Episode 1001: Invest in Others - Interview with Barby Ingle the Mental Cheerleader and Health Advocate - Part 2

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining us on episode 1001 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:06] Barby Ingle: Hi, I'm Barbie Ingle, and I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talents and your treasures to live out your calling, your purpose in life. Having the ability to be your own health advocate is key and is one way to be inspired.

[00:00:31] You all that you were supposed to do another way is to listen to this. The inspired steward podcast with my friend stopped, made her

[00:00:42] I think it's practicing fast food and fast life and fast things that gets us through. The story of the time in having a rare disease has distorted my time. I used to live at 24 hours a day. Now I live moment to moment. And how can I [00:01:00] make this moment? The best moment despite anything that's going on around me or anything that I'm going through?

[00:01:06] How can I make it the best moment?

[00:01:09] Scott Maderer: Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling and the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:01:26] We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:35] And today's interview with Barbie Ingle. We talk with you about what she does to help others become advocates for their own health. I also asked Barbie about how she became an advocate for others' health because of her own health journey. And Barbie also shares with you some of the good and bad that's come out of the pandemic when it comes to health.

[00:01:59] One [00:02:00] reason I like to bring you great interviews. Like the one you're going to hear today is because of the power in learning from others. Another great way to learn from others is through reading books. But if you're like most people today, you find it hard to find the time to sit down and read. And that's why today's podcast is brought to you by audible.

[00:02:20] Go to inspired stewardship.com/audible to sign up and you can get a 30 day free trial. There's over 180,000 titles to choose from. And instead of reading, you can listen your way to learn from some of the greatest minds out there. That's inspired stewardship.com/audible to get your free trial and listen to great books the same way you're listening to this podcast.

[00:02:48] Barbie Ingle is a best-selling Arthur reality personality and lives with multiple rare and chronic diseases. Barbie is a chronic pain educator, patient advocate [00:03:00] and president of the international pain foundation. She is also a motivational speaker and bestselling author on pain topics. Her blog reality shows and media appearances are used as a platform.

[00:03:13] They help her become an E patient advocate and she presents at healthcare conferences, speaking, publicly sharing her story, educating and advocating for patients across the globe. Welcome to the show. Barbie,

[00:03:27] Barby Ingle: thank you so much for having me, Scott.

[00:03:29] Scott Maderer: Barbie as a health advocate yourself, you talk about helping people learn how to access better and more timely healthcare.

[00:03:40] Talk a little bit about what you mean by that and how people can go about doing.

[00:03:46] Barby Ingle: Oh, the best way to tell you about how people can help themselves as a tech, a little bit about my journey to get diagnosed. I have a rare disease. I have multiple rare diseases but the worst one reflex sympathetic dystrophy [00:04:00] with that.

[00:04:01] I would go into the doctor's office. For instance, I would just go in and I would be crying. I would be emotional. I would just say, fix me, help me. I would put the responsibilities onto the medical providers sitting in front of me instead of stopping and taking it. Of what I was doing and taking responsibility for the parts that I had to play, where with the doctor or nurse or whoever it is, that's trying to help us for just a short time or with ourselves all the time.

[00:04:30] So being accountable and responsible is the best way to be your own best advocate. It's the way that you can keep a journal, the way that you can. Look for patterns, the way that you prepare to go into the doctor's office so that you can ask the right questions, learning how to use the language. I would go in and say, I'm in pain.

[00:04:53] That does not help the doctor. When I went in with adjectives and could describe what I was going through, I'm [00:05:00] going through a burning fire pain. It feels like it's in my veins. I can't put it out. Why is my skin color changing? Why are these things happening? To me in a scientific way, but going in organized was one of the things that, that helped me help myself, and it can help any patient help themselves.

[00:05:20] You have to be responsible for yourself and do the homework and do the things that your care team come up with by being the leader of your care team. So any anybody that's on there your family, your caregivers, your medical professionals, all of you need to work. But you have to be the leader and you have to be a doer.

[00:05:40] Scott Maderer: So as you've become an advocate for others in this room, How has that actually helped you? If that makes sense. Yeah, it

[00:05:51] Barby Ingle: does make sense. Helping others has helped me because it gives me reminders that, Hey, I need to focus on this area too, or, Hey, I was letting [00:06:00] that slip down the slide in not putting a focus on it that needs a focus listening, really.

[00:06:06] One of the things that came out of my journey. But hearing it from other people is having patience and listening to their stories into their journeys and what they're going through and using those messages that come through as stepping stones that I can use in my own life to help on my journey and.

[00:06:27] That's what we're here for. We're here for support and to connect in that human connection. And it comes through listening and having patience with the people that are around us as well as patients with ourself, as well as patients with God, we don't always say, oh, I'm praying for this. And I prayed as hard as I could and it didn't come it's God's will, that will come and.

[00:06:52] Sometimes it takes a few months or a few years to look back and say, I wouldn't be in the I'm in now. If I didn't go through that [00:07:00] challenge and hearing other people's stories helps us reflect and remind it reminds us that we are all on a journey and we can be tools and hope and help for each other.

[00:07:12] Scott Maderer: I will warn people of this be careful if you accidentally pray for patients.

[00:07:17] That's a dangerous thing to pray for.

[00:07:20] Barby Ingle: Pray for patience. It's a life lesson that I

[00:07:24] Scott Maderer: know exactly. I didn't. You didn't say you agreed for it. I will advocate that. You did not say that, but yeah, you do have to be careful because I made that mistake before.

[00:07:32] Barby Ingle: Yes. But patience is helpful

[00:07:35] Scott Maderer: because

[00:07:35] Barby Ingle: this is a blessing.

[00:07:36] It is a blessing and it's something that I needed in my life. And I said, God, may your will be done. And he gave me patience through that.

[00:07:44] Scott Maderer: Yeah. But you're correct. Our timing and God's timing is often not anywhere close to the same time. So

[00:07:52] Barby Ingle: I think it's practicing fast food and fast life and fast things that gets us into.[00:08:00]

[00:08:01] Distorted time and having it a rare disease has distorted my time. I used to live at 24 hours a day. Now I live moments a moment. And how can I make this moment? The best moment despite anything that's going on around me or anything that I'm going through, how can I make it the best moment to get through?

[00:08:20] Scott Maderer: So one of the things that. It got me thinking about this is we're going through a global event with the pandemic. And at least in my lifetime, this is the first time that I've been in the situation where I can talk to people all over the world. And we all have something in. Beyond just being people on a people journey there's truly an event that we can talk about.

[00:08:44] And one of the things that's come out of this is the need for tele-health both for medical as well as psychological as well, I'm seeing a lot of therapists that are now doing things in a different way. Can you talk a little bit about how, [00:09:00] what as your position, as an advocate about some of the pros and cons around.

[00:09:06] This evolution of what we're doing in healthcare?

[00:09:10] Barby Ingle: Yes. Healthcare has changed greatly and there is pros and cons to telehealth. And for me, I felt like when the rest of the world had the lockdown, I was already in a lockdown site. It had developed something called valley fever. Common here in the Southwest, but it's a rare disease compared to the rest of the world and it affects my lungs and breathing.

[00:09:32] And I thought pain was bad until I couldn't breathe. And then I realized how important breathing is and that we take that for granted sometimes. But with tele-health I was able to do many of the appointments I needed very easily without using my energy pennies to. I have to get in the car and drive to a facility and see a medical professional.

[00:09:55] They could see me and I could see them. The, some of the cons though, [00:10:00] is that not everybody has access to the internet. We take it for granted when we have it, but there's a lot of rural areas in the United States. If you've ever been in a plane and you float over the. There's a lot of square patches that have nothing in them or our farmland that, that nobody's there.

[00:10:15] Those have a lot, those areas. When you look out of the plane window that you're seeing don't necessarily have internet or have a way to communicate with telehealth. And so a lot of people are missing out on that option. Also there's things that come up that you just can't see through a phone call or a video that they have to see in person.

[00:10:38] And insurance companies are coming around, laws are being changed to say, tele-health is here to stay, and this is what we need, but tele-health isn't right for everybody or every situation. And so I hope that we don't swing the pendulum too far and just say, ah, pick up the there, click the button on the zoom call and talk to your doctor.[00:11:00]

[00:11:00] Sometimes we need that human connection in person to get the care that we need. Sometimes it's going to be okay. And we have to learn to find the balance and because it was thrown on us so hard, it's not all thought through yet. And many providers are having challenges, getting the tele-health paid for a regular doctor office, and many patients don't have the ability to click the button in and talk to their doctor.

[00:11:28] So some of those are some of the pros and cons, but overall I think telemedicine and telehealth are a really good benefits. If we can overcome the challenges that are coming about and telehealth, and know that there are limitations that this whole process was thrown on all of society all over the world, really.

[00:11:53] And we have to take into consideration that there is limitations to it and don't count on it. [00:12:00] For the end all be all in, in medicine and health and the medical world.

[00:12:05] Scott Maderer: One of the other advantages that I've seen in some cases is it sometimes can give you access. And I see this, especially in mental health, it can give you access to something that maybe isn't present in.

[00:12:15] If you live in a small town, You may have one psychotherapists and all doubt that's it,

[00:12:22] Barby Ingle: or one that specializes in pain or in chronic illness or in a rare disease. And

[00:12:29] Scott Maderer: are you going to, or even in grief management or even anything? Yeah, absolutely.

[00:12:33] Barby Ingle: So many people could not go through, like they couldn't even bury their loved ones properly.

[00:12:39] And. And that there's a lot of grief. And then the people that we've lost, the people that you couldn't go to the hospital to be with the person that needed to be in the hospital. So using tele-health even to talk to your family members when you're in the hospital, Yeah, you got to have the face time. And yeah, I [00:13:00] actually have a relative that is going through hospitalizations and stays right now with blink brain blood clots.

[00:13:10] And having them go through that over the last few months it's going to be a six month process, but. They're in the hospital and in ICU, we couldn't talk to them. We had no connections. We're like, praying God please move this person into a regular room, not too quick. Cause we want them to get the care that he needs.

[00:13:30] But quick enough that we can have that connection and we can show them our support. Hopefully they can feel our prayers and that sort of thing. But in that ICU, We didn't have that connection. And it is very important, not just for the medical professional and patient, but also the patient in their lifeline network and support outside of the hospital or wherever they are.

[00:13:51] Scott Maderer: Which they've also shown is helps people recover. Having social connections and family and friends and other things is one of the [00:14:00] biggest things that, that correlates with recovery and even lifespan at correlates. Which is eating healthy does not correlate as well with living a long time as having good social connections, which my friend points out means it's better to be in a group than it is to eat broccoli.

[00:14:19] Barby Ingle: You're right. When people say like physical or they say social distancing, get away six feet. I say, no, we need to have physical distancing. We need to be socially together. I agree. And people forget that. And telehealth is one of those ways that we can. Be socially together, whether it's with a counselor or with our family and friends and our resources and network reach out and seek help is there.

[00:14:46] And tele-health gives us one more tool to use in that system.

[00:14:51] Scott Maderer: And you mentioned a little bit about the doctors struggling with getting paid correctly for telehealth and that's the other area that anytime you [00:15:00] start talking about health care and health advocacy, it's got to come up, which is how we can avail ourselves of care.

[00:15:06] And yet. Ended up being bankrupt because of medical bills which I worked with financial coaching. I've dealt with people that are bankrupt or nearly bankrupt because of medical bills. So it can happen. So how do you help people in that area? I

[00:15:24] Barby Ingle: learned the hard way. So now I'm able to help other people.

[00:15:27] So I've had,

[00:15:29] Scott Maderer: yeah, I've had a

[00:15:30] Barby Ingle: million dollars in medical bills and I am not being. Surprised. But I did have to learn, I paid tens of thousands of dollars that I did not owe or need to pay. And once you pay it, it is very difficult to get that back and giving it back. I tried, they're like, no, that's, that was our thing.

[00:15:53] And then they just started ghosting you and you're like, Hey, I thought you were my doctor. What do I do here? For you guys that are [00:16:00] listening right now, these are important tips. One don't pay the bill and tell your EOB comes explanation of benefits. Compare the two. If your name is spelled incorrectly, if your date of birth your access number, any of the data on your bill are incorrect.

[00:16:20] Your insurance does not pay at the full maximum rate that they've negotiated for. So your negotiations have a breakdown. You can get that information corrected, ask your doctor to resubmit it and go through the process a second time so that the bill can be negotiated properly. And you should see that bill come down.

[00:16:41] That's one of the first things to look for. Jayco, which runs our hospital system and is like the regulators of the hospital system has done multiple surveys over the years. And they said eight out of 10 medical bills has. Eight out of 10 has a mistake. Nobody's perfect. But when it [00:17:00] comes to your finances, you have to double and triple check and look at the bills.

[00:17:04] Don't just get the bill and pay it. Providers will send you the bill before they even send it, or at the same time that they send it to the insurance company. So you get this gigantic bill and you think that's all your responsibility. It's not wait for that explanation of benefits. If the explanation of benefits says patient responsibility, zero.

[00:17:24] Circle it, send it in with a photocopy kick, the original syndrome with a photocopy. And you probably won't hear from the doctor's office again. So don't just send a check for whatever the doctor's office is telling you, what you owe the insurance company can act as the negotiator for you. Now, if they say you owe more than you can even pay.

[00:17:48] You can do payment plans. You can ask for what they call charity case. You can negotiate the bill. No. Is the beginning of a negotiation. Don't stop it. No, [00:18:00] unless it's like physical between you and another human and that they say no, then you stop. But when it comes to your medical bills, no is negotiate.

[00:18:09] And. Don't stop and don't get the care that you need or feel that you can't go back to the doctor because you can't pay the last bill. You still have the right to get medical care, even if you have a balance due, but you can negotiate that balance too. So paying even $10 a month can get you far in getting in to get that bill knocked down and know that even after if they see that you are in good faith paying deputy.

[00:18:38] To the best of your ability to get that bill down for the part that you actually owe. They over six to 12 months, we'll say, Hey, you've been paying this, let's negotiate to a balance settled. And that could be, we'll write the rest off. It could be pay $200 more and you're done. And maybe you could [00:19:00] borrow the 200 if that's what you need.

[00:19:03] They are. They tend to, once they see that you're trying to pay the bill, we'll negotiate with you. But if you just go, I'm not paying you anything, you don't deserve this. They're going to fight you for the money. So stop and negotiate and get through that. And I know it takes energy when you don't have a lot of energy, but it's worth it in the long run.

[00:19:22] Take that time and energy now and make sure that you're staying organized and up-to-date, and if you can't pay anything or write them. So at least they're seeing that you understand and recognize that you owe this amount and you agree to pay this amount when you're able to, or as you're able to.

[00:19:39] But that you're having a challenging time. And then if all else fails, ask for a charity case form and fill that out and show them that you are not able to pay this bill and that this is going to be a long-term illness or chronic care situation, and they can work with you and help you on that

[00:19:59] Scott Maderer: as well.[00:20:00]

[00:20:00] Yeah. And I've actually had several folks that have had good luck going into the doctor's office or into the hospital. Going to the patient the office manager or the patient care management team and having a conversation and just showing them the reality here's what I make every month.

[00:20:19] This is my bills. I'm not ducking you. This is really my reality and

[00:20:25] Barby Ingle: know that they have. That in their system written in that there are going to be charity cases. There are going to be patients that don't have the means to pay, and that is written in, and that's why they charge insurance companies, these crazy numbers, because it helps balance out the patients who can't pay the difference or can't pay their balance due.

[00:20:48] And so they're able to use the system to help everybody. But unless you ask, unless you speak up and say, Hey, I need help with. They're not going to just offer you that they have to see that [00:21:00] you're making an effort and that you're a doer in this situation you're being responsible and you understand how the system works and which the system is working as designed, which is typically poorly.

[00:21:12] Like we weren't expecting, we weren't expecting COVID. So they're just like, oh, let's face it and throw all these things. And some are working and they stick and some don't work and some have to be renegotiated, but they just threw everything at it. And I wish they did that with all rare diseases.

[00:21:29] Scott Maderer: And it is a process.

[00:21:31] That's the other thing that people don't realize is it's, like you said the system is working. It's not official. That's not necessarily always effective, but it is working. Yeah,

[00:21:41] Barby Ingle: exactly. As they designed it. And we just have to learn how to negotiate, navigate and get through the minefield of the health system, because it's their system.

[00:21:51] It's got. As best it can for the majority, which means that the minority can be overlooked. The people [00:22:00] who have acute care needs get the best help and hope the people with long-term chronic care needs don't but knowing that you can still navigate the acute system, the short-term system long-term you just have to know how to do it and recognize it.

[00:22:16] And it takes a little time to.

[00:22:17] Scott Maderer: You can follow Barbie angle on Twitter as Barbie Ingle. That's spelled I N G L E R finder on her website@barbieingle.com. She's also on LinkedIn at Barbie angle or on Facebook as Barbie Ingle official, of course I'll have links to all of that over the show notes as well. Barbie, is there anything else you'd like to share with the LR?

[00:22:42] Barby Ingle: I just had said this, but there is. Because we have help, please reach out and seek out what you need in your life so that you can live your best.

[00:22:52] Scott Maderer: Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast, as a subscriber and listener, we [00:23:00] challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoy this episode. Please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes rate.

[00:23:21] All one word iTunes rate. It'll take you through how to leave a rating and review and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you can get every episode as it comes out in your. Until next time, invest your time, your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.