The Paradocs Podcast with Eric Larson – Details, episodes & analysis

Dr. Eric Larson of the Paradocs podcast joins me to discuss what we think RFK Jr. wants to do if confirmed as head of the Health and Human Services division, what he might get done, and some priorities he ought to do to make America healthy again. q Video - https://youtube.com/live/wt69j-XebVg This episode is brought to you by Trijent's new Universal Mech-loader - https://trijent.com/spangle Trijent, a pioneering small business, proudly introduces the Universal Mech-loader. This advanced speedloader is designed for a variety of ammunition types including 9mm, .40 S&W, .45 Auto, .223/5.56mm, and 7.62mm. It significantly reduces loading time, minimizes hand fatigue, and enhances your shooting practice. With its adjustable mechanism, the Universal Mech-loader fits multiple magazine types, ensuring a universal fit for your firearms. Transform your time at the range with efficiency and ease. Do you have comments or questions about this episode? Visit it on ChrisSpangle.com and leave one! --- Join our Patreon now for commercial-free shows, bonus content, and our complete archives - https://www.patreon.com/wearelibertarians --- Join our Facebook Group to meet other listeners. - https://www.facebook.com/groups/walnutssociety --- Visit Chris-Spangle.com to see my other podcasts and projects or to add me on social. www.Chris-Spangle.com --- Looking to start a podcast? Download my podcast Podcasting and Platforms now, and check out my recommendations for buying the right equipment. Chris Spangle and Leaders and Legends, LLC edited and produced this podcast. If you want to start a podcast or take yours to the next level, please get in touch with us at LeadersAndLegends.net. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are you a decision maker at your business? If you're a CEO, CFO, the head of HR, or perhaps the owner of a small, medium or large business then you owe it to yourself to check out this fairly simple solution to save over 50% on your health care spend. Health insurance is usually one of the biggest overhead expenses after salaries for any company and it affects the bottom line of nearly every business. Imagine what your company could do if it paid out less than 50% in its health care spend - while also maintaining a similar if not improved plan for employees. Before you scoff and say that there is no way you can provide your employees high quality care at less than half the cost, just remember that only about 25% of every dollar spent in health care actually goes to caring for patients. There's plenty of room to cut. Why Health Insurance Is So Expensive?The reasons for expensive insurance is obviously a complicated question. However, it's simplest to think of it in just a few ways - especially when we look for ways to bypass the rotten system to save real money for our business. The insurance companies make money by paying out a lot in claims. This seems illogical at first glance but makes a lot of sense once you realize that the insurance companies are only allowed to use 15-20% of the total they pay out in claims towards profit and overhead. Therefore, the more in claims payouts, the higher amount they can profit. Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) hang onto the rebates. Instead of passing on the volume discounts (or rebates) onto the employers and employees they keep that percentage of charges. Just like the insurance companies, the more that is paid out in charges the greater revenue they get to keep leading to ever increasing pharmaceutical prices. Insurance brokers primarily make their money through commissions from the insurance companies. This incentive leads them to find only solutions for your company that involve large insurers. The only way you can actually save money is to bypass the traditional means of creating a health plan which most brokers are not aligned to do. Building a Better Health Plan?What becomes readily obvious as far as solutions go is that you must create your own self-funded health plan and find transparent PBMs and rational contracting to pay for services. Very few companies are prepared to do this which is why you need to find insurance brokers and third party administrators who can set it up for you. There are plenty around, you just need to seek them out. I've had two on in the past whom I reference in the show. Of course, they are hardly an exhaustive list of players in the field but they would be a good start for anyone investigating these solutions for their business: Katy Talento of All Better Health and David Contorno of Epowered Benefits.   show notesEpisode 176: Today's show Episode 111: Katy Talento tells us how she saves businesses money. Episode 150: David Contorno explains his business model. Episode 043: How PBMs jack up drug prices. All Better Health: Katy Talento's business where she helps others create their own health care plans. E Powered Benefits: David Contorno's business helping others create health care solutions. We Are Libertarians: The Paradocs is a proud partner and member of this outstanding podcast network. Top 20 Physicians Podcasts Made Simply Web Site Creations: This is the great, affordable website service that built my wife's podcast site. I cannot recommend this company more to someone looking for creating a website. Always Andy's Mom: Home of my wife, Marcy's, podcast for parents grieving or those looking to help them. YouTube for Paradocs: Here you can watch the video of my late son singing his solo on the Paradocs YouTube page. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What would you do if you were fired by your employer over something you had said on social media? Would you be able to survive or would you have to scramble to find work? That scenario is exactly what was faced by today's guest, general surgeon Dr. Buck Parker. And his solution was a surprising one. Seeds of an EntrepreneurIt doesn't appear that Dr. Parker never set out to find ways to be financially secure outside of medicine. His path through medical school and his general surgery residency seemed fairly traditional. However, there were signs that he had an entrepreneurial streak about him as he began a very small online business selling gym equipment. Following that, he landed a role on a reality TV series which led to another starring role on a second show. Aside from practicing clinically as an acute care and trauma surgeon, Dr. Parker leveraged his appearances on TV and built up a following on social media through Instagram and YouTube. And that's where the trouble began. Losing Your JobDr. Parker's termination within his hospital system in 2020 happened a lot like the old joke in bankruptcy. "How do you go bankrupt? Gradually and then suddenly." Parker's CMO had been very upset with his YouTube channel and social media presence for some time and when Parker published a video stating that the highest risks for COVID are those who are obese, elderly, and with medical co-morbidities, it was the final straw. Perhaps it was because the video went viral and the light it shone on an institution that didn't want any attention paid to it. No matter the reason, it was the end of the line for Dr. Parker's Salt Lake City surgical career. Overcoming Job Loss as a MinerPerhaps by happenstance, Dr. Parker had researched and eventually took the plunge to mine bitcoin. Fortunately for him, the price of bitcoin exploded from a few thousand a coin to tens of thousands from the time he started to the time he had been let go. It more than supplemented his income lost as a surgeon and gave him the financial freedom to be able to walk away and not worry about scrambling to get another job. It's now been almost 18 months since being let go and the CMO has been replaced and the hospital has been busy. So busy they actually asked him to return but he declined. For right now, Dr. Parker doesn't see himself going back to medicine but time will tell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Surprise billing is a nationwide problem and Michigan is not immune. Surprise billing refers to the instance where patients are expecting their insurance company to pick up the entire tab of a medical bill but they instead find a huge bill for the amount 'left over.' The worst instances of this occurring is when the patient unknowingly encounters someone who is 'out of network' with their insurance company. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Direct primary care is just starting to really accelerate within the primary care world. And Josh Umbehr, MD has been at the forefront with his practice and line of products to service DPC doctors at Atlas MD. In this episode, we discuss the state of DPC, how commercially there are more people looking to get involved in selling ancillary services, and the battle he and other DPC docs are having with their own professional society, the American Academy of Family Physicians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Kris Held is the president of the AAPS and is an ophthalmologist in private practice in San Antonio, TX. She is suing the state of Texas to have the right to dispense drugs to her patients in her office. This would improve patient safety, reduce costs by over 50%, and is already being done in 44 states and the District of Columbia. We discuss her lawsuit, how she practices as a surgical specialist without insurance, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My discussion with Jennifer Zeng, a Chinese woman who was persecuted by the communist government for her beliefs. She is an author and activist working to bring to light the actions of China on its own people and those in Hong Kong. We discuss growing up in China, who China tortures, their process of murdering political prisoners to sell organs for transplant, and what the struggle in Hong Kong is all about. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's the deal with nurse practitioners (NPs)? Why is there so much anger from physicians and NPs when it comes to how patients are treated? Every day on my twitter feed I hear about how nurse practitioners are "acting like doctors without the necessary training" and are "dangerous because they know nothing." Meanwhile my friends who are NPs and PAs cite studies that claim they provide better care than physicians. Both camps' arguments are hogwash. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's discussion is about hospitals. Namely, what does it mean to be nonprofit? Over half of all hospitals in the United States are not for profit entities - but do they really look differently than for profit institutions? That is the question that few politicians or those debating health care speak about. In many instances, one would be hard pressed to know whether hospitals are for profit by how they run. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I haven't spoken to a lot of ancillary medical professionals in the show and explored ways that they are changing the way we deliver medical care. Today I spoke to a physical therapist who chose to run his practice unlike traditional practices. He doesn't structure therapy based on what maximizes revenue from insurers but instead on treating the patient and their injury. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices