Revolutionizing Health Care Delivery - Dr. Brian Hill (HipNation)

Dr. Brian Hill is a practicing surgeon who saw the disconnect between healthcare quality and price increases and decided to offer a disruptive model that better aligns with health needs and healthcare offerings. He started HIPnation as an entrepreneur trying to disrupt an industry and offer an alternative to traditional healthcare plans. HIPnation is on a trajectory to offer healthcare and challenge traditional thinking in ways that only small businesses and entrepreneurial minds can achieve. Did you know our amazing voices can go beyond just the microphone? Yes, we have video! Subscribe to our YouTube channel here!

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GOLD NUGGETS:

(00:00) - Revolutionizing Healthcare

(03:14) - Moments of Humor in Medical Journey

(12:16) - Reforming Healthcare Through Direct Contracting

(30:48) - Revolutionizing Healthcare Economics

(35:58) - Healthcare Pricing and Consumerism Discussion

(47:12) - Improving Healthcare for Business

(57:27) - Customer Service and Business Books

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Brian’s Links:

Website | https://hipnation.com/ 

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Book Mentioned: Good To Great - Jim Collins

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Previous guests on The Small Business Safari include Dale Cardwell, Amy Lyle, Ben Alexander, Joseph Sission, Jonathan Ellis, Brad Dell, Chris Hanks, C.T. Emerson, Chad Brown, Tracy Moore, Wayne Sherger, David Raymond, Paul Redman, Gabby Meteor, Ryan Dement, Barbara Heil Sonneck, Bryan John, Tom Defore, Rusty Clifton, Duane Johns, Jason Sleeman, Andy Suggs, Chris Michel, Jon Ostenson, Tommy Breedlove, Rocky Lalvani, Amanda Griffey, Spencer Powell, Joe Perrone, David Lupberger, Duane C. Barney, Dave Moerman, Jim Ryerson, Al Mishkoff, Scott Specker, Mike Claudio and more!

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If You Loved This Episode Try These!

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• Turning 23 Years of McDonald's Franchise Ownership to an Entrepreneurial Lifestyle

• Attracting High-Value Clients with Irresistible Marketing Messages | Daniel Den

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Have any questions or comments? Connect with me here!

Transcript

Chris Lalomia: 0:00

But, secondly, you're going to understand why did doctors get into business. They didn't do it for the big fat paycheck, man. You didn't go to school for 14 years because you thought, man, I'm going to go get my big house on the beach, I'm going to do this I'm going to do. No, you did it because you wanted to help people, and this, what we're talking about now and that's what Doc keeps talking about, and that's what I really want you guys all here is that their why is just like our why as a small business owner. Right, their why was to help people.

Chris Lalomia: 0:28

Welcome to the Small Business Safari, where I help guide you to avoid those traps, pitfalls and dangers that lurk when navigating the wild world of small business ownership. I'll share those gold nuggets of information and invite guests to help accelerate your ascent to that mountaintop of success. It's a jungle out there and I want to help you traverse through the levels of owning your own business that can get you bogged down and distract you from hitting your own personal and professional goals. So strap in adventure team and let's take a ride through the safari and get you to the mountaintop. All right, everybody, bend over, get ready, it's time to get your physical on.

Chris Lalomia: 1:09

We're going to talk to a doctor who is going to revolutionize how you think about medicine, what you think about health care, what you think about how health care should be administered and how you actually, as a small business owner, are probably going to miss out if you don't understand how this whole thing works. But it's going to be a good time. But before we get to that. So I hate that my doctor's actually in here, because I had to fill all these forms and they said how much do you drink? And I went occasionally, oh, so you really are his doctor.

Alan Wyatt: 1:40

No, he's not my physical doctor.

Brian Hill: 1:43

Not yet, but eventually he will be mine.

Chris Lalomia: 1:44

Yeah yeah, especially if I'm turned in this way. But it's like do you drink? Uh, occasionally. Do you smoke? Oh, never, no. And uh, how often do you work out? Oh, every day, two hours a day. So now he's seeing the real thing. He's down here in the basement with us, seeing the big liquor wall behind us and seeing that we're having a bourbon while we talk.

Alan Wyatt: 2:03

So there goes the myths, uh because there's a pill that'll fix everything right.

Brian Hill: 2:08

Without a doubt, it's the easy button, although I tell guys I mean the excitement of christmas you know, so I'm a urologist by training and I generally tell people how do you know you're an alcoholic is if you drink more than your urologist. So so far you're okay, all right but there's still time.

Chris Lalomia: 2:25

All right, thank you, I need.

Alan Wyatt: 2:26

It all right, we got dr brian hill some good jokes uh, this is gonna be fun. Doctors with good jokes all right, doc, it's exciting.

Chris Lalomia: 2:33

We got dr brian hill um, who has just mentioned. He is a urologist and practicing urologist and still practicing, but he's had this revolutionary idea and he's developed it and we're going to talk about that because uh truly is revolutionary, and I bought into it and have my family on it and getting ready to put my whole company on it. This is something that I again. You want to rage against the machine. You want to change things. Do not start protesting. That's bullshit, right? That's not the way you make change happen.

Alan Wyatt: 3:10

You make change happen by finding some revolutionary idea, getting there and then telling people about how cool it is. So with that, alan, let's get started.

Chris Lalomia: 3:13

You got serious on me for a second. I did. I was back to the urology jokes. All right, let's go back to urology. Well, actually, all right. So, doc, right, you're growing up. Uh, you grew up in virginia and I mean, how the hell did you go? Yeah, I, I'm going to work on urology and I love how they use the word urology. And where did that name come from? And where the hell, why didn't it come out with what we're all thinking?

Brian Hill: 3:32

Well, nobody could actually say that I was going to put that into a podcast. But I probably won't say that.

Alan Wyatt: 3:37

Go ahead yeah.

Brian Hill: 3:38

Yeah, well, it's the D of thing. I mean, you're a doctor, but did I say I'm not sure if I was supposed to see. Now my whole everything from here forward is gone I mean the whole. Uh, it's my credibility dot yeah um yeah, so urology is fun, I mean in the end. I mean, just as far as going into medicine I think I told you we were talking a while back, chris I mean I love medicine. Medicine is just an awesome place to be urology is fun.

Alan Wyatt: 4:00

I never thought I would hear that sentence. I've got that voice. Well, for you, yeah, not for the end user, oh, when I get to end users, I get it.

Chris Lalomia: 4:11

Hey, look at you coming in with a pun. But growing up, how were you introduced to medicine and why did you determine that was your path?

Brian Hill: 4:19

You know it's kind of interesting. There really wasn't anything in my lifestyle, my upbringing, I mean I was a kid of a FBI guy. As a father, I never had anything that really kind of had that aha moment that oh, you need to be a doctor. It was just on my heart, I mean. I remember telling my parents when I was five years old I'm like I'm going to grow up and be a doctor, and of course my parents were like sure, you go out there and you pick your nose and run around the backyard, but you're going to be a doctor, no doubt. But no, it was just always one of those things that I just knew I was supposed to be.

Brian Hill: 4:50

So where did you go to school? So I went to a small school for undergrad in Virginia called Eastern Mennonite University and then, after finishing up there, stayed in Virginia, went to the Medical College of Virginia for my medical school training. We had the knife and gun club at the time. Uh, at the time richmond was the number two per capita, uh, murder, um capital in the world, so just behind new orleans wow, so you got obviously got a lot of experience, hands-on training, yeah it's always kind of good to pick that out, and then you'll go ahead medical school so that's four plus four.

Chris Lalomia: 5:21

Wait, hang on, that's eight years. Yes, uh, for most of us who are normal, I'm sorry, higher math. So how about that?

Alan Wyatt: 5:28

no, you're doing a great job counting on this episode, chris. I'm just still laughing at the fact that he's got great toys, which is kind of sadistic. And then, oh and then, yay, I happen to be in the murder capital of the world, and so, lucky me, you can, you can see how you got to be geared to be in medicine.

Chris Lalomia: 5:43

Yeah, that's right. Clearly you got to have a good sense of humor and you got to really love other people.

Alan Wyatt: 5:47

It's a little bit of schadenfreude going on here, right, mild amount of insanity, but you know.

Brian Hill: 5:53

To do what we do in this world, you have to be a little insane and to think differently, you have to be willing to walk in. That you know. Box.

Chris Lalomia: 5:59

All right, but then you got to for this. It's a specialty right, so you have to go more.

Brian Hill: 6:03

So I did so. I finished up my four years of medical training and then went and did my residency in urology. That was a six-year program, did that at the University of Maryland. So about what is that? 14 years in post-training on board.

Chris Lalomia: 6:17

Yeah, so clearly dedicated right Willing to put the time in. I think we figured that out. I wish I knew him better. There's so many jokes, Right? I? Know, and he went to Maryland for that. When I think of Maryland, what do you think of Crabs? You're like oh, where are we going?

Brian Hill: 6:33

now, I don't know. I think at that time I think Maryland motto amongst the medical community was the city that breeds, and so I guess there was a significant amount of STDs in the world of Maryland, but fortunately that was not my world. I operate.

Chris Lalomia: 6:54

So you get out and then you do what every doctor after 14 years in it's time to go make some money.

Brian Hill: 6:56

So what'd you do? So I did so. I actually looked around the United States, figured out where I wanted to go, set up shop, had an opportunity to kind of decide where we wanted to go. We found that Atlanta was interesting, intriguing. So we decided to come to Atlanta, joined a medical practice here, a urology practice here in Atlanta, started working and got to know my wife because we had disappeared from each other for about 10 years there.

Chris Lalomia: 7:13

Yeah, so all right. So the lady you're still married to was here when you first got started doing that.

Brian Hill: 7:18

Wow, she's been with me since uh, you know finishing undergrad.

Chris Lalomia: 7:25

Wow, she's. You were the potential yeah, I guess that's the word. You had higher potential earning power.

Brian Hill: 7:27

Now she's looking at me going really him is this who I waited for?

Alan Wyatt: 7:31

yeah, in all those years all right.

Chris Lalomia: 7:36

So you come to atlanta, you start, you, you get into it, uh, obviously very successful and it's a great way to make money. I mean, you put all this time in, so that's awesome. So, uh, you're doing this thing, and then you have this idea. How did this idea come out? And then let's talk about this one now.

Brian Hill: 7:51

Yeah, so no great. So we started working for a little bit. You know, like I said, it was a matter of kind of, you know, hopefully paying off a little debt from medical school residency, getting my you know, my wife a little bit. But to be honest with you, you realize very quickly when you come out of practicing medicine that what you're working in is a healthcare system, and the healthcare system is not necessarily about healthcare. There's all these other players kind of into the mix, things you're never taught or trained about as you kind of go through medical work. And so it was very apparent very early on that the healthcare system was a mess.

Brian Hill: 8:19

And I'm somebody, as you guys will find out, has a very big mouth and a very short willingness to sit by and kind of let things run sideways. And so soon thereafter I decided to engage in some policy think tanks. I started working here in the state of Georgia on some think tanks, started trying to figure out where are the issues in our society, always had a bigger idea about footprints in the world, and so kind of that foray into think tanks, policy making, made me delve into, start thinking about healthcare, certainly more and more. As an MD on a think tank you're going to be couched into medical, and that love and passion of medicine kind of bore through to the point where we said you know what healthcare is a mess, you know and how do we go ahead and try to make this morass better. And that was the foray of really jumping into finding something better.

Chris Lalomia: 9:07

This is a big one because I would say, right now you're you're trying to tackle like a, a monster problem that's bigger than my thinking, which doesn't. It doesn't mean a lot, because I definitely didn't go to school for 14 years like doc here did, but that's a big, a big ask right To go. I'm like doc here did, but, uh, that's a big, uh, big ask right to go. I'm gonna go, you know what? I'm gonna go fix health care in the us and oh, by the way, I'm not the president. Yeah, so as you jumped into this, was it naivete or did you feel like you know what? I really think I can make this needle move I think we can make the needle move.

Brian Hill: 9:39

I mean, it's both right. Anytime you build something, you're gonna go. It's both. But whether you start a small business and you come in with a naivete of going, oh this is going to be easy, it's not going to take a lot of time, it's not going to take a lot of money, it's easy Well, nothing is easy in this world that's worth it. This is the same thing. And so, thankfully, the naivete kind of really started building out our company, working in the policy world and looking at the structure of the healthcare system, seeing these stakeholders that are at play in the healthcare system and realizing how intransigent it is. But was not deterred because, again I go back to, I am just too unwilling to sit back and be quiet and not try to fix something I mean is a big, I mean for me I mean you talk about and I know you love this when I have no idea what bomb is about to be dropped.

Alan Wyatt: 10:30

I mean, I know this is a big pleasure of yours, but what? What is it? What did you guys? What did you do?

Brian Hill: 10:34

all right, doc, what'd you do? What'd you do? Yeah, so, very simply, and I can't say simply, I don't think it is yeah.

Alan Wyatt: 10:41

No, it's so bad, chris. I know I didn't. I didn't let alan prep for this one, I mean, and I even I texted him earlier in the day I'm like what are we talking about? About? It's gonna be great. No, he didn't even say that. He just like pretended like he was working.

Brian Hill: 10:52

I did, I did pretend like it was working all right. But I think the good thing about that, alan, is it kind of just allows you to kind of hear what we're talking about and, from your side, interject and and I said I think, provide value of of what the heck did Brian just say Does it make sense?

Alan Wyatt: 11:04

So just for the audience. He's got a serious Bill Hader thing going on, don't you think?

Chris Lalomia: 11:08

Oh, he definitely looks like Bill.

Brian Hill: 11:09

Hader yeah, man, I got a little Jim Carrey. Every once in a while I'll take the Bill Hader yeah, he's younger.

Chris Lalomia: 11:20

Is he sexier? I don't know if he's sexier, I don't know.

Alan Wyatt: 11:22

I don say, if you had to say one of them was sexy, it would be Bill Hader over Jim Carrey, I guess I would. Yeah, I guess.

Chris Lalomia: 11:28

I'd do that. There you go, we've got a new podcast coming out.

Brian Hill: 11:31

I just had to get you guys a new idea on a podcast. I don't know.

Chris Lalomia: 11:35

Great guys rating hot guys. I think we've got a new podcast, Alex.

Brian Hill: 11:42

All right. So I'll step back and give it a 30,000 foot, maybe a little bit to your question, alan. I mean, so I always tell people what is healthcare in today's world and what do we see when we kind of think about healthcare? And healthcare really is a tale of the health insurance industry that's wagging the dog.

Brian Hill: 11:59

So healthcare, when we generally think about healthcare, is we go, hey, we're taking money. We think about healthcare. Is we go? Hey, we're taking money. We think about health insurance, right, we're taking money and putting this money into this pot we call it premiums. We're going to put it into this pot that is called Blue Cross or United or Cigna, and that pot of money is going to be used to go out there and help me buy healthcare. And that's the healthcare system.

Brian Hill: 12:16

We've got a third party payer kind of in the middle of all of this and so all of the money that we put together in healthcare is funneling through this third party and that third party takes your money and takes your money and then says, okay, now, alan, you're going to go see Brian and oh, yeah, by the way, I'm going to pay Brian your money, but I'm going to filter a whole lot of effort and work and costs and everything in the middle of that, and I'm going to tell Brian what he needs to do to take care of you and I'm going to make it really, really expensive, because all of those interactions have an awful lot of people in them and we said, wait a minute, why in the world are all of these people standing in the world of healthcare and making things exorbitantly expensive?

Brian Hill: 12:53

Maybe if we rebuilt healthcare the same way we kind of buy everything else in our world through direct contracting and direct working with the people who provide us a service, maybe if we got rid of all those middlemen, maybe, just maybe, the cost of healthcare would drop like a rock and maybe doctors would start listening to people instead of the insurance industry and maybe we can make the healthcare a little bit more affordable and a little more patient-centered. And, I don't know, change healthcare a little bit. Sounds easy, doc.

Chris Lalomia: 13:17

Sounds easy, come on, start asking questions.

Alan Wyatt: 13:31

Well, and I think about when, I think about the crazy cost of health care. I, I realize you've got that middleman totally trying to make money, obviously, you got a doctor who's trying to make money, and then you have, um, new technology and the ability to spend gobs of money trying to fix one person's issue that maybe 30 years ago we, we, couldn't fix. And I I don't want to sound so, you know, just so clinical about it, but you know. So where am I going with this?

Brian Hill: 13:58

I don't know you know what I mean.

Chris Lalomia: 13:59

So all right, you know let me help you a little bit. So, yeah, please, we pay the doctor who did 14 years, paid a lot of money to get this training. We pay him and he should be paid, right? Right, I mean nobody in back in my world, right, you know? Um, I went with a cheaper option.

Alan Wyatt: 14:14

Oh, good for you well, and you think about it, you're dealing with urology. Oh, I want the cheaper doctor, total socialized medicine, and the doctors aren't making very much money. I want our doctors to choke on the amount of money they make. I want them to make a lot of money because I want the best people, the smartest people, to become doctors.

Chris Lalomia: 14:29

100% right this is one thing you don't go. You know, I got three bids. I want the cheapest one, no. So I want that guy to make that money the guy looking at me, the lady looking at me, whoever. But what Brian's talking about is so he has to use a special billing code, and if he uses the wrong billing code now, he has to be trained. Oh, it's a bureaucratic nightmare.

Alan Wyatt: 14:52

But I guess what I was getting at earlier just to kind of try to crash land that plane is with the general rising cost of health care. You also have all this new technology and to treat certain diseases and issues can get really expensive and since we're all in a pool, all of our rates go up because we're paying for a lot of stuff that we used to not be able to do.

Chris Lalomia: 15:12

But you're saying, like 50 years ago, if I had an ailment, like perhaps I drank a little too much, uh, and I was going down, today I'm going to get saved by a pill, but 50 years ago I'm dead yeah, yeah, you could put and I should, and I should be dead.

Alan Wyatt: 15:26

Yeah, I think you kind of you know you got what you deserved. At that point, I'll ask you this right.

Brian Hill: 15:31

So we've got this beautiful right. I've got this beautiful piece of technology in my hand. I'm sitting here looking at my iPhone Unbelievable piece of technology Didn't exist, right? We took somebody to the moon with technology less than this. Yet I can sit here and hold this wonderful piece of technology in my hand that can talk to anybody around the world, can text anybody around the world, and it's affordable, right? Why? Why is an Apple phone affordable? That everybody in the United States and pretty much around the world has a smartphone? Great technology. Is it a technology issue or is it how we actually buy things, how we pay for things, the price transparency, the competition in the marketplace, right? Maybe it's that I don't have a third party helping me buy my iPhone, right? That iPhone actually has to respond to me as a consumer and it's got to create a price point that's actually affordable by me. And maybe that's some of the secret sauce that we need to put together into the world of healthcare.

Chris Lalomia: 16:25

So this is why I bought into it, because we both said the same thing and we'll just say it again, and that's what Doc was just saying I want the specialists to get paid what they deserve, a hundred percent, but I don't need 25 people between them and me getting paid along. That as well. And as somebody who did consulting work and I actually worked for a very short time with healthcare companies, but most of my time was spent in financial services I will tell you some of those buildings that you go into, some of these big providers that we just talked about, are immaculate, 1000% Taj Mahals and you're like wait a minute, my healthcare premium just paid for that. It didn't pay for the doctor that I get to see, or, I'm sorry, and my daughter's about to be a physician's assistant. I'm not going to bang on this.

Chris Lalomia: 17:10

I love my PA daughter, but I get to see a PA after I wait for 45 minutes and they say, I'm sorry, after eight minutes you have to go. So I didn't get this. They, who I want to get paid a ton, got to see me for eight minutes, but they're being told hey, to make your numbers, we need to have a bunch of people flowing through this office so we can bill, because we have to pay the healthcare companies for the billing rates, and so all the money goes off and it's not the one helping you and me sit in our office. Yeah, it's very transactional.

Brian Hill: 17:41

Very and an expensive transactional process, right. That becomes part of. The problem is that the ability or the way that I get paid as a physician is very expensive. The transaction is again happening through a third party, not from you paying from me directly, right. But it's filtering through to Chris's point all of these middlemen that are standing in healthcare that are doing the coding and the billing and the prior authorizing and pre-certifying and denying claims because you put the wrong code in or you didn't check the right box, and that's going to come back to your office and then you've got to refile that bill again and you're going to try to get paid 90 days later from that office visit. That was 120 bucks.

Brian Hill: 18:16

Why am I running that through an expensive bureaucracy? That's an insurance industry and if I do all of that and I've got to keep all of this back office administrative costs to try to get that money back in the door 90 days later, my gosh, I've got to see an awful lot of people in order to generate the revenue and I'm going to be working until two o'clock in the afternoon or three o'clock in the afternoon just to pay overhead costs and pound as many people through my office so that maybe the last three or four people a day I see they're actually people I'm putting in my pocket as making right. And so we've created a system that is so ridiculously expensive and requires just a volume of throughput of patients in order to try to cover your overhead costs and then get a little bit of money left over in the back end If we go. Wait a minute.

Brian Hill: 18:53

Maybe maybe if we actually made it easier for that transactional process to happen for physicians getting paid for the medical care they're providing, without it running through that huge bureaucracy and all the back office and all the administrative costs maybe my doctor can see less people, because it's money that's not flowing out of the system, it's staying with them.

Brian Hill: 19:09

Maybe my doctor can actually get paid a little bit more. Maybe my doctor can actually focus on me, because he's not trying to run me out the door. She's trying to run me out the door in the next seven minutes because I've got a hurry to get through all these other people and it's just going. If we can get rid of this ridiculous middle that's been built in this transactional process that is healthcare, the cost of care could drop like a rock, and the quality of care, because now you become the center point of it rather than the insurance company can improve. And so it's really a matter of we say right, this intermediating, what has become this very expensive, sclerotic middleman called the insurance industry that takes over healthcare using some big words.

Alan Wyatt: 19:47

But okay, so outside of going to back to paying cash or bringing my cow or a couple of chickens to get my unit worked on, you.

Chris Lalomia: 19:59

Oh my god, it's coming right back. He's a urology doc. We're talking about like total body health things I mean, what is the solution?

Alan Wyatt: 20:07

because you you do have people, you know, I mean not everybody. The whole idea of the insurance is to kind of spread out the costs. So I get lucky and I'm reasonably healthy, I don't cost the system much. But you know, chris with his Caligula-like lifestyle just is a real drain on the society, health-wise, hypothetically. Again. I keep forgetting to use that word, hypothetically, please. I mean, I can't say everything I usually say, just an imaginary person whose name rhymes with Chris. I keep forgetting to do that.

Brian Hill: 20:40

So you have to have.

Alan Wyatt: 20:42

It seems like maybe you've got to. I can't wait to hear what you have, but there has to be some sort of blend between me paying with chickens and this bloated behemoth?

Brian Hill: 20:55

Yes, then there is, and the bloated behemoth is an unnecessary animal. Now, in today's world that doesn't do anybody any good, except for themselves and maybe their shareholders. Right, that's just the reality of the insurance industry. Take an awful lot of money off the top, make it really difficult for us to, as medicine, provide medical care to you all and make it really expensive for you to go buy their product called health insurance and to make healthcare my product I sell really expensive. So we go, let's stop that.

Brian Hill: 21:20

Let's rethink healthcare a little bit and take this concept of insurance and put it aside, you know, for a second, and go. If I wanted to make healthcare itself efficient and remarkable, right, how would we just build that first, you know, and for employer groups who are spending right, second biggest bottom line item on their P&L, right is their health insurance, and it's the one they can't control, it's the one that's going up all the time. You follow, maybe oftentimes your payroll, and then you got your right health insurance premiums and so we go. If we wanted to rebuild this and make healthcare first valuable for people, powerful for people, from the side of medicine, I would tell you and, as we've expounded upon, I'm a urologist, but I would say the most important person in your healthcare existence and the existence of our society is your primary care doctor. So let's just first focus on what studies consistently show around the world and health systems looking at the functionality of health systems and actually improving the quality of care and having their society live longer, happier, healthier lives.

Brian Hill: 22:19

Primary care has been shown to be the linchpin. Well, like I said, in our world those primary care doctors are running around seeing 22 to 25 people a day. They're miserable. Spending half their time dealing with an insurance company Can't stand what they're doing, dealing prior authorizations. They're burnt out. 60% of doctors are burnt out in medicine and they're going. Wait a minute, I grew up to be a doctor because I'm going to build an insurance company and spend my time focusing on them. We go that's awful. So let's rewire that product and let's do this instead. Let's just have primary care, walk away from insurance. Nobody's going to go bankrupt with their primary care doctor. I mean, what's the point of insurance? High cost, catastrophic event I haven't seen a primary care event cause somebody to go bankrupt. So we go. Let's have doctors in the primary care space, walk away and just direct contract with you and you by service, just set up a membership model pay like you go pay a gym which I am hearing a little of that.

Chris Lalomia: 24:28

So so here a couple things that I love about what what doc has built, uh and done. I mean, he's bucking against the trend. So hang on, if you got a small business, stay with me, man. I know you're in your truck, you're rolling, you're trying to figure out what the hell's in it for me. There's two things in it for you. Number one um, you're gonna learn about how a guy saw an idea and bucked a trend way bigger than all of us. Bro, I'm telling you, all of us and gal. But secondly, you're going to understand why did doctors get into business. They didn't do it for the big fat paycheck man. You didn't go to school for 14 years because you thought, man, I'm going to go get my big house on the beach, I'm going to do this. No, you did it because you wanted to help people.

Chris Lalomia: 25:11

And what we're talking about now and that's what Doc keeps talking about and that's what I really want you guys all to hear is that their why is just like our why as a small business owner. Their why was to help people, and in the world that they're creating now, you don't see that why. And if you're ever in corporate America and you paid your premiums and your company paid a half to a third, or back to when my wife was at IBM. They paid for all of it back in the day, big blue. We didn't even think about it. We're like, ah, whatever, you know, we were young, we were healthy. But you saw your doctor if you're lucky for 10 to 15 minutes, and so what doc is saying is, let's, let's, put this back to the general practitioner. So, uh, you went for an extra six years. These guys go for still eight years, but when you go see them, uh, and I have, I sat there for two hours talking about everything that I have going wrong with me and, believe me, we could have gone for eight hours.

Chris Lalomia: 26:02

Alan, I know that's what cliff I did do, cliff notes and the whole time going, how much did you drink Occasionally. So, anyway, thank God they didn't have lie detectors in there. I swear to God, it's an idea. Actually, after hearing this, you're probably right, but no, and so far my wife's been there. My kids are scheduling a trip to come back and do this as well, and you're right.

Chris Lalomia: 26:28

It was the first time in my medical life where somebody actually sat there, listened to me, talked to me and then started offering advice no, let's do this, let's do that, wait a minute, hey instead of just saying let's throw pills at it or do this and so for me, I got better care and I'm directly paying for my best care through that Now. As a small business owner, I have never provided healthcare for my company and now, for the first time ever, I can see it as an affordable option for me to be able to do it, because in my world it's very hard for me to compete and offer health care and I can't do. What big blue did I mean? Again, my handyman rates, uh, and some people in this room will tell you that I, I spent, I pay, I charge a lot of money are you really looking at me?

Chris Lalomia: 27:20

no, you, you do, but, but we get it. I mean, we get all the time like, well, I went with a cheaper option. I'm like, all right, we're a, so I get it. But if I layered in healthcare I would be even less and it's been hard, so it's hard for me to offer that, to provide this. Now I get an opportunity where I go. Hmm, I think I got a way to do it and I got a way to actually keep my people healthier, because I'm putting the power back in the people I want to have the power in and I'm putting the power back in the people I want to have the power in, and that's the doc who's been trained to again play to his why or her why, and that is I want to help people.

Alan Wyatt: 27:57

So that's what this whole part of it is. So, basically, you can contract per employee for some sort of an annual contract and they, or is it no?

Chris Lalomia: 28:02

it's monthly Pay per go.

Chris Lalomia: 28:03

So the way it is, yeah again no, it's still a monthly thing. So the way they yeah, again it. No, it's a still a monthly thing. So the program and I'm going to jump to it now so the program that you would have if I went, normal healthcare world, they would like okay, here's my healthcare, here's, you know, pick one of the big four or five that are out there. You get to offer that to your company. By law you have to do 50% because you're going through us. Our numbers start in the 400s and go up. So now you have to pay 200 per employee. It's a non-starter.

Chris Lalomia: 28:34

And then I go. I asked my employees are you willing to pay $200 a month for healthcare? And they're like no, no, no, and and and doc is sitting there shaking they won't, they won't do it, they know. And unless you're going to pay for all of it, I'm like well, if I pay for all of it, then we're not going to have as many jobs and I probably can't employ all of you guys. So they're like then we don't want it, all right. So I don't do that, I start looking at this option. If I do this, I can pay whatever is allowed, whatever I feel that I can afford, and ask them. But here's the deal. I didn't start at 400. I started at half that Okay. So now I asked the guys can you pay a hundred dollars a month? Yeah, all right, I'll do it now. And you're like, okay, now I have healthier employees and I have handyman, I have remodelers, I have project managers, I have a office staff. And they're like, yeah, I'll do it All right. Well, here's how the program works and here's how, here's what you get. So it's not all panacea, right, but it's also more appropriate to the way it works.

Chris Lalomia: 29:28

And these guys go get and meet with a primary doctor and they get time with that primary doctor, and now they learn about what's going on. And when they say, I have a problem, now we can talk about that. So where does it happen? Here's where it happens. These guys. What they do is Hip Nation here in Atlanta, and now you guys are, uh, how many states are you in? Now? 12, 12 states. So, uh, they had this idea you pay a lot less per month, you get access to your primary doctor. Who, doc said, was your linchpin? And I'm I'm speaking for him because you got to hear this. And then, if you have a major event, so their example. An example is I broke my leg.

Chris Lalomia: 30:10

Now what Well? You go into the ER and you do the thing. You come in, you tell everybody I'm going to self-pay, and here's where the crazy stuff goes. So they teach you how to work through the system. They didn't teach us how to work through the system. I'm going to tell you. I already learned how to work through the system because I told you I didn't do healthcare right. Watch this.

Chris Lalomia: 30:37

One of my guys in my truck had a heart attack on I-575. If you don't know, 575 here in Atlanta, it is a super speedway. It's just blanketed as a highway. So he was going 90 miles an hour and started to black out. He got the car under control and got off the road. He had a heart attack. He went in. I did not offer health care. He went in there and what he said was to the doctors and they came in and they said well, they said he said I'm going to have to self-pay. So what did they do? They put him through. They take care of him number one, because that's what hospitals are supposed to do. Thank God Again, their why, right, you got to the people and then, after it was done, it was like all right, we got to figure out how to pay it and he's I can't, they go. All right, we're going to put you on a payment plan. Okay, so the payment plan he will probably pay until he dies.

Brian Hill: 31:23

So go ahead, not us. So I'll throw this for guys that are listening and businesses and gals what I meant by he's going to die 50 years from now.

Chris Lalomia: 31:32

I mean the guy. He's still healthy, he's still working with you.

Brian Hill: 31:36

This happened three years ago, so I'll throw it. So the why that you all hopefully should be listening, and maybe why I was hopefully asked to be here, is we do have a heart for businesses. We really want to see two things happen for businesses. Is we do have a heart for businesses. We really want to see two things happen for businesses. I want them to be able to bring a high quality, affordable product to their employees and that's what we've built for employees and businesses and I want their employees to get great healthcare. And so part of what we're the mechanics that we can talk about a little bit. What undergirds the economics of how we work. It's kind of what we were talking about a little bit. What undergirds the economics of how we work. It's kind of what we were talking about a little bit before.

Brian Hill: 32:11

But what the economics drive is that we can go to an employer group and who can be on Blue Cross or United or Cigna, and they walk away from that. Stop paying ridiculous premiums. I talked to an employer group today. They're paying $800 for an employee only on their insurance plan. You go, walk away from that. It's not paying that. Half your employees can't afford it. Most of your employees can't afford it. Even if you're paying 50, 75%, stop wasting money that going to the insurance company and let's instead have you join our model of how we provide and how we believe healthcare can and should work, and our model is based on two pillars. You know, and again, huge, huge cost savings that are going to come from the employer and the employee by working on our platform and using the way we work One, everybody's going to get that access to a great primary care experience that Chris talked about.

Brian Hill: 32:59

Our primary care doctors take care of a couple hundred people instead of thousands of people. Our primary care doctors see six or eight people a day instead of 25 people a day. We do that because our primary care doctors have walked away from insurance and all the ridiculous bureaucrat cost and join us and their job is to do one thing and one thing only take care of a great I mean do a great job taking great care of a small number of people. Give them your cell phone, give them unlimited office visits, give them access through texting and telemedicine right, and just go be a doctor. And because I'm not billing an insurance company because of all those administrative costs are gone away, our doctors can actually get paid well because we're not funneling money out to an insurance industry. It's staying in the office and if our costs are less You're billing less and keeping more, and I'm not billing at all because it's a monthly membership.

Brian Hill: 33:49

It and if our costs are less You're billing less and keeping more and I'm not billing at all because it's a monthly membership.

Chris Lalomia: 33:50

It's easy, but they keep it Again it's easy. Where do I want to go? I want my money to go to the person who's taking care of me, not the person five states away who's administering and doing all this stuff.

Brian Hill: 34:03

So that's the first piece. Let me hit you so, if you don't mind, Chris that's that first piece of going great access, great primary care.

Brian Hill: 34:09

But then the other pillar that you mentioned there and the way we access health care is how do we, if I leave my primary care and it's included in our product right, there is no additional charges included in our monthly cost but if I leave that space of the primary care, because bad things can happen to our bodies and I maybe need a CAT scan, mri, or maybe I have a heart attack or maybe I need to have surgery, right, the question becomes in that space, right One, how do we pull dollars together, you know, for an employer to make sure that we've got the money to be able to pay for that medical issue? Well, one thing we've done is we've helped create this kind of a co-op style model where we take employer groups and pull employer groups together and go let's pull our dollars into this fund and we use a platform that's called medical cost sharing, which is almost like crowdfunding, and we go let's pull all of our dollars together and put them in this fund, not give them to the insurance company, but let's do it ourselves because, as we mentioned, insurance companies are expensive and costly and drive us all crazy in healthcare. Let's do it ourselves. And now that we've got this dollar in the fund, how do we want to go and purchase those healthcare services in the world the x-rays and the office visits? Well, we can buy it through an insurance company, but again we talked about all the chaos that comes with buying things for an insurance company. Or we can do something really simple. Medicine is willing to offer their services me as a urologist and hospitals and imaging centers and ambulatory surgery centers. We're willing to offer our services at a discounted rate, significantly discounted rate. If you pay me today, if you don't make me have to fight with an insurance company and carry 60% administrative costs to try to get money in my door 90 days later, I'll give you a discount. And so when we go out and we say all my primary care is included, but the per unit cost of care, when I step out of that office, I'm going to be buying it as a self-pay customer and buying it at that 30 to 75% discount. Now I'm buying healthcare at its real price because I'm not funding the middleman of the insurance costs in healthcare, I'm just buying the service. So now the price per unit of care drops.

Brian Hill: 36:24

And now we talked about with Chris.

Brian Hill: 36:26

We've got this money in this pot, right Our crowdfunding kind of pot and we go talked about with Chris, we've got this money in this pot, right Our crowdfunding kind of pot and we go oh great, brian's business is in this and Chris's business is in Alan's business.

Brian Hill: 36:35

We're all in this pot together and we've got a lot of businesses around the United States that have their money in this pot here together and if God forbid, something bad happens to Alan, we're going to use the money in our pot to go buy that medical care for Alan. We're going to use the money in our pot to go buy that medical care for Alan. We're going to help give you the funds to do so, but we're going to buy it as a self-paid customer and pay for it at its real price and make sure the medicine gets paid quickly and easily and efficiently, rather than having to fight 90 days later to get paid. And since that cost of care is less, in that way, the premium that we charge the monthly we call it a contribution that monthly contribution drops by 50% to 60% the cost right to so let's talk real dollars in this one.

Chris Lalomia: 37:14

So the scenario I just talked about and this is the one that we actually used to figure out if this is going to be a good fit for me. He did have a heart attack. It was three years ago. He is on a payment plan and he will. He's on a payment plan literally until again he passes, which hopefully will be a hundred, you know, maybe 90, but whatever.

Chris Lalomia: 37:34

In this scenario, had he been on a healthcare program that I would have been able to offer to him, he would have been in, he would have been paying 150 to $200 a month and then, in this situation, he would have came in and said hey, sir, how would you like to pay? He goes, well, I'm going to self-pay, I'm going to pay you today. They went okay. Well, instead of charging you $300,000, we're going to charge you $100,000, a third. It would have been a third, check this out. And, by the way, his contribution to this deal would have been $1,000. He would have had to only pay $1,000 to that and he's done, he's out, he's not having to pay for the rest of his life.

Chris Lalomia: 38:15

Our fund pays the rest. The fund pays the rest, but you see what the hospital system just did. They're like oh, you mean, you're going to pay me today. I don't have to do these stupid billing codes and 75 billing codes and make sure I get paid and get. So they took all the administration away.

Chris Lalomia: 38:29

Because, again, as a small business owner, what are you thinking? Pay me today, I'm going to give you a deal. You pay me cash, bro. I'll do anything to anybody, anytime. You've heard me say that all the time. Oh, I'm going to put. Can you finance me? Yeah, sure I can. Let me tell you what that number is going to look like. So they, they lowered their price by a. It would have been a third lower by self-pay and my employee would only have been out of pocket a thousand and then our contribution of our group and the groups that we joined would have paid the rest and he would have only been had to pay a thousand today. Right now he's stroking a check every month just for that heart surgery that he had to have three years ago and I'm processing hard it is hard.

Chris Lalomia: 39:13

I'd say it's hard, it's a lot to take in, and I would tell you actually I put dr the ringer doing this um, and I'm still putting them through it because I haven't put my company on it yet, um, but we met uh once, twice, then again with my family, and then we got, we joined uh because I'm obviously I'm self-employed, um, I had been riding my wife's insurance for years. She's retired, so we had to figure this out. And he got on the phone with my wife, talked her through it all. We've been through it. My kids understand it. My daughter, you know, going to PA school. We'll be off it, hopefully very freaking soon. I mean, this is going on so long, doc, again, your parents must have said after 14 years, you were off the I was off the payroll for a long time. Okay, good, yeah, you know what Daughters though different, right, they're different, dear God, ay-yi-yi, an outie, by the way.

Alan Wyatt: 40:05

An outie.

Chris Lalomia: 40:05

She just got an outie.

Brian Hill: 40:19

I thought you were talking to Rare Belly. No, it is. It is a health care. It is a health care. You know conversation. So yeah, so it's interesting.

Brian Hill: 40:21

And to be granular and to give like a business is a granular idea. I said I mean most businesses we're seeing today are paying 800 for an employee only. I see employee family plans and it's certainly in the small business space we're getting crushed. I mean they're paying 2600 for an employee family plan and that's for these employees to walk around with a 7,500 max out of pocket if I get sick family 15,000 if two of us get sick in our family and I'm paying a ton of money to do so. So for us, on just a regular straight employee solution, the one that's the most common that I see employers go with, it's $3.38 a month. That includes all of their primary care, their doctor's cell phone, no co-pays for their primary care office, visit an hour and a half with their doctor to talk about life and health and wellness and partner with you to actually really be a doctor in your life.

Brian Hill: 41:07

And God forbid if something bad happens to me. I'm going to pay the first thousand dollars I'm going to present as a self-pay customer to choose the right price in healthcare. It's all I'm doing. I tell people when I say I'm self-pay, the healthcare system has self-pay rates. We're just accessing that price on our list of charges, called our charge master. I'm going to present as a self-pay, I'm going to pay the first thousand and our fund, right through our medical cost sharing platform, is going to pay for the remainder after that, not 7,500, a thousand.

Alan Wyatt: 41:40

Is there a little bit of risk? You know, you go one hospital and self-pay rate is discounted a certain amount and another hospital is discounted a completely. Maybe some hospital doesn't even discount it. I mean it. It to me it seems like there seems like there's a lot of variables or risk there. So the trust, I don't know what, the right word is so beautiful.

Brian Hill: 42:00

The piece on this is that and again, this is a physician built model and mindset around this. The beautiful piece in the space of pricing healthcare is you're right, there is variability, which is a problem. Right, that's a problem. A little bit in healthcare is why in the world does one hospital cost more than another? Why does one CT scan cost more than another? When it's the same CT scan being read by the same radiologist? It just one happens to be housed in a different location hospital and one happens to be housed in an outpatient imaging center. Why? Why are they radically different prices and why are you guys not aware of that? We should know that there should be price transparency in this and so one we believe in. If we can drive that price transparency, we're going to really create some real solutions here. But the variability in that self-pay pricing does occur. I think it's good for people to see that it creates consumerism.

Brian Hill: 42:48

But the other piece is that usually, again, most hospital systems, imaging centers, ambulatory surgical centers, physicians have discounted self-pay rates better than insurance rates. But even the ones that aren't quote unquote discounted, usually what they're going to charge you is the insurance rate. So the worst case scenario is the cash rate is the same as what your insurance rate would have been, as opposed to significantly discounted. And where that impacts is not our member right, our member pays the first $1,000. You know, and where that impacts is not our member right, our member pays the first thousand dollars. What it impacts is our fund, because our fund is what's paying out after that thousand dollars, and so we all want to be good stewards. Consumers and I don't want Chris's pay have to go up right. His monthly contribution have to go up next year. I'm hoping Chris goes. Yeah, I think I'm going to go buy that MRI at $499 over here at First Look MRI, instead of going and paying $3,000 for that same exact MRI at a hospital-based imaging center.

Chris Lalomia: 43:45

So I said two things you don't want to go to the cheapest guy right, because cheapest guy would be the worst guy. But what we're talking about is affordable and quality and inequality and g and inequality and gouging and pricing. So I think one of the questions, if I was listening, would be like all right, doc, so I go with you guys. Instead of paying the big guys, I'm paying you. Now how come you're not gouging me? I mean so. So how come you're not, yeah.

Brian Hill: 44:08

So so we've done two things right. That's just a great question. So one, our co-op is a nonprofit. So we put together a nonprofit in that co-op, you know, and so that's functioning in. Really it's a community owned, membership owned kind of co-op where we put the capital into you know. So we've kind of said, hey, that's a good way to put money into that. Now I tell people I'm a free market capitalist, just them. Free market capitalism happens in the world when you bring forward a better product at a better price, grow in the marketplace and overcome those old stakeholders that are either providing a worse product or a higher cost product. There's lots of room in this marketplace of healthcare to come in at a lower price point. We are and do very well which we are. And so price gouging how does price gouging get controlled? Then you guys go out and buy beer. Well, you see the price of it. You compare against. Do I want to buy that beer or that beer? Price transparency and competition in the marketplace is what drives down price.

Chris Lalomia: 44:59

So this is a really crude analogy, but I love it. So my son goes to UGA, we go up there, and I said, hey, I want to go out and buy some beer and pizza for you guys, because I made them all fix up the house that we own up there. And uh, my son said, dad, don't go to this one, go out by the place. You're buying pizza because you'll find the beer is more like what you expect to pay. You're like it's the same damn beer. This can over here. And so I I said you know, I forgot to get ice. So I I strolled in there and I looked and, sure enough, the the price of the beer was like double. Why? Because it's closer to campus and perhaps, uh, a nice id might uh take care of business you know, let's just, let's say, let's just say I was carded.

Chris Lalomia: 45:45

Uh, because the cameras are looking. Who's going to card this bald guy anyway? But uh, so that's the point, you know. So I'm not saying it's bad health care if you go this way. It's great, affordable health care, see, because what's happened is the society that we got into and we go through everything and I'm definitely not going to go political because we're almost done with this uh podcast but, um, you've got to start to understand that, uh, everything comes with a price and everything you said said it early, right? Nothing in life is worth it unless it's easy. So you did it, doc, you've done this. Obviously, you get some kickback, you get some deal on doing this. We didn't even get into the business model. We just talked about how good this is. But I feel like your why is double-fold in your life, not only helping people, but also helping people find great, affordable healthcare.

Brian Hill: 46:38

No, that's our mission. So for me, I'm one of these people that realized I kind of mentioned in the beginning I'm one of 15 kids. I grew up with 11 adopted brothers and sisters. I kind of grew up with this perspective of going. How do we go out and change the world? And I'm blessed to be able to do what I do as a physician. I can't complain about that one bit. But I know that when I pass away, nothing's going to be coming with me when I, when I leave. Let's go ahead and leave a heck of a footprint here on this world. And so my hardened vision is going how do we make healthcare affordable, you know, for my, my sister that works at a daycare center, and how do we help my brother, who runs an HVAC company, be able to afford great healthcare for his employees? I think they deserve it.

Alan Wyatt: 47:08

So can an individual sign on, or is it just company?

Brian Hill: 47:11

only so we do individuals. So probably about 80% of our, our, our businesses on the group side, just more businesses, but we do individuals as well. And and if I step back and just kind of like I said, for maybe people that are listening and just to kind of give you an idea of what we can do, which is is just awesome you know, we had a 15 person company reach out to us, you know and there was a plumbing company, third generation family company and they had, they said, four guys that were on their insurance plan through Aetna because they're the only ones who could afford it. Right, the foreman and the owners and the other guys were like I just can't afford this thing. We walked in there with our solution for these guys and said, hey, join us, walk away from Aetna. And when they did, because they said yes, they were able to buy healthcare for all 15 of those guys and still come out $15,000 less per year than what they were paying for four on Aetna.

Brian Hill: 48:00

We bought healthcare to 15 people and not only just healthcare. We brought a personal primary care physician to those 15 guys and gals. They got their doctor's cell phone and they didn't even have an inkling of access to healthcare. Now they got $0 cost to go spend an hour with their primary care doctor to talk about life and health and wellness, and God forbid if they get sick. That prior Aetna plan had a $8,000 to max out a pocket. Now the guys get sick. It's a thousand bucks. I mean, right, that's. That's transformational in medicine. For businesses, you know, to be able to help improve the quality of care for their employees, improve their bottom line, take that capital to be used for capital expenditures, help them increase the salaries for their employees. I mean it's just why are we having so much money go through an insurance industry and taking away valuable capital from a small business? Let's stop that game.

Chris Lalomia: 48:51

Amen, man, this has been amazing because, uh, I got questions still. Oh my god, all right, yeah, cal, just too. I I got. No, no, we're not stopping this thing, guys, hang in there. By the way, he's going to tell us what areas he can help you with after this episode and put in the show notes. But, alan, yeah, I'm just thinking about this from a business model.

Alan Wyatt: 49:12

How do you even start this? How do you have the capital to do it? Because there have to be certain limits. So Chris in his lifestyle, some terminal. So let's say there's a guy named Chris and he gets some disease and he's capped out at 1,000. I mean you don't have unlimited resources. I mean how does that work? That's one question. I got another one.

Brian Hill: 49:39

Yeah, I'll hear that one first. So so right that, that thousand. So I'll give an example to you. Know around that and and hopefully maybe this will help a little bit. So I always like kind of real examples in the real world. So one of our members, great guy, chris, chris, happened to name chris, yeah, sorry, sorry, alan. Anyway. So he's from Alabama, decided to go out go skiing, joined us, said I'm going to go skiing out in Colorado. I did, by the way, and so when he was skiing in Colorado he fell down and broke his neck. Bad day, durango Didn't break my neck, did not break your neck, hopefully, right. So bad issue Gets life. Flighted to the local hospital there because I'm self-pay and I'm going to pick the magic price on that hospital's charge master in colorado and be self-pay, said I'm self-pay. They admitted him, stabilized his neck really bad day. Found out that he had cancer that had spread to his neck and that's why he broke it so easy.

Brian Hill: 50:29

Oh, bad day that's a bad day bro flown back down to, you know, alabama university of alab, alabama, birmingham, is right where he was. He was in Birmingham.

Chris Lalomia: 50:37

Good school.

Brian Hill: 50:38

Great place, great school, stabilized his neck, put him through radiation therapy, chemotherapy, treated his metastatic disease. Now he wants to sell us and the entire price. Right the charge, master, right the game. That's this health insurance-based world $2.1 million, 2.1. 2.1 million. But he used the magic word I'm self-pay, right, so your own insurance plan, premiums, high premiums, going out to pay all of that money that I'm having to pay every month in this premium to overpay for that healthcare service that we bought as a self-pay customer for $650,000.

Chris Lalomia: 51:11

Check that one out. All right, so our, our fund, back to alan's point. Our fund has to pay that, yes, so what if there's a lot of uh?

Alan Wyatt: 51:21

other people name that names rhyme with chris but falling off the record, but I'm way better skier than this dude.

Chris Lalomia: 51:27

Uh, because I did not get hurt. I'm kidding, but no. So let's say there's a run on the fund. All right, then what?

Brian Hill: 51:33

we raise. We raise our monthly contribution, right, because the dollars are only going to pay for the healthcare for our members. And so we go, hey, if we have a bad run on our fund and we look at the spend on the fund and as we get through our renewal process of re-upping businesses and individuals, we go, hey, we need to increase premiums. And if there's less is there we don't reduce, we generally stay stable. We haven't reduced yet. So if I look back for the past five years, what have we increased? Our premiums and we call them contributions.

Brian Hill: 52:02

We increased 3% last year because, well, inflation, if you haven't noticed, has been up a little bit. Yeah, that's less than inflation. And then, a couple of years before that, we did 10% because of that big inflationary push, right after the change of the office. All right, but we put money in our capital. But this is a beautiful piece, right, our capital is not being distributed to shareholders, but the money it's not being used to build huge, beautiful buildings in every major metropolitan area that hospitals or the insurance companies do, as you mentioned. The mausoleums that are being built out here, that are remarkable Mausoleums. It is a place of death from my perspective. I Remarkable.

Chris Lalomia: 52:33

Mausoleum. It is a place of death from my perspective. I love that. They're amazing. I've been to a couple of them and they are pretty amazing. All right, One more question.

Alan Wyatt: 52:40

Yes, keep going, man. That's all we're here. You've got to be facing headwinds. I mean, when you drain the swamp, the swamp doesn't want to be drained and it fights back.

Brian Hill: 52:52

What's happening out there Now? That's a great, great question. So, fortunately, yeah, thank you, man, We've been a little bit below the radar. That won't last.

Brian Hill: 52:58

It won't last and that's okay, and we've got some hedges right on the. We've done some things on the political side that actually create a little bit of bandwidth on us on creating, you know, getting some legislation across the finish line. That creates some barriers and protection. The other piece around this is who pays for most of healthcare in the United States? Businesses do, and businesses are pretty powerful and every politician has to. Right, because it's really going to be a political play.

Brian Hill: 53:22

Right, our product and the cost and the effectiveness of our products is so much better than anything you're going to be able to buy in the marketplace with Blue Cross, united, cigna, you know, and we call them the book is out there, you know. So the only way they can control us, right, it's trying to create legislation against us. But we step into businesses and we go hey, by the way, we, yeah, we're going to help you save $15,000 and make sure every single one of your employees has a great healthcare solution, or we're going to walk in your business and save you. We'll save businesses with 20 people, $180, ton of money. We start growing business to business to business and putting all of that capital back into that local community and back into the pockets of those employees and back into the capital expenditures of those businesses and every single one of those people vote.

Brian Hill: 54:05

Why didn't they shut down? Right, the taxicab industry wanted to shut down Uber. Why didn't they? Because all those constituents, for all those politicians, took Uber and if they shut down Uber, those politicians weren't going to have a job anymore. Right, so you create a great product that solves a major problem, right, for employers in this society of ours and individuals in this society, and medicine in this society. You solve that. Come on, I'll be happy to take a fight, but that's one I'm not going to worry about winning. We might be David and Gliath a little bit, but I got my rock and I'm not too worried that my rock's not going to take david down, goliath down alan, amen to that.

Chris Lalomia: 54:40

You like your rock. Yeah, I like the rock. Do you want to keep going? No, I'm good. No man, we're going to rock this stuff out, all right, hey, everybody. Uh, brian, where are? Sorry, it's a brian doctor I think I'll be. Brian, dr Brian, I know what states are you going to stay?

Brian Hill: 54:56

So our focus so I'll hit you on this Our focus is really, kind of, honestly, the Georgia marketplace is our hyper focus right now, and by that I'm really even talking about the. This major metropolitan Atlanta area is my hyper focus. It's our I can't say a Petri dish, but this is really, really where we're seeing ourselves to want to rapidly grant, you know, grow and expand. Um, that being said, I mean we can. We're expanding in florida, we're in texas, we're in alabama, we're in tennessee, we're in south carolina. So we've got our tentacles spreading out as we move along. But my, my focus is here all right.

Chris Lalomia: 55:27

So, listen, he's uh figuring it out. I know, uh, as ellen has said, we're in 15 continents, and I think we're in what? Uh? 25 planets, now a couple of galaxies, yeah, sure. So, uh, guys, if you're hearing this outside. What we're talking about, though, is revolutionary.

Chris Lalomia: 55:42

This is a business model. This is a guy who I'm a doctor, I was trained to be a doctor. I want to help my why, and I figured out something different, and then I saw something I didn't like, and he's a disruptor. Right, that's how we make business happen, that's what small businesses do, and that's what he's talking about doing. If you're here in Georgia, dude, go look this guy up. Brian Hill, hip nation. We'll put all the deets in the uh, in the uh, show notes. It's gonna happen, because this stuff is real stuff, because I'm a uh, I'm a believer, and it took me a long time. I'll be honest, this is one of those things where I don't sign up day one. I'm, the engineer in me has to figure it all out, and I, man, I, I it's exciting, I mean you know, because I will tell you what the solution right doesn't know, is it actually?

Chris Lalomia: 56:28

uh, two of my friends have signed up with them already. So because they're like you, already believe in it, I'm like yeah well, so boom yeah, and everybody put their companies on it already because it's that good.

Alan Wyatt: 56:38

I mean, everybody either just is a part of the system, or then they go oh, or we'll do a government plan, and neither of them work. Yes, and this is really exciting, right? Yeah?

Chris Lalomia: 56:50

this is the thing, yeah, exactly that you hit on right. So social, uh, social uh uh, educate, or social, um, what's the word? Medicine? Thank you, I I know so many uh so many people coming from canada that are working down here to get away from that and the.

Alan Wyatt: 57:08

The narrative you're being told is oh, it's great because it's free. Well, it's not. Nothing's free, no, and and this, you know this if you're 20 and you're healthy, yeah, it's great, but if you need a knee replaced, good luck, you know all right.

Chris Lalomia: 57:22

So back to brian's point. I'm gonna end here and then we're gonna ask them the famous four questions. Free market free market doctors is who I want to work with? Right, because they want to make as much money as they can, because they're really good at what they do. Yep, what does everybody from Canada do? Come down to the US and say, hey, I'm down here for the summer. Oh, my God, my eye hurt. And, by the way, we do love Canada. We do love Canada. Hey, canadians love you guys. Right? I'm sorry that I'm bringing this up so sorry.

Chris Lalomia: 57:50

Hockey's the best sport. Actually, you're not going to joke with me on that one. Your beer is so much better. The beer and the hockey is so much better. Yay, and I went to school north of where most Canadians live, that's true. That's where I play football, all right. So that's where my 6'8 and 6'9 guys were with me, my pillars. At every bar I went to as I wreaked havoc with everybody All. At every bar I went to as I wreaked havoc with everybody All right, doc, how can we find you online?

Brian Hill: 58:16

So our hipnationcom that's H-I-P P, as in Paul nationcom. Come to our website, take a look at what we're doing. If you're interested in learning more, hearing more, we've got a simple little click a button on the website, get a quote, have a conversation with our team. We are loving what we're doing to try to help make businesses better and provide a better solution to their employees.

Chris Lalomia: 58:35

Feel the passion. Everybody this is awesome Coming through it. You're driving around in your truck, You're figuring it out. If you hung with us this long, let's hang a little bit longer, Doc. What's the best book you would advise for a business book trying to scale a business?

Brian Hill: 58:48

A business book I could degrade so old you know kind of, but it is an oldie but goodie, um, so I I think that's been very valuable. Um, walking backwards, I found that as a really interesting book and a book about Amazon, uh, and kind of talks about how they approached you know, kind of looking at innovative ideas within Amazon and how they presented those to each other. So I think that's a maybe one that I found very helpful. I haven't heard that one before.

Chris Lalomia: 59:12

Well, that is a good one.

Alan Wyatt: 59:13

Yeah, I like the case study books anyway.

Chris Lalomia: 59:20

All right. The reason I said business, because I was afraid he was going to start bringing out some of your urology books. I don't want to hear about those tools or the instruments, or none of those. The rusty saw. Bite this, what Bite down, son, you won't hear a thing.

Brian Hill: 59:37

All this, what wait down, son, you won't hear a thing all right, uh, number two uh what's the favorite feature of your home?

Brian Hill: 59:42

oh my, pool, oh beautiful, why? Uh, because it's just a place my wife and I get to kind of escape into and just swim and it's where we do our exercise, and it's just a place of solitude. So do you have a swim up bar? No, swim up bar, although I would say this so my wife will laugh. So we, we, I'm more of a scotch person, so so we'll put a scotch at the end and we'll swim. You know, swim laps back and forth and, and as you're swimming, you just stop at the end and sip on your scotch and just keep on going back and forth I like this doctor.

Chris Lalomia: 1:00:09

Yeah, he is my kind of doctor. I get a pool and I just gotta got to be a. We have a teddy bed and we have a swimmer, but don't worry about that.

Brian Hill: 1:00:18

All right back to me. Do I need that lie detector test again?

Alan Wyatt: 1:00:20

Enough about me. Let's talk about me. Can we talk about me?

Chris Lalomia: 1:00:24

more. Yeah, all right, all right, doc. One of the big things, obviously, alan and I have done a lot of home services stuff. Alan and I have done a lot of home services stuff. I work in the home services industry, but one of the big things that we talk about, though, is customer service is huge everywhere, and when we're out there, we're kind of customer service freaks. Exactly what's a customer service pet peeve of yours?

Brian Hill: 1:00:46

Oh, everything that happens in medicine. So you walk into a physician's office, what's the very first thing they say to you? Ask for your card. What's your insurance card? They go hi, alan, welcome to my office.

Alan Wyatt: 1:00:56

Great to see you. I was thinking about that earlier when you were talking.

Brian Hill: 1:00:59

Can you fill this out again? Yeah, fill this paperwork out again. You're like I just filled it out, like three months ago, nothing's changed. Sorry, fill it out again. There's no customer service and healthcare. You're the HIPAA no-transcript me to do because they're my payer, not you. Get them out, you know. So everything that happens in medicine not everything, but medicine is pretty poor on the customer service side we all have to admit that's a pretty big pet peeve, right?

Chris Lalomia: 1:01:31

I I mean every time you walk in there like I don't know you. But, sherry, I was here like a month ago to run blood because I don't have any issues. But I might have been there. My liver might have been having some problems.

Alan Wyatt: 1:01:44

Yeah, hypothetically.

Chris Lalomia: 1:01:47

I brought my friend's blood. Can you use this? All right, all right, last one, let's do it. Give us a DIY nightmare story.

Brian Hill: 1:02:00

I want to hear how the doctor worked at his own house and almost lost his finger. So, to be honest with you, I'm smart enough to realize that I am a terrible DIY person and my ability ends in the operating room. My toys work there, but I tell people. If there's anything I need to do outside of that, I'm going to have to call somebody else in that's a lot smarter and skilled than I am.

Alan Wyatt: 1:02:18

Oh, I got a surgery question. So if you look at your schedule and you go, oh, tomorrow I get to do this procedure, which one gets you excited.

Brian Hill: 1:02:26

Oh, I love taking kidneys out with cameras. See, it's fun.

Chris Lalomia: 1:02:36

Holy, see it's fun. Holy shit, dude. I was about to. You know what one of my favorite ones like when I hear hey, we're gonna span 23 feet that we engineered we. But that one gets me excited. He just said I take kidney soap with cameras and I think on that one we gotta oh my god, get out of here. Go make it happen. Brian hill, dr b, cause he's deserved it. Man, 14 freaking years doing what he did. Dr Brian Hill, hip nation making a difference. Go listen to this episode.

Alan Wyatt: 1:03:00

If you didn't listen to it, listen again Well, they wouldn't be listening to it now if they weren't listening to it.

Chris Lalomia: 1:03:06

No, I think, I think sometimes people pick up the last part. Sure, that's fine. No, I don't think that works, all right.