insurance, from my perspective, falls into that. It's just a lie that's like it's going to be there when you need it, when in reality it's not. If you look at the data, it's just not oftentimes there when you need it. So that would be my response. And that's why I started the company, because I was that person. I thought they were going to be there. They didn't show up.
- [60:44]
Courtney Swan
Wow. Yeah. Wow. Well, thank you so much for creating this and I just want you to give the opportunity one more time to tell people where to go and where.
- [60:50]
Andy Schoonover
They can find it on all the social media platforms. X and Instagram are kind of our biggest is Join Crowd Health. So we'd love for you to join us there. We give you total transparency about what's going on with the organization. You'll see all the bills that we got from the community and who, how they were funded. You know, we give you all the data that you want to, to see because we think transparency is the best. Instagram too, we give you all that stuff. So, Jo, joincrowdhealth.com is, is the website, but Join Crowd Health is our, our handle on all social media platforms.
- [61:22]
Courtney Swan
And Andy actually has a fun code for you guys if you want to go and join crowd health. How can they do that?
- [61:26]
Andy Schoonover
Yeah, join CrowdHealth.com and then use the code Real Foodology and you will get 99 bucks a month for the first three months. So that's about 40 to 60% off depending upon, you know, who you are. And so, and again, you can join whenever you want. You can leave whenever you want. And so it's 99 bucks. Give it a try and if you like it, stick around. If you don't it was 99 bucks. But I could say vast majority of people really love this and you can go check out our reviews too. Like go to Google and just type in crowd health reviews and you will see. You know most reviews are like it was great. We have people who have paragraphs and paragraphs and paragraphs about how we walked with them through. You know, we had, we had a member who lost their baby right after she was born and so we walked through her like that. We gave her, sent her gift packages and things like that. Just really love her. Well and so I think you'll see the love for our members, you know, in some of those reviews. So go check those out as well.
- [62:23]
Courtney Swan
Yeah, so go check that out. Use the code join. We can be all in a community together of taking care of each other.
- [62:29]
Andy Schoonover
We'd love that.
- [62:29]
Courtney Swan
Really cool. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to the Real Foodology Podcast. This is a Wellness Loud production produced by Drake Peterson and mixed by Mike Fry. Theme song is by Georgie. You can watch the full video version of this podcast inside of the Spotify app or on YouTube. As always, you can leave us a voicemail by clicking the link in our bio. And if you like this episode, please rate and review on your podcast app. For more shows by my team, go to wellnessloud.com See you next time. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first.
- [63:10]
Bethany Cameron
If you struggle with bloating, gas, constipation, digestive issues, yeast overgrowth, well, you may already know about Digest this. It's the podcast hosted by me, Bethany Cameron, also known as Little Sipper on Instagram. I dive into gut health, nutrition, the food industry, and drawing from my own experience, I break down what's good, what's bad, and what's the best best for your gut, your skin, and so much more. I even offer gut friendly recipes. New episodes every Monday and Wednesday. Produced by Wellness Loud.