#1103 Cold Wind: Healthcare Whistleblower, H.R. and Insurance Professional

January 10, 2024Scott Benner

"Anonymous female" is a former Human Resources professional and current Insurance company employee. Her voice and name have been changed to protect her identity.

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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, welcome to episode 1103 of the Juicebox Podcast.

I'm back today with my second installment of the cold wind series. On today's show, we'll be calling our guests, Laura. She is on the show today because she has worked in human resources and in private insurance 23 plus years in human resources, and she has seen some. Now Laura works in insurance where she's also seen some if this one doesn't kill you right down to your you know what's nothing's going to. Please don't forget that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan are becoming bold with insulin. When you place your first order for ag one with my link, you'll get five free travel packs and a free year supply of vitamin D. Drink ag one.com/juice box. Don't forget to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com All you have to do is use the offer code juice box at checkout that's juice box at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com.

This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by us med U S med.com/juice box or call 888721151 for us med is where my daughter gets her diabetes supplies from and you could to use the link or number to get your free benefit check and get started today with us met this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Learn more and get started today at contour next one.com/juice box.

"Laura" 2:11
My name is Laura. I have two type one children for the past like 23 for 23 years, I worked on the benefit side of it from HR standpoint, like for your company. And then the last like year and a half or so I made the change to work at the actual insurance company.

Scott Benner 2:33
You work for those people. Yeah. You have two sons. Yep. They both have type one. So this is all within the last four years for you. Yes. Okay. Do you have type one?

"Laura" 2:45
I do not have any other autoimmune issues? Yes, I do. And all four of my children also have some sort of autoimmune. So

Scott Benner 2:55
hypothyroidism for you know, mine

"Laura" 2:57
is more of a Lupus issue. My daughter has Hashimotos and my son has grave. The older one of the younger one. His twin brother has graves. Four kids, my 21 year old has Hashimotos you have lupus diagnose diagnose lupus. No, not yet. We're still in that process. I have to go again Tuesday. On fun, husband anything? Nope. Down the line and your families know if we're being completely honest. I think my dad had undiagnosed type one and not contributed to his death 56 Which is why I had all my older three children tested and they all came back negative. So the one twin went into DKA. I never suspected type one because I was told he didn't have any antibodies. Everything was clear. So it came on here last a long time. Yeah, to like, wrap my head around that.

Scott Benner 3:59
And this isn't why we're here. But your father was sick and died pretty quickly.

"Laura" 4:04
I know he was from what we knew healthy. Great. I hadn't been out of you know, I hadn't lived at home in many years, but he just fell over at Easter dinner actually. In 2012 he was 56 he didn't get back up three days later. Nope. I'm so sorry. I don't know how we weren't gonna say no. Okay, I apologize. No, we've made that joke a million times worse. Yeah.

Scott Benner 4:35
Don't touch him. He'll be up in like 72 hours. Oh my gosh. So your dad had a real fast onset of what you think was type one diabetes DKA died? Yep. He's he

"Laura" 4:45
lived in a small farm town and they did CPR for like an hour and couldn't revive them. And I was like, Okay, so once I got the autopsy and I started putting it all together and thinking back of like, the symptoms that I noticed now Now that I know what they are, I was like, okay, yep. They did an autopsy because they thought it was Pontius Pilate. Yeah. They thought he had a heart attack.

Scott Benner 5:08
I say, Okay, you're not gonna keep going with this joke about the religious. So anyway, don't want to cry. Oh, I'm sorry, how long ago was this?

"Laura" 5:17
2012 So it's been an 11 and a half years. It still hurts. Some days, just because, uh, you know, I, I feel like not that I could have prevented it. But if I had been able to educate him to be like, listen, dad, like, Oh, I understand, you know, but also, he was my biggest champion and trying to figure out what's going on with me. And so I have a lot of guilt of, I didn't help him, but he helped me. You

Scott Benner 5:46
know? No, yeah, I helped my mom a lot with her cancer. And I think I think I made decisions that directly elongated her life. And I still feel bad about whatever it is, I didn't think to do. Yeah. Which is, you know, not really fair. But I understand how you feel. And I'll stop joking about I apologize. Mike, I need to laugh. Yeah, well, I think in a minute, you're gonna get to let your aggression out in other ways. So. So you're on the show today, anonymously. Because obviously, you have some backroom knowledge about human resources, insurance. And now about type one diabetes? Yes. So let's start with your career as an HR person. What is it? You saw that now in hindsight, you think, Oh, that wasn't? Right, we shouldn't have done that.

"Laura" 6:35
Um, it's always about the cost, right? Like, it's always, what can I do to save the most money so I can make the most money. And 110% of the time, it's, we're not paying for technology. In my previous experience, obviously, you know, 20 years ago, technology wasn't then what it is today. But I had no understanding of type one, what type one was, or why the technology was important. And I look back and I'm like, Oh, my God, even today, like I'm like, Oh, my God, why are insurance companies forcing people to live barbarically? Like, we have technology use it. But it's always about, I didn't fight hard enough, you know, to help this person. Why can't we add this to the formulary? Why? You know, just, it's always why like, Yeah,

Scott Benner 7:27
let's, let's break that down for people so that they can understand because I think that the phrase that your company feeds, you is Oh, the insurance doesn't cover that. But they're the ones who chose what the insurance covers. Right? Yeah. So when the insurance cut when your employer is saying, insurance doesn't cover that, what they mean to say is, for reasons of cost cutting, we decided not to pay for you to be covered by that. Right? Yes. Okay, especially

"Laura" 7:53
on a self funded plan, when they're fully insured, then the insurance company does have a little more control over that. But I am from the Midwest, it's a hotbed of self funding. I have never worked for a company that wasn't self funded. And they 100% control what's covered and what's not. And what that cost is,

Scott Benner 8:15
can we define those two things? So what is tell people that self funded means? So

"Laura" 8:20
self funded means the company itself is paying medical bills, fully insured means that the insurance company is paying the medical bill?

Scott Benner 8:29
Why would a company choose one over the other cost? It's

"Laura" 8:33
a gamble, obviously. But if you're self funded, and you have a relatively healthy population, then you're going to charge you know, $1,000 a month and an insurance premium, but you're only going to spend $400 a month. So you have, for example, so you have the ability to make a whole lot of money, right? And just sock that money away. When you're fully insured, you're paying $1,000 a month and insurance, but someone else controls okay, what portion of the bill gets paid.

Scott Benner 9:07
So fully insured is the company is paying a premium. And then that premium is set up based on the tier of insurance that they've purchased. And then if you get sick, the insurance company is the one taking the risk there. They're collecting money every you know, however, how, however frequently from your employer, and they're risking if you guys don't get sick, then we get to keep this. But that costs more because it shifts the it shifts the risk onto the insurance company so they charge more for it. Right self funded is yes, a company is a silly like you might have a card out and it might just say Aetna on it like great. And you think oh at this my insurance company. But really Aetna is just handling the billing and everything. And they literally send a bill to the company probably quarterly and say look this quarter are this is what it costs to give healthcare to your employees? write us a check for? Great.

"Laura" 10:05
Yep. Yeah, you're simply borrowing that network. So network United Healthcare network does not work, etc.

Scott Benner 10:12
So when you're in human resources, do you ever see someone come in, say they interview four people for a job? And they get it down to two people and they're equally qualified, and one of them's 50 pounds overweight? They go through this, then one, because maybe that'll be better for us.

"Laura" 10:29
The reality is, yeah, there is a little bit of that that happens. I

Scott Benner 10:34
mean, I'm just thinking of it. From my own perspective, I own the company, I'd be like, let's get the one who wasn't winded walking up the stairs? Like, I just, I think I would do that. So yeah,

"Laura" 10:42
I have one employee that I worked with, who had a blood disorder and needed lots of blood transfusions, lots of different things. And I was like, This guy is amazing. And so I took him with me to my next company. And they were like, what, why? Why do you know how much money we're losing on him? And I'm like, because he's making a lot of money to like, you can't just look at it from one perspective, but also, we're not discriminating. So don't talk to me about that.

Scott Benner 11:12
But if, if we can all do it with a wink and a nod, then why not? And so when, when people say the conversation I usually see online is like, well, when you go to a job interview, you don't have to disclose your health. And some people are like, Well, I have type one diabetes, I want people to know, and I'm not hiding it. I'm like out about it. But the truth is, is that if you got into that situation, they might go, oh, that lady looks like she's wearing an expensive gadget on her arm. Like, let's not go with her. Yep. Okay. So

"Laura" 11:43
my children will always be covered up, I don't care if it's 100 degrees, and you're interviewing for a job outside, you're going to wear long sleeves, and I just or you're gonna not wear your device ID or whatever. Just because I know that the discrimination from an HR side is legit

Scott Benner 12:00
gonna happen. And you can't prove it, right? No, how would you because nobody says it out loud. Nobody writes it down. So that's that?

"Laura" 12:09
No, that's why you have closed door meetings and you get yelled at.

Scott Benner 12:13
And you're all covered by NDAs. When you go in that meeting, you can't you go back out. And so therefore you kind of have to do this, which is be anonymous about it. Yep. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, I'm glad we're doing this. Actually, I have to be honest, I asked for health care professionals. And you reached out and said, Hey, I was in HR and I work in insurance now. And I was like, Oh, why didn't I ask for that? That's great. I was like, Thank thank God, Laura is thinking for me, you're producing the show. Now, some other examples. So your company might set up, you alluded to this earlier, but like to be clear. They they'll look at tiers and say, Okay, well in this tier, if you had type one diabetes, you'd get a CGM. But in this tier, you don't. And we pay less for this tier. So we're going to take this one, right,

"Laura" 12:58
or they're just going to exclude it completely. And so you're not, we don't cover CGM at all.

Scott Benner 13:03
So when you're making the contract, you just go through and you go, we like this tear, but like, scratch out these things.

"Laura" 13:10
So the company kind of tailors, the insurance coverage, ala carte, but honestly, it's about money, not about choice. Oh, absolutely. So like compound prescriptions. For example, one company that I managed benefits for just wiped those out completely, like, I don't care what it is, it's not being covered just because compound drugs are expensive. Up until last year, insulin prices weren't regulated, they would be like, Oh, we're gonna charge $200 a month for insulin, or we're gonna do you know, XY and Z things. Or we're going to, I don't know what the the post Obamacare term is, but before it was, we're gonna laser this out like this person has, you know, this is lasered out, so to speak. Now, with ACA laws, it's the verbiage is a little different, but the practices are still happening.

Scott Benner 14:00
Interesting. Yeah. So the world is the way I expect it. That's what you're telling me?

"Laura" 14:08
Unfortunately,

Scott Benner 14:11
I thought it was by the way, I'm actually generally speaking, I'm usually surprised when people act Pollyanna about things. And they go, Oh, that couldn't happen. There's laws against that. And I'm like, What? What are you talking about? Of course, that's happening. You know, like, it's not the way I see it is, generally speaking, you either work for somebody who has so much money that it doesn't matter, which some people do, like, you know, like you work for such a large corporation, that they can be fully funded. And it's still not be super expensive because the insurance companies still making a boatload off of them because they've got 20 3040 50,000 employees so they can get the price down because they've got overhead the insurance they've got they've got enough people and the insurance companies still making The money they want to make on the policy. But smaller companies are going to go self pay, because they're going to bet on their population not getting sick. diabetes comes with a lot of things to remember. So it's nice when someone takes something off your plate. US med has done that for us. When it's time for art and supplies to be refreshed, we get an email rolls up in your inbox says hi Arden. This is your friendly reorder email from us med. You open up the email, it's a big button that says click here to reorder. And you're done. Finally, somebody taking away a responsibility instead of adding one. US med has done that for us. An email arrives, we click on a link and the next thing you know your products are at the front door. That simple. Us med.com/juice box or call 888-721-1514 I never have to wonder if Arden has enough supplies. I click on one link. I open up a box. I put the stuff in the drawer. And we're done. US med carries everything from insulin pumps, and diabetes testing supplies to the latest CGM like the libre three, and the ducks comm G seven, they accept Medicare nationwide, over 800 private insurers. And all you have to do to get started is called 888-721-1514. Or go to my link us med.com/juicebox. Using that number or my link helps to support the production of the Juicebox Podcast.

"Laura" 16:36
Yep. So statistic in full transparency, I worked for five different companies, all of them self funded. And all of them had around 500 employees. The biggest difference that I noticed was the CEO. If the CEO is not, obviously he's always worried about the bottom line. Like that's his job. But also if he has a little bit of integrity, he's going to you're going to have these conversations like there were times it happened all the time, he would walk in my office shut the door, and we would talk about something, you know, at 7am before anyone else got there. In another instance, it was I don't care how you do it. But you do this, and I want them out. I don't I'm not paying for this. Like, we just got a $250,000 bill from UMR. Why? Like no, I'm not paying, figure it out and get rid of the problem. A person

Scott Benner 17:29
has looked you in the face and said, Get rid of that person. They're killing us on health care costs.

"Laura" 17:35
Oh, absolutely. happened more than once. Gotcha.

Scott Benner 17:39
Oh, all right. Well, this is uplifting. That's what I expected. By the way. You know, like when you said you'd come on? I thought this isn't to tell me how great everything is. That's Do you think people right now mostly I miss I'm imagining to two distinct different reactions for listeners, either someone's like I know it mother, or more. They're thinking, Oh, my God, I don't understand. But I'm on the I knew it side for sure. Did you know before you got into it?

"Laura" 18:09
No. I mean, I was 19. I was still in college. Like I had no idea that it was this discriminatory. I had no idea that I also had no idea that there were so many health issues out there. Like I was a young, healthy, 19 year old, I had no idea that you know, so and so John over there has whatever going on. And even though he's like an employee, he's costing the company a lot of money from health insurance wise. So then you're like scratching your head, you're like, what this is happening. And you want me to fire him kind of illegally, like, so those are the unemployment claims, you just don't fight. If I'm being honest.

Scott Benner 18:48
So you owe so it's a calculated maneuver, then we're gonna ask this person, we don't have a real reason. But we got to get rid of him before another $250,000 bill comes up, they'll sue us in unemployment, for unemployment reasons, we'll pay but it won't be nearly as much as we'll lose in the health care cost, right? Yep. Absolutely. Does the company get dinged for that somehow? Is there like a thing that keeps track of it or anything like that? Yeah.

"Laura" 19:15
So there is an unemployment amount that you have to pay every month. And obviously, the more claims you have, the more you have to pay in not just because you're paying that unemployment, but also because you're being quote unquote, penalized by the government for having that many claims is that thing people can check on when they're looking for work?

Scott Benner 19:35
That can I see. I mean, the companies who seem like maybe they're getting rid of people. Yeah,

"Laura" 19:40
I'm not sure about that. But there is a way to check and see if a company's getting ready to do a mass layoff like major companies are getting ready to do a layoff. I'm looking up as we speak the exact parameters. But I have one of my my best friends works for a major company and they're doing Doing layoffs and I was like, Hey, why don't you check and make sure like, she was like, I don't know if it's my department. And I'm like, well, they don't specify departments or names, but they do have to give the government 30 days notice why they're doing it. They can be really discreet about that. Okay.

Scott Benner 20:18
I know from when, when my wife's companies say they're going to do a reorganization, that's usually means everybody. And it's funny, I always think of it is every few years. They hire, they hire they hire, and eventually the bad employees shake out, you figure out which ones aren't as valuable as you hoped they would be or or didn't end up being necessary. And they move them along which business wise makes sense to me. It never occurred to me that we'd sprinkle in a couple of people with a heart condition or something like that. And to that list, too.

"Laura" 20:50
Yeah. And they're always going to say it's for budget reasons. And of course, it's for budget reasons. But the reality is, it's also because you have a health condition, and you're costing too much money. That's the budget issue.

Scott Benner 21:03
The budget is you coughed too much, I gotcha. Right? Would it be out of line to say, so I know a person who lost their job. This person was, by all accounts, fantastic, their job, a great employee, they were a little higher on the pay scale than anyone else. And then one day, out of nowhere, one of these little like, rules in the handbook on like, the last page, like literally, you can't chew gum while you're at work. That kind of thing. Someone walked up to this person said, is that gum in your mouth? And they went, Yeah, I'm sorry, I forgot. And went to throw it away. And they said, No, nevermind, come to the office. And they fired him.

"Laura" 21:46
Those are the stupid reasons that HR has to come up with to fire a good employee. Gotcha. Or whatever other reason, I can't wait to tell that person that. Yeah, but definitely, when you're looking at jobs, like you want to check the war notices for your state, W AR n that tells that gives a decent indication of layoff,

Scott Benner 22:07
if they're coming or how many you've seen in the past? Both,

"Laura" 22:10
it'll tell you, it's me, I hold on, I look up what it stands for Worker Adjustment and retaining Notification Act.

Scott Benner 22:20
So if you see a company that is consistently laying people off, they might be one of those companies who bring you in make a big, like, oh, it's gonna be great here, you're gonna love it. And then when they're done with you, or the work dies down, or whatever else, they just sweep everybody out with the trash on Friday afternoon when nobody's looking.

"Laura" 22:36
Great. Gotcha. Huh. Not always. I mean, sometimes they're for legitimate reasons, you know? Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, many times, it's just because

Scott Benner 22:47
so if I told you that that story I just told you about that person happened right after a new company took over the business that would even be less shocking to you, right? Honestly, not shocking at all. Right? They come in, they evaluate where do we it's always money. Where do we cut money?

"Laura" 23:04
Yeah, always. You're never a person. It's always about a number.

Scott Benner 23:08
You've never been in a room where they were like, Hey, how can we make everybody happier today?

"Laura" 23:13
It's happened a couple of times. And I convinced the CEO to serve everyone breakfast, just you know, to be like, Hey, I'm normal. And not a total asshole. But normally, yeah, I mean, it's all about money. Like it's always, where do we cut? How do we put the most overhead? And so I've been through a couple of sales, right? And you always make a spreadsheet of salaries versus expenses. And whoever is in the top obviously goes.

Scott Benner 23:46
That's why they say don't get too high. Like, don't make too much. I used to hear people say that, like, I don't want to make I don't want to I don't want another promotion, or they're going to take my head off in four years if I do, right. Yeah. Gotcha. Can I ask, since your kids diagnosis is did you have any, like quiet moments where you look back and thought, Oh, I wonder how many people's jobs I helped get rid of that had this stuff going on?

"Laura" 24:13
Absolutely. Because there are a few I know of. So I wonder how many I didn't know love. And I it kills me.

Scott Benner 24:21
But in the moment. I mean, imagine especially when you're younger in the moment, you're like doing your job which by the way, I also I'm not coming down on you like some this is how business works. I don't I mean, some people might have been surprised by it. I wasn't. And so people are going to do these jobs. Not everybody's job is pleasant, that I'm not coming down on you at all. I'm wondering about like, personally, like you have this moment where you think oh god, I was in a meeting and i i I came up with a reason to get rid of that person. That contour next gen blood glucose meter is the meter that we use here. Arden has one with her at all times. I have one downstairs in the kitchen. Just In case I want to check my blood sugar, and Arden has been at school, they're everywhere that she is contour next one.com/juicebox test strips. And the meters themselves may be less expensive for you in cash out of your pocket than you're paying currently through your insurance for another meter, you can find out about that and much more at my link contour next one.com/juice box contour makes a number of fantastic and accurate meters. And their second chance test strips are absolutely my favorite part. What does that mean? If you go to get some blood, and maybe you touch it, and I don't know, stumble with your hand and like slip off and go back, it doesn't impact the quality or accuracy of the test. So you can hit the blood not good enough, come back, get the rest without impacting the accuracy of the test. That's right, you can touch the blood, come back and get the rest. And you're gonna get an absolutely accurate test. I think that's important because we all stumble and fumble at times, that's not a good reason to have to waste a test trip. And with a contour next gen. You won't have to contour next.com forward slash juicebox you're gonna get a great reading without having to be perfect. Yep, yeah. Is that hard happened?

"Laura" 26:20
It's very hard. Especially when I think about, like, you know, because there are times like, I'll find out after the fact like, oh, so and so had this health condition or so and so was pregnant and you didn't know yet or whatever. And you're like, I mean, I can't tell you Scott, how many times I've put my hands on my head. And I've just been like, Oh my fucking god, what did I just do? Now,

Scott Benner 26:43
to give you the flip side of this, how many employees have you dealt with who are habitually taking advantage of like short or long term? Like coverage? Like somebody's like, oh, I, my doctor says I need to take a month off. I have a cough. Like there are people who like do that, right? Like they work a little, quote, get sick, take off three months on like long term disability, then come back, want their job back work six more months, get like that this happens? No,

"Laura" 27:13
it absolutely happens. And that's why FMLA laws are what they are. That's why it's 100 or one year, and, you know, the all the hours like, because to stop that. And it sucks. You know, when you're in a position where now I'm on the flip side of it, and I'm like, I needed FMLA, like two years ago, but I didn't qualify for it until one year ago. You know, yeah. And then, but then you see that all the time of like people that are requesting STP or Ltd short term disability or long term disability and you're like,

Scott Benner 27:48
No, over and over. So they they limited to a year for to stop people from taking advantage of it. But the flip side of that is there are actually some people who need it for more than a year and they just get aged out of it. unscrew them. And that's part of doing business. This is what this is what the speed trap catches, it catches people who need it and people who don't need it as well. Yep, absolutely. That's upsetting. Is that hard to watch somebody because that's stealing, in my opinion, you know, Oh, yeah. So did they ever prosecute people? Do they ever go after them? Or is it just too difficult?

"Laura" 28:20
I don't know that. I've seen any one prosecuted for it. But I have definitely seen short term disability and long term disability claims denied because they were frivolous. Yeah, they just tell him Look, come

Scott Benner 28:35
back to work or you're done. That's it, right? Yeah. Gotcha. Am I missing anything so far? Like, is there something you should be telling me that I'm not going to ask about?

"Laura" 28:45
I just want to reiterate that, especially if you work for a self funded company, your HR has total control over the formulary and what's covered.

Scott Benner 28:55
Have you ever heard my story about artists dental work? No, I don't think so. When Arden was really little, obviously, we didn't know what we were doing. She was drinking a lot of juice at night, like, you know, saving her from lows over and over again. And a lot of her baby teeth got cavities. And it was too soon. She couldn't just take them out. Because she needed them and she wasn't going to get teeth for a little while. They had to be fixed. So we went to a dentist who looked at her and said Look, I am not comfortable putting her under has her blood sugar get low. We need to do it in a hospital. I am not comfortable doing the office. I want to do it in a hospital where I can have somebody monitor her blood sugar or have her on a sale, a drip of glucose if she needs it, that kind of stuff. And I was like okay, so then our insurance denied it. Okay, yeah. And they kept denying it and kept an eye even though it's now a medical procedure because it was happening in hospital wasn't dental anymore. They denied the data and it just went on forever. And it was like 15 grand, I think and we were young still and I don't want to say that $15,000 Not a lot of money to me. It is but on They're like penalty of death, I can probably pull it together for one of my kids if I needed to. But back then I could not have, right. And so I called my wife's company. I literally called Human Resources. My wife's like, they're not going to help. And I was like, I got nothing else to do. So I called the company, I spoke to somebody. And they said, let me see what I can do. And they got back to us a couple days later. And they said, Yeah, it's fine. Go ahead and book it, we'll pay for it. But it was a self funded company and a big company. So all I had to do was actually get to the person in charge. And they were like, what's 15 grand to help this kid will do that. And that was it. It was just over.

"Laura" 30:39
Yeah, and that's the thing I think a lot of people don't realize is, I can't tell you how many spouses I've talked to, I've spoken to over the years, let alone the employee themselves. And you know, it's true, the squeaky wheel is going to get the grease, however, don't call in and be a jerk about it, like, you know, have like a decent conversation because we're people too, we're just trying to do what we're supposed to do

Scott Benner 31:03
yelled at a lot.

"Laura" 31:06
But like, at the end of the day, you know, I'm, I, we've I've been able to make dozens of changes to plans mid year, like you have to give appropriate notice legally, obviously, but like, you know, each quarter, you can change your plan from a company's perspective. So I've been able to pull that off many times helps people.

Scott Benner 31:28
Yeah, I just called and I honestly, I didn't understand self pay and full pay back then. This is actually how I learned about it. But I just called and said, Is there anything you can do to help us like, I thought I was asking them to call the insurance company. And like, you don't mean like, I thought I was asking the company to call the Wizard of Oz and talk him into letting us into the city. Like Like, that's what I thought I was doing. And they were like, oh, no, that's on us. We'll just pay for it. I was like, Oh, okay. So we just got lucky when I told my wife. She's like, what I was like, See, I told you I work it out. But the truth is, I just got lucky. So good. I don't know what the hell I was talking about. Even at the time.

"Laura" 32:03
No, you asked, the only thing they could do was say no. Yeah.

Scott Benner 32:07
I mean, that's actually it's how I got a girl to party for me to marry me even I was like, I mean, you know, she's tall. She's pretty people don't see, they seem to be like afraid of her. It's like, I'll just try.

"Laura" 32:18
I mean, if I'm being honest, my husband, his CIO, my husband's a computer nerd.

Scott Benner 32:27
And, by the way, not what you say, but

"Laura" 32:32
um, his CIO, it has a wife, that's also a T one. He obviously has paved the way but they cover things. I mean, he has amazing insurance because his CIOs wife was like, No, you you're going to do? Yeah.

Scott Benner 32:48
Well, and so yeah, I understand what that means, too, is that once you get, you know, people here, oh, this place covers this, that cover CGM covers all that. Like every person they hire in with that. That's money going out the door. Again, that's them paying for your pods or your pumps or your insulin or whatever. That's really and so that's a real kindness when you find people doing that.

"Laura" 33:10
Absolutely. It's because you have executives with integrity.

Scott Benner 33:14
That's it. You don't see another reason for it at all.

"Laura" 33:17
I mean, I'm sure. You know, listen, I'm sure that he brings great value to his company. And I'm sure as does everyone, right? Or he wouldn't have a job. But at the end of the day, it's because you have executives with integrity, right? Because

Scott Benner 33:34
they could hire somebody as good as you who doesn't need an insulin pump. Right, right. Hmm. I have other questions that might not be connected to this, can I just ask real quickly? Go for it.

"Laura" 33:45
I'm a wealth of information.

Scott Benner 33:47
I think you might be back actually one day, but we like when the company's like, Hey, you can get life insurance through us, for example. And it's like up to one to nine times your pay or whatever. There's always value in doing at least what they're what the company is paying for. Is that right? Absolutely. Yeah. Always, always take that. What about health care spending accounts? Is that a good thing to do? Depends

"Laura" 34:10
on the plan. So previous to diabetes, we always had an HSA. But since diagnosis, we have gone to back to a traditional PPO plan, with a low deductible because HSAs are hit and miss because they only find as you get paid and you fund them. So if you have a $3,000 bill in January, you may not hit $3,000 in your HSA until June, right? So they're tricky, and it's always something to look at.

Scott Benner 34:46
That is what happens to us. We so we we take the mat I actually we put the maximum we're allowed into our HSA and because you're really it's just the tax shelter for the money, right? Right. Yeah. So but like you said, In January, when like, it's pomp time or this time, you're like, ooh, the first time like your your CGM is cost $2,000. And you're like the other 20 bucks in June, what the hell, you know, like that, that kind of stuff is shocking. And if you don't have cash aside for it, it's obviously problematic. Yeah. Or it's like that initial hospital though, when your child first goes in and is diagnosing, you have to pay it literally on the spot. And you're like, Okay, I'll

"Laura" 35:27
give you whatever you need. Just keep my child alive, right? And you're like, Holy shit, that was a lot of money. Like, how did I just come up with five grand to give them like literally on the spot, and then you're re evaluating, okay, we maybe need to change our insurance, because I don't know that I can do that all the time. That's not necessarily practical. Yeah, it is a thing too. I

Scott Benner 35:50
never forget when I moved into my house, my neighbor was older than me by almost 20 years. And he was already sending his kids to college. And I was like, how do you pay for all that? And he goes out, you'll figure it out. I was like, that's your advice. And he goes, that's how it works manually to figure it out, or you won't, I was like, Okay, thanks

"Laura" 36:09
for being college right now. And I'm like, Oh, my God,

Scott Benner 36:12
how are we doing this? Nicholas, I mean, they call me I am working art in art in just left school, like five hours ago, striving home, like the semesters or the quarters over. And she's like, there's, I need money in my account for the drive home. And I was like, okay. So I'll transfer some money in your account.

"Laura" 36:31
I mean, I literally had to send my daughter $900, a couple days ago for a new computer. And I'm like, okay, cool. I don't have anything else going on. Sure.

Scott Benner 36:41
I'll just keep wearing these sneakers, another six months, it'll be fine. Forget the hole in the side, I'm wrapping it with duck. It really does. It is the way it goes. So it was like you're living. You're living like you're in college. And they're there. Okay, that was going on. Anyway. Okay, so that's the HR side and what you might expect from your company, but now you work for an insurance company. So how are we getting stuck that way? Because

"Laura" 37:09
they're gonna deny everything you said to them, at least once. And then thankfully, we have a really good endocrinologist who literally, you know, when I'm like, listen, they're not gonna, like, they're not going to approve it, you know, blah, blah, blah, like I work, not for the insurance company that we have, but like, I work for an insurance company, and they're gonna deny it, like, I know how this works. And she's like, No, no, let me take care of it. We know how to write these things to make sure that it gets approved. And I'm like, Okay, I don't know this, the science or the specific behind it. But I have come to realize how insanely important it is, to find an endocrinologist who will write the prior authorization requests the way that they need to be written to get approved. It's fascinating.

Scott Benner 37:58
I, I needed. So I don't know how much of the podcasts you listen to, or you don't listen to. But I've been using weego V for weight loss for like nine months now. And I really need I've lost 40 pounds. It's made a significant change. You look amazing. Oh, thank you very nice. Anyway, when I went to the doctor, the doctors like, look, obviously you need this, your BMI supports it. But I said, Do you think it'll get covered? She goes, I know what to do. I was like, okay, and boom, right through like it was nothing.

"Laura" 38:25
Yeah, like my son, he's now 19. So I can't do it for him anymore. I just send them insulin. So he doesn't die, because he doesn't get it himself. But the difference is, and the endocrinologist are like, night and day, like there's not enough words to describe it. And I'm like this, like, how do you not even have enough insulin to get through a month? Like, why is it not being approved? And he's like, I don't know. That's just what they'll give me. And I'm like, okay, clearly, I need to have a conversation with them and be like, you, you know, here's how you write this. This is where my 10 year old, I have a ton of extra insulin. And thank God because that's how I'm keeping my 19 year old alive. Like literally, I'm shipping it to him every month.

Scott Benner 39:10
Your younger kid is that a pediatric Endo, they know how to say, Yeah, let's just we'll say the need is this and that way, you'll get an extra vial and you'll be okay. And like that kind of stuff. And the adult endo is just like, they don't give a crap and they don't try very hard and your son is 19. So he's not pushing back. And that leaves him without insulin. Right? Yep. He gets about half of what he needs uninsured person. Yeah, yeah. Gotcha. And that's just because the doctor doesn't know how to deal with the insurance company.

"Laura" 39:41
Yes. And also I have a child but I got like, Yeah, whatever.

Scott Benner 39:46
He's a little dopey or whatever we got going. I don't want to say to your kid don't say, so. He might hear this one day, like I'm not dopey

"Laura" 39:55
all the time. I'm like, you're pretty mouthy for a kid who relies on his mother at all. If

Scott Benner 40:01
you're like, I'll shut the insolence pick it off, and then we'll see who's listening. But what this points out bigger picture, my opinion is that there are rules set up on the insurance side that are meant to block you from getting your services. And then doctors and other people on the outside have to figure out how to navigate the system, which is a polite way of saying write down what doesn't get caught by the computer or the checker. So it somehow slides through the machine and ends up at the end with a check mark on it. You get your thing, right. Yep, that's exactly how it works. Everyone's just trying to screw you. Yep. And if you go with it, they're not going to say this is a contention I've had the entire time. Like back when I was younger, Arden was diagnosed. Again, I told you, I didn't know what I was doing as much. But that's the first thing I said to Kelly was like, they deny everything the first time. Yep, that just happens. And it doesn't matter if it's covered even they just go No. And then because if you call if you're not willing to call back, they just saved the money. Right? It's that simple. And then if it's covered, you call back they go Oh, yeah, you know, we just needed this from the doctor. And then they tell you what to get. And then it's covered. So you push back a little bit, you get your covered things paid for. But then the what happens when things. So there's, I don't know if you're, how much you're in the private Facebook group. But there's a lot to do you know, Sam, who helps people, Sam writes letters that get people their stuff. She's magical at it. But that's really what it is, is she's able willing her brain works the right way to sit down, look at the look at the rules. And she knows how to write something that circumvents the rules that the insurance company put in place to stop them from having to pay you for the things you deserve. Yes,

"Laura" 41:55
yes. Okay. Like my I work for a small boutique insurance company, right? And they decided, when they announced the 2024 plans, it specified that CGM weren't going to be covered anymore, like in any capacity. And I, internally and to my husband through the biggest fit, I was like, Oh, my God, no, we are not doing this. And then a couple other people that like, No, my passion for this spoke out and and it quickly changed to oh, well, Medicare covered will cover Medicare covered CGM 's. And I'm like, Yeah, you will. And so why did

Scott Benner 42:36
why do you think that happened? Did it happen because they were seeing more people with diabetes? Or do you think they saw the news about people wanting to use CGM for overall health and stuff and they thought, let's get ahead of this and make sure we don't cover these things?

"Laura" 42:47
I to be honest with you, I think it was purely cost. purely a budget like we weren't, you know, it was, hey, we're gonna save X number of dollars by not allowing it CGM. So we're gonna just exclude it from coverage next year.

Scott Benner 42:59
Can you do me a favor? Can you put $1 amount that was saved? And tell me the like the operating budget for the year for the company?

"Laura" 43:07
I don't have that info.

Scott Benner 43:09
Can you guess about it? Like, how much are they saving? How much do you think they saved?

"Laura" 43:13
Oh, goodness. Well, we have I mean, I talked to probably five people a day that are on a libre, a few that are on a duck's calm that I talked to. So that's not just me. And there's 100 of us, right, that take those phone calls. So I mean, it's definitely in the millions. They're saving

Scott Benner 43:34
millions of dollars by saying so. So basically, they look at that spreadsheet you talked about, they see a line, the numbers read, they go over to the left, it says CGM and they go okay. They don't even know what the hell that is. They don't even care, right?

"Laura" 43:46
No, no, I, I would venture to guess 85 to 90% of them have no idea what a CGM is.

Scott Benner 43:55
It's just a red. It's a red line. And they need to get rid of it. Yep. It was something they wanted to laser out. Is there no, like, what if it was like cancer medication? Is there any thing where like, societal pressure stops them? Well, I

"Laura" 44:10
think that was why they ended up a week later, changing their tune was because of the societal pressure. Because there was not only employees, but there was a lot of members that they insure that we're like, Hell, no, you're not doing that.

Scott Benner 44:24
Oh, so even the companies that are buying the insurance from them are like, Hey, I have diabetes, like hold up, like that kind of thing. Do you think if they would have known that before they struck it, they wouldn't have or do you think they would just strike it just see what would happen next?

"Laura" 44:39
Oh, the way that this company operates, they were gonna do it anyway and then just take the gamble. They're always going to take the gamble,

Scott Benner 44:46
right? And then if somebody benches, then we'll backpedals. We have to.

"Laura" 44:49
Yep. Always.

Scott Benner 44:52
You know, again, I have to say purely from a business perspective. It makes sense to me. I'm not shocked I'm not even appalled, actually. I'm just like, Okay, I get it. Like I see. Now, if you told me that this is a, you told me this is a $25 billion a year company. And they, they did this and they were gonna save 3 million bucks. Then I go, come on, like, you know what I mean? Like, what are we doing here? Do you think that that's charged by operating budget? Like we want to have more in the bank? Or is it can it literally be the more of these things we cut away? The more money the CEO and the board and that those types of people end up taking home at the end of the year? No,

"Laura" 45:34
it wasn't the people. They're working on building new hospitals and they want they want the money. I know that they took a decent loss. I think every company took a decent loss during COVID. And they're trying to make up for that shortfall. By doing anything they can and have art, they're wanting to expand. They're trying to expand. It's just not able to happen as fast as originally planned. Yeah,

Scott Benner 45:58
they wanted it as capital, they needed it for operating. Yeah. You know, anybody who's got kids in college through COVID. And after COVID, will see that the incoming freshman classes after COVID don't fit in the buildings, right. And the colleges don't care if they're like, We need more like there are a pile of children in colleges they probably couldn't otherwise get into because they had money. And those colleges needed to sell those spots to get the money back. They lost during COVID. Absolutely, yeah. And then it hurts everything going forward. Everything except the bottom line, the bottom line is service. And you get poor poor experience in college you get you know less, more students to teachers, you get crappier teachers, like you get all kinds of like bad all kinds of bad comes from it. But in the end, the school will have more money in the bank when it's all over.

"Laura" 46:48
And your personal reward is hundreds of 1000s of dollars of student debt.

Scott Benner 46:51
That yes, and you'll go get a job that won't cover your insurance rates for you. And then you can just work your life away trying to pay it off. And hopefully you won't get sick but if you do, don't worry, we'll find a reason to fire you. Right. Perfect. This has been really uplifting thank

"Laura" 47:09
god, oh my god. But I have discovered like so a whole nother subject but like an LPN at my son's school two years ago when he was diagnosed like literally almost killed him not once but twice. And so I you know, we wrote the OCR, we did the whole thing. And I realized like that this is my job in life is like to be a whistleblower to like, these practices. I'm gonna hold schools accountable. You companies, you do dumb shit. I'm coming after you. I'm gonna hold you accountable

Scott Benner 47:43
for you. Well, we gotta get you a job doing that. Like, I know, we need like a small nonprofit to hire you. Yes, absolutely. People.

"Laura" 47:54
I'm literally a wealth of knowledge. I have so much legal background, like not from the employment law side anymore from like, you know, EDA, 504. I have, I'm telling you, I'm a wealth of knowledge. I

Scott Benner 48:07
know, an HR professional, pretty high up in a midsize company. And you can tell it everything about their job pulls on their heart, like, constantly, like they're always downtrodden when they're talking about work. And it's a little bit like, I can't believe I'm the one that has to do this stuff. Yeah, that kind of feeling.

"Laura" 48:26
Well, I officially retired from the HR side, when I had an employee fatality. I was like, Nope, I will never be the person to do that again. So by Can

Scott Benner 48:36
you give me color on that? They

"Laura" 48:38
had somebody die. Oh, yeah. So they were 18 came to work. Hi. And I was driving a forklift and trying to do fun, fancy tricks on it. And

Scott Benner 48:57
yeah, but it was like

"Laura" 48:58
10 o'clock, the day before Thanksgiving. And I was like, I will never, ever and of course, me being you know, the only female on the executive team got a guy nominated to make that phone call. You had to call his parents. So I had to be the one to call up parents. I had to be the one to do the press release to you know, talk to the media because it was everywhere, right? And I was like, never again, not doing it. So I, you know, had to bring in the grief counselors and do the whole thing. And I mean, you know, of course, I got a very nice bonus out of it. And literally, three months later, I was like, nope, not doing this guy's like, bye. I'm out. And I went that's why the company

Scott Benner 49:42
didn't do anything wrong. Like the kids showed up high. Nobody knew it and this is what happened. Right?

"Laura" 49:47
Yeah, the company didn't do anything wrong. And we I you know, but just with OSHA, we reinforce safety roles, all of it, but like I still personally don't want to ever do that again. This

Scott Benner 49:59
the poster on The wall now say no heroin while you're working, or I mean, what is the like? How do you reinforce that safety role? Well, ultimately,

"Laura" 50:07
the facility ended up getting shut down, not by OSHA, but just because there were a slew of other problems. And I just was like, Okay, I am putting together a lot of us, were you but like, I'm out. So I gave, I gave him like, three months. And then I was like, okay, it

Scott Benner 50:26
just made you. It made your heart heavy, and you want to move on and do something else.

"Laura" 50:29
Yeah, so I came to the benefits I thinking like, or to the insurance companies, I thinking like, that would be easier for me personally, to deal with, like mentally. And now I'm like, maybe not, Oh, hell no.

Scott Benner 50:42
I, when I was very young, like in my early 20s, I used to collect credit card debts. And I had to stop doing it. I was I was really good at it. And it just made me feel bad all the time. Like, there's no doubt these people spent this money they owed the money, like all that. And I'm not even talking about the the interest rates, like I know, they're, you know, I know that I know the game, might they get you to buy a couple things. I mean, right now people's credit cards are like it like 24%. Like, I don't even like if you're buying something on a credit card, and you don't have to please stop. But But anyway, this would happen. People get under, then, you know, they're just trying to get your monthlies out of you. Like really, I don't know that people understand that credit card companies, insurance companies, some businesses, they're all really just, they're in business to make money. So they can their investment companies, basically, the most insurance companies are investment companies, right? Yeah. So they need the money so they can invest it and make more money. So they get into something where they make a bunch of money, your health is probably 20th on their list of what's important to them. And, you know, they're just they're collecting fees, and then using the fees to, you know, buy stocks, do trading, like that kind of stuff and try to make money that way. Anyway, I couldn't do it anymore. I was just I was too good at it. And some of those people were lying, and they just didn't want to pay. But some of them were really in trouble. And I was good at cajoling them into paying. And then I just left one day and I told my wife, I'm like, I have to stop doing this. Like, it's hard. It's just it's heavy. I don't want to be the one that makes these people give somebody this money.

"Laura" 52:20
So yeah, I mean, I've experienced that with the company I work for Right? Like, the most heartbreaking stories like, is it me, it was me four years ago of, hey, my teenager just got diagnosed with type one. What do I do? And I'm like, Okay, this is what like, I give them like, line by line, like exactly what you need to write what you need to do. And at the end of the day, I know I'm costing my company money, but like, do I care? Now? Because I'm going to do what? Like, I know what that mom's feeling like, I know that the mental anguish, the emotional, the physical, like, I know exactly how she's feeling because that was me a few years ago,

Scott Benner 53:00
we will at some point your company, do an auditing of the people who have your job and say, Laura is costing us more money than other people. I think she's being too kind to them. No, they

"Laura" 53:12
actually have offered me a promotion. I declined it because I don't want to be in management anymore. Because

Scott Benner 53:17
of your knowledge, because you know what you're doing? Yeah, I see because you know, your way around even their rules. Yeah. So they'll put you into management to put a stop to other people understanding how to get around the rules. Yeah,

"Laura" 53:30
I'm 100%. And outside the box thinker always happen. Like you give me a roll off, figure out how to break it not like in a mean spirited way. But like in a you tell me that x y&z has to happen it fit inside this box, I'm gonna figure out how to get a outside. Like, that's how I've always been.

Scott Benner 53:48
This is all very disappointing. Even though I was even though I was ready for it. Like I knew, I mean, nothing about again, nothing about this surprise me, I'm still incredibly disappointed. But, you know, you know where, where you have to look for, like a bright light is you have to you gotta have to hope somebody like Laura is just like, I'm not going to do this anymore. Or a person like me is like, you know what, I'm too good at collecting data from people and I feel bad about I'm not getting my son coming out of college. I had a job opportunity. And he I don't want to say what it was. But he he said to me, I don't want to police people. And it wasn't he wasn't going to be a police officer was a job where you would have overseen people he's like, I hope people are using or understanding the term policing correctly, but he's like, he's like, I don't want to be in charge of telling people what to do. I'm not I'm not doing that. And it was really good paying. And he said, I am I'm not going to be a party to to overseeing people like that.

"Laura" 54:47
Yeah. And I totally I totally get that sentiment because that's kind of how I I was I felt, especially towards the end of my HR career. I was like, nothing more than a referee. You're

Scott Benner 55:01
in general, your job is. I mean, it's nice to you to come on and take this conversation from another perspective. But your job is like, how do I screw people to save money? That's your whole job. And it happens to be around health. But the truth is, is that in almost every walk of business, that's what's going on? Oh, absolutely. That's what's going on down to the littlest things like, I take ads on this podcast, right? The podcast does incredibly well for the people who advertise on it. And at the end of every year, someone gets in a room and half heartedly goes to me, we can afford it to go up. And I'm like, Yes, you can. You know, you can, I know, you can, you know, you can't afford to stop buying ads on this podcast, like the whole thing. But we still go through the motion, every time, the same thing happens. And it's not, they're not bad people, not a bad company. As a matter of fact, they're fantastic that the podcast exists there, somebody's going to get this information for free. Because of the advertisers. I love them. They're fantastic. But we still dance the dance, every time, we all know where the dance ends up. And yet we put on our shoes and play the music. And here we go. Let's see if I can squeeze 3% out of this, like, you know, so I can go back and tell somebody I squeezed 3% out of this. It's just, it's it's miserable. Miserable is a good word. I don't know another way to put it, I actually, I'm okay with it, like big and not just okay with it, I'm happy about it. Because that means the information gets to people, and it's free. And that's important. It's important for the podcast to be free for a couple of reasons. The top reason is not everybody would pay for it. So now, for the cost of like, whatever I would have to charge $6 a month or something for you to listen to the podcast, 99 cents a download or whatever, like to save a you know, $100 a year for you as a listener. Some people won't spend that. And now Now for the love of $100. For example, there's some kid walking around out there doesn't know how to Pre-Bolus and 30 years from now we'll be getting needles in his eyes or something like that, because they didn't have access to good information. So I'm not I won't restrict the information. Well,

"Laura" 57:11
listen, given what we just talked about. People can't afford it. You know what I

Scott Benner 57:15
say? Yeah, no kidding. Like, yeah, now I'm asking, like, anyway, at my fundamental core, I am not up for asking people to pay for better health. That's not something I'm okay with. Like I just, I'm just flatly not okay with it. And so it has to be advertiser driven. Because this is a I know, some people might be like, it's a podcast, you're just talking to the microphone, you'd deck but it's a it's a 70 hour a week job at minimum 24/7. I don't take a day off. I'm managing something at midnight, while you're all sleeping. I was up till like 11 Last night making edits and ads. And then I got in bed and somebody's like, hey, somebody reported a post in the group, you gotta go look at that. I was doing that at like two o'clock in the morning. I'm recording with you and getting taxed right now. Hey, somebody put a post up. We think it has to come down. And can you take a look at it? Like it's a nonstop thing? Right. So I don't think I should be wealthy over it. I'm not saying that. But I am like, it needs to be covered financially, because I have bills and children in the home and stuff like that. Absolutely. And

"Laura" 58:17
I have to tell you, thank you, to you. We went to pediatric endocrinologist Monday, and our 10 year old agency was 5.4. And we could not have even come close to doing that without your help. Oh, that's lovely. And all the knowledge you provide us.

Scott Benner 58:33
So nice to have you. I appreciate you saying that. And congratulations. And oh my

"Laura" 58:36
god, that's the funny story in my house is my younger ones always like I just don't want to be like him because he knows that the older ones fairly non compliant. And he's like, I don't want to end up like him. Why? Why is he being so stupid? Why does he do that slide. And he's like, Mommy, I'm not moving out until I'm 25. And I'm only going to move out when I have a responsible wife and like the other because he sees what the other one's going through and how his girlfriend is like, you're on insulin. Oh, well, maybe you should call your mom. Not like Hey, buddy, you're gonna be out of insulin in three days. Call your mom.

Scott Benner 59:12
Why don't we do something? Your your I like your young sons, like I need a lady to tell me what to do, or I'm gonna be in trouble. That's some clear thinking. I'm in trouble with that a lady telling me what to do. I'm being perfectly honest. So

"Laura" 59:26
I'm being very honest about that. He's always like, we were joking about boarding school. Cuz, you know, it was a joke. And he was like, Mommy, I can't go I don't have you to manage my diabetes. And I'm like, buddy, I'm trying to teach you because like, I know you are but like, I can't do it without you. Yeah,

Scott Benner 59:43
well, and the point is, is like your point is when people are living like that. Can you imagine that? Even if I were to say like, Hey, look, I have the answer for you, but it's gonna cost you $250 a year. And you know, and I people would go no, thank you. And so from me being focused on helping people Oh, I can't put a paywall between the information. Like it just won't work. Right?

"Laura" 1:00:06
I consciously couldn't do it. Like,

Scott Benner 1:00:08
I mean, I my conscience, but I mean, you heard me with the debt. Yeah, I'm not good. I couldn't do it. Like if I if I was reaching in my pocket to buy a sandwich, and I thought I was pulling $10 out that someone gave me to learn how to Pre-Bolus I would probably vomit. So yeah, I'm not the right person for that job. But it's interesting that you made it into this kind of work, but you're the person you are. So did you, like you said, you started out really young? I'm assuming in the beginning, you didn't know what you're getting into. And then once you're into it, you're like, Well, this is how I make my living. I'm good at it, whatever. Like, I can't just leave here. And and then that's kind of how that how can I ask this? If you have a group of employees that are all doing the same thing as you, do you think if we got them all together, most of them would say, I do the thing, and I feel bad about it.

"Laura" 1:00:59
I think you probably have 5050, I've, I've run across so many HR professionals in my career, and some of them are like, I hate my job, but I'm really good at it. And it been funny, so I do it. And then you have the other half that are like, Oh, I don't care.

Scott Benner 1:01:18
You know, whatever little dangus cons, they would have been like, five, 6000 years ago, they would have been like, Whatever, let's just Yeah, that's fine. Listen, I also don't, I don't That doesn't surprise me either. That people's you know, sensibilities are different. I was just wondering how many people are like downtrodden in these jobs? And, you know, so here's my I'm gonna let you go. Right, unless there's something we haven't said. But I have a last question for you. Of course,

"Laura" 1:01:43
is there a fix in this that serves the company and the employee? Or Is there really no winning? The fix, honestly, is honest conversations, finding out what your employee base needs. But people are too scared to talk about it from both sides, not just from the employee side, but management is also scared to talk about it. So I think that that's the biggest thing is going to be lots of honest conversations, aside from the fact like, the whole system just needs an overhaul like, why am I filling out a PA, diabetes didn't go away? Like, you know, I still have it. I've had it, you know, for three years now, like, Stop making me fill out the same paperwork, but they're gonna keep doing like, that's just stupid. Yeah, like, they're gonna keep doing it until someone says something like,

Scott Benner 1:02:31
at the beginning of the year, when like, your district, your distributor goes like, well, we have to get, you know, a letter from your doctor that says you have diabetes, and like, my daughter's had diabetes for 15 years that didn't go it didn't like, What are you talking about? How it's done? Like, oh, okay, and they don't know, either you have them on? And they go? Yeah, I don't know. It's what it is, we have an entire world, that if, if you every stop for five minutes, looked at each other, and we're honest, everyone would go, I don't know why it's like this. It shouldn't be like this. But yet it is. And it perpetuates itself, and keeps everybody going. And they're, you know, there's an argument that it's just that society gives people things to do, because people need things to do, or they'll become either lazy or aggressive. So you just you build these, like, bullshit tasks into people's lives to keep them focused.

"Laura" 1:03:19
Yeah. And I mean, I have to say, like, I pride myself on I am, obviously my best interest are with the company, right? But like, I am a very empathetic person. So I always and I did a lot of project work, consulting. Once I got, like, good at my job. And I would always sit down employees, and be like, Okay, listen, let's have an honest conversation. And some of them were extremely honest with you, because they were like, Oh, my God, no one's ever talked to me about this before. And I'm like, What can we do to make it better for you know, blah, blah, blah, other employees that were like, it's fine, let's just keep it the way it is. I'm gonna go back now. And I'm like, okay, so you're you get that. But you also have to take that information up the chain, and you're looking in the white of a CEOs eyes and being like, look, the people think you're a complete douchebag fix it. Like, you know, you're you're just money hungry. You're you're not a lot like this is how they're seeing you. And so it's having lots of honest conversations, but people are scared. I've never been scared. I don't get scared about people. Hence why. I've done OCR, and I've talked, I've done all the things I've done, but it takes a lot to do that. And I I like to bridge that gap, but it also takes a mental toll on the person doing it. And that goes unnoticed, right 100% of the time.

Scott Benner 1:04:45
And this this why all this what we're talking about. This is why small companies can't even afford to offer people health insurance. Yeah, yeah. Because if they go full pay, it's probably crazy expensive because the insurance company is not making enough of a VIG off of it because there's not enough P People, and if they go self pay and one person gets sick, they're out of business. Right? Gotcha. Yep. Okay. Well, everyone jumped out a window.

"Laura" 1:05:12
I told my husband every day, I'm like, I don't care how much you don't like your job, you're never leaving it like you have anything. This is

Scott Benner 1:05:18
what's happening. I have to say my wife's benefits are terrific. And they are it is, it is the thing we passed on to our kids. As far as I've said to them, Look, you want to work for a large cash rich organization? That's your best bet at getting decent health care? I mean, am I wrong about that? No,

"Laura" 1:05:39
I don't think you're wrong about it. I would say I don't know that being cash rich as a company is like, it's a priority. But I don't think it's the biggest priority, just because

Scott Benner 1:05:48
they might just choose to keep more of that money for themselves and not spread it around. Or

"Laura" 1:05:52
they could be, you know, executives have integrity and be like, Look, we need to do this to get work a good working population, because the reality is, from what I've experienced in my career and talking to others, your highest performing employees always have some sort of health situation going on. So they're going to be expensive, but they're also going to save you your you know,

Scott Benner 1:06:18
they're going to cost you but they're also going to make you a lot more money. hardworking people are killing themselves faster. Yep. Yeah. That's, that's a joke about my wife's job that we have between us. And like, they pay you a little more because they know they're killing you. And they're trying to keep you here doing it. And the only way they can figure out to do it is to incentivize you like that. Yeah.

"Laura" 1:06:38
So I think that, you know, the reality is, there are some companies that realize that, but like, realize, hey, we've got to take care of these employees if we want them. If not, we're gonna settle for mediocrity, and we're gonna get what we get. So you either pay for health insurance, or you don't. And that's a gamble, too. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:06:57
about that. Isn't that interesting? It's all very, it's all incredibly interesting.

"Laura" 1:07:01
I can tell you by name, every single one of my high performing employees I ever worked with, and I can tell you also by name exactly. Every one of the medications they took for every single one of their diagnosis.

Scott Benner 1:07:13
Wow. Well, that's, again, not surprising, but interesting to hear you say it out loud. I really appreciate you coming on and doing this. And let me call you, Laura. Of course.

"Laura" 1:07:24
I'm happy to be here.

Scott Benner 1:07:25
I'm gonna ask a question. Now, you told a story earlier about an accident. You think that that story has too many details? And do you think people would be able to tell who you are from that?

"Laura" 1:07:36
Now? Well, that. I mean, at the end of the day, that company doesn't exist anymore. They were bought out. That was the final thing I did. Okay. All right. Well, we can pretty much notice and I was like Carol put the package together. And then I'm out. I'm doing this

Scott Benner 1:07:49
last thing and then I'll go and by the way, you did take the bonus, which I would have as well. I just it's interesting. Oh, of course, but it's a thing we don't even talk about, like you had to do a distasteful difficult thing. And the way they did it was their like your take some extra money, like Sorry about this. Like that was really it. Like, thanks for going in there and cleaning out that sewer. Here's an extra couple dollars. Yep. Everything's money. Yep. Okay. All right. I'm gonna go, I'm just gonna go sit, and I'm gonna weep in a corner, and then I'll put my keyboard. Oh, my God, do you think everyone's scared now listening? They're like, Oh, my God, I know, it's not enough to just get a job with insurance. I have to pretend I'm not sick, or they'll boot me out eventually.

"Laura" 1:08:33
I mean, well, that's why there are laws that say you don't disclose this. You don't have to. I mean, you know, of course, everyone has a personal choice to make. But there are laws for your protection for a reason. And I highly encourage everyone to do their research before they go interview.

Scott Benner 1:08:54
And if you get if you get fired for some tic tac, little bolts reason, tell them right away, you're getting an attorney, right?

"Laura" 1:09:01
Yeah, don't do anything else don't. Like, in my positions, I always had to sign an NDA when I was coming and going, or, you know, signing different documents. And I have learned, yeah, don't do that. Because then I gave up my right to, you know, sue for sexual harassment, or I gave up my right for whatever, my sign of the NDA,

Scott Benner 1:09:23
you give up your rights.

"Laura" 1:09:26
Yeah. But again, that was also almost always in exchange for money. He was here, we'll give you $10,000 But we need you to sign this. And it's like, and of course, when I was younger, I did it. But now I'm like, oh, no, no, because your $10,000 is pocket change compared to what I'm gonna get from you. If

Scott Benner 1:09:47
you guys break these when they turn you in. Yeah. Wow. I can't believe the whole world like works like this. I'm gonna get a small cabin near a running Creek and give up. If you're all lucky, I'll get a good dinner. connection and keep making the podcast but I'm getting out of this. Like that's it. You know, I'll leave you with this. My neighbor's, like I told you like 1520 years older than me. And I was talking to him recently. And he just looked at me super seriously. And he said, Scott, I don't know how much money you think you need to get through the rest of your life, but get it together as fast as you can and stop working. It's my best advice. And I was like, Okay, thanks. Goes to Christmas future. Like, like, sad Ghost of Christmas Future. He's just like, I have medical problems now. And all the things I thought I was going to do I can't even do when I did save the money, but it took me longer than I thought I was going to. And he starts laughing. He goes, your generation is going to need way more money to live than my generation. Did he laughing and I'm like, Oh my god. Okay, I'll quit now. He's like, Oh, you can't quit now. You're gonna save up money first. And it was like, but you don't think I'll be able to save it up? And he goes, Yeah, probably not. And I was like, so I just worked till the end. And then he goes down and your feet hurt and you die. And I went, okay. Alright, thanks. I was like, again, everybody with the good news? You know, Damien was like, All right, Laura, thank you very much. Hold on for me for a

"Laura" 1:11:07
second. Sure.

Scott Benner 1:11:14
Like to thank Laura for coming on the show today and sharing her knowledge about the human resources and insurance processes and the back room things that we don't see. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Learn more and get started today at contour next one.com/juice box. A huge thanks to us med for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Don't forget us med.com/juice box this is where we get our diabetes supplies from you can as well use the link or call 888-721-1514 Use the link or call the number get your free benefits check so that you can start getting your diabetes supplies the way we do from us med. If you're looking for community around type one diabetes, check out the Juicebox Podcast private Facebook group Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes, but everybody is welcome type one type two gestational loved ones. It doesn't matter to me. If you're impacted by diabetes, and you're looking for support, comfort or community, check out Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes on Facebook. If you're enjoying the cold wind podcast, please share it with someone who you think might also enjoy it. And if you know a health care professional, who would be a great guest on the podcast, please share it with them as well. If you're not already subscribed or following in your favorite audio app, please take the time now to do that. It really helps the show and get those automatic downloads set up so you never miss an episode. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.