Epi 74 - Dr. Virgie Bright Ellington === [00:00:00] Ashley: Welcome to the Money Mindset Podcast, where you will find the inspiration and motivation you need to manage your money better so you can stress less and live the life you want. It's Ashley with Budgets Made Easy and the Money Mindset Podcast. And today we are talking medical bills. So this is the number one, um, cause of bankruptcies in the US. So it is so, so important to know your rights, know what to do when you get medical bills, even if you can afford to pay 'em and you think that's what you owe. There are still three very, very important steps to take every single time. [00:00:50] And today's expert is Dr. Virgie Bright Ellington, and she's an internal medicine physician and medical billing expert. She's a dedicated patient advocate and Dr. Virgie practice more than 20 years in primary care in psych psychiatric settings as a Health Insurance Executive. So she now helps patients understand complex medical procedures, communicate effectively with their healthcare providers and avoid financial devastation from crushing medical bills through her [00:01:25] 'What your doctor wants you to know' series. She's also the author of What Your Doctor Wants You to Know To Crush Medical Debt and the host of the weekly. Ask A Doctor What Your Doctor Wants You To Know with Dr. Virgie's Show on the VoiceAmerica Radio Network. And Ugh, we had such a great conversation. So if you have medical bills, you know, you will in the future, even if you don't right now and you need to know what she says are the three only way only ways to pay your medical bill. She's been doing it long enough. She knows the ins and outs of the medical system, as well as the billing system and insurance and all the things. [00:02:10] So, uh, save this episode if you might not need it right now, uh, still listen. Get the tips and save it for later and be sure to follow the Money Mindset Podcast. So whichever app that you're listening to make sure to hit the follow button. So you automatically get new episodes. And as always, if you are ready to get your money under control, you're tired of living paycheck to paycheck, and you're tired of creating a plan for your money, a budget, but not sticking to. Learn how to create a realistic plan for your money that you can actually stick to with the Free Budgeting Workshop. So go to budgetsmadeeasy.com/workshop, and I will go through the four steps to creating a realistic budget that you can actually stick to. So let's dive in with our conversation with Dr. Vergie. [00:03:12] Hi, Dr. Vergie, I'm so excited to talk to you today about medical debt, and it's really kind of unusual to see a doctor talking about how to save us money on our medical bills. So I'm like really looking forward to this conversation, cuz it's. Such a major deal for, uh, Americans and I'm sure all through the world in a lot of countries, but our country specifically. So before we dive into that, can you just give us a little bit of background about yourself and how you decided to take on this role of helping Americans save money on their medical bills? [00:03:46] Dr Virgie: Yeah. So first Ashley, thanks for having me. But yeah, it's a long story how I got here. Maybe not. It's a long progress, a long journey, how I got here, but it happening was kind of like almost instantaneous, almost overnight. So I've been, um, a Board Certified Internal Medicine Physician for years and years, more years than I wanna admit. And then I started, um, working with a health insurance company as an executive for years and years and years. And I thought, you know, I, I knew both sides of the healthcare system, the US healthcare system, the provider side, and the payer side, you know, insurance side. Right. And I was very clear. I was like, okay. Yes, the us healthcare system is run by private, um, uh, private commercial insurance companies, meaning, um, for profit for profit is what I'm trying to say, trying to get around using the word, but it is what it is. Yeah. And, um, and the, the key is, is that they're publicly traded, which gets into the issues of why the system is not gonna go anywhere anytime soon. [00:04:49] So we have to learn how to protect ourselves, but I just thought you know, that's the system that we're dealt with. Like most Americans, this is what we have and you know, it is what it is, uh, until I became a patient. And I had to get admitted to the hospital. And my hospital roommate was talking to me about, she had been in the hospital like a year prior and she was saying, you know what, I'm really worried about what bill I'm gonna come out with with this time, because it's been a week I've been here for tests. Um, and the last time I was there for a week and before I left, when I was being discharged, a representative from the hospital, billing depart comes in and makes me sign a form before they said before, I could leave agreeing to pay the bill, whatever it is and whatever my insurance doesn't pay. [00:05:37] Ashley: Mm-hmm [00:05:37] Dr Virgie: Now this was a mom, a young mom, um, who was not working outside the home at the time because her, uh, shit toddler girls, uh, because they weren't school age yet, you know, preschool age, you know, rarely when preschool age and her husband was the only one bringing in income who worked at a 24 hour diner. So, you know, resources are very limited. [00:05:58] Ashley: Mm-hmm. [00:05:58] Dr Virgie: So, anyway, um, she's telling me this and when she actually, when she said, you know, when they had me sign saying, you know, even though I have insurance that I agreed to pay, whatever the difference is between, you know, if insurance is a pay that I'm gonna accept responsibility, she tells me this. And I swear, I swear. I swear the curtain dropped. I saw red. Enraged, because I knew instantly that whatever she signed is putting her and her family into a lifetime of debt, probably bankruptcy. [00:06:33] Ashley: Mm-hmm. [00:06:33] Dr Virgie: And she was tricked into it because it's not, it's not, it may be legal, but it's not ethical. It's not moral. And she, she didn't know her rights. Mm-hmm , uh, like most Americans don't and that it, it doesn't have to be this way. And that's, she was gonna pay bills that she really probably, I I'm, I'm gonna say not probably, I know she didn't owe and that's how crush medical debt was born. It's like, you know what? Gie don't get angry. Get to getting, do something and that's how it was born. Yeah. [00:07:07] Ashley: And tell us more about that. Because every time I go to the doctor, I have to sign a form that says whatever insurance doesn't cover, I have to pay like I'm responsible. So why shouldn't we sign. Those papers. [00:07:20] Dr Virgie: Oh, great question. so yeah, there are two issues. So in this case, Ashley, this was a young lady that came into the hospital was admitted because of an emergency. She came in through the emergency room as did I. I came in through the emergency room. We got admitted through the emergency room. When you are by law. If a hospital provides emergency services, they cannot withhold care, shorten care, or kick you out. Because you don't agree to pay, you know what, if you roll in unconscious, right? [00:07:54] Ashley: Mm-hmm . [00:07:54] Dr Virgie: You can't sign anything. So they really, you can't be held to. Uh, the other thing is when we're saying yes, we go into our doctor's office, they say, yes, you agree to pay. That's completely different because it's not emergent. And it is what's called elective or just anything that's not emergent, we have control over it. So, yeah. So the. I'm glad you brought that up because one of the things that I really really wanna tell folks about is to protect your financial future by not signing these little, um, uh, electronic signature pads. [00:08:27] Ashley: Yes. So, you know, you can't even see what you're signing. They're just like, oh, this is what you're signing. And you just sign it exactly without knowing really what you're doing. [00:08:35] Dr Virgie: Post COVID right. Mm-hmm they are trying to, I believe they're trying to make it seem as if they're trying to keep you safer by not having you touch germs and stuff, touch things. That's not the case, but that, that's another story. That's another story for every day. But what they're having you sign is this little I'd say about what six to eight inch by two inch strip that is connected to their computer, the receptionist or clerical person's, uh, front desk, person's computer. And the, this is post COVID era that we're seeing this. So they're behind a, um, a C barrier, right? [00:09:13] Ashley: Mm-hmm [00:09:14] Dr Virgie: And behind a mask. And they're saying, whoa, sign here. Or, well, what are you signing? And the problem with that is Ashley, is that what that does is allow you to give the, the medical institution, the provider, a blank, a signed blank check to put in whatever they want. So in that this. This is the point. This is the issue in the past. You'd have things on paper, right? Mm-hmm they'd have you hand it to you. You have the opportunity to read it, mark out X out, what you don't agree with, write in what you're willing to pay. So for instance, where they get into the financial fine print, um, you could X out X everything out and write in. I agree to pay up to two times Medicare rate for the services that I'm provided. And that's not covered by my insurance. If you don't have insurance, you would say the same thing. I agree to pay up to two times the Medicare rate me. I say, I'll, I agree to pay up to the Medicare rate. That's another story too, but I'll give you the choice, Medicare or two times Medicare rate, period, sign initial, and sign the, uh, next page. Um, initially. Um, may have, you know, a point where you can, you know, uh, sign, okay. Sign and date back, you know, the second page, the bottom of the page. And you would give it back. [00:10:45] Ashley: Mm-hmm [00:10:46] Dr Virgie: With these signature pads that aren't connected to anything. Well, what are you signing? Right. So down the road by federal law, this law is like since the late seventies, Their fair debt collection practice. This act requires that if somebody, if a debt collector calls you up and says, you owe us this money, they have to show proof of a signature, your signature, that you agreed to pay, whatever it is, or you purchased the, the service or the product. Well, what did you just do? You just gave a blank cheque. Cart blanch to a provider to down the road you've just signed away your financial future. And you have no idea what you were, what you were told, right? [00:11:30] Ashley: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Hadn't thought about that. [00:11:33] Dr Virgie: You can't exit out, right? You can just signing you can't anything out and amend the contract that you've signed and best believe that's a contract. [00:11:42] Ashley: Yeah. And I've never, I don't know why, but I've never thought. Changing it, like, I just didn't think that you could, I guess, [00:11:50] Dr Virgie: Well, you think we have that right, right. That I couldn't do that. Like, we think that, you know, the providers, medical institutions, medical care and healthcare institutions, we kind of think of them as being like disconnected from like profit generating. Um, Okay. Yeah. 65%. Most of the hospitals in the United States are nonprofit, but that doesn't mean that they don't have excess surplus revenues. It just means that they don't call it a profit, you know, at the end of their, their fiscal year. Right. So, um, I don't call nonprofit hospitals, nonprofit. You, I call them tax exempt for that reason. But yeah, they're, their job is to create revenues and they'll say, well, we're providing a service to the community and we, you know, provide jobs and yes, that's true. But you also have to be fair. [00:12:44] Ashley: Mm-hmm. [00:12:44] Dr Virgie: And, and you have to follow the law. There, there are legal issues that they have to, uh, comply with. [00:12:51] Ashley: Yeah, absolutely. Now what are some ways that we can huh deal with medical bills that maybe we weren't expecting or it's more than they expected or nsurance didn't cover, you know, cuz it's all a mystery. You have no idea most of the time till you get the bill in the mail and then you get 15 bills now where you used to just get one bill for the hospital. No. Now you got the doctor's bill, the lab bills, the hospital bill the, I mean the emergency room, like. Really . So how do we kind of handle that? Is there a way to, uh, save any money on those things? [00:13:27] Dr Virgie: Yeah. So what I tell folks is there's really only one right way to pay a medical bill, and that involves three steps. The first step is to pick up the phone and call the provider, call the in the, um, billing office or the patient accounts office of the provider who sent the bill. Because the bill you're looking at most often is not an accurate bill. What you're going to do is you're going to call the office for an itemized bill. Let me back up an accurate bill. An accurate bill is an itemized bill. An itemized bill is a bill with C P T codes. C P T codes are just like barcodes. When you go into a store, you grab a product, you scan it and it tells you the price that that facility is charging for the product. Same thing with C PT codes in medical care in the us, every single medical service you can think of is has a C P T code a bar code attached to it with C P T code is what it's called. So every test, medical procedure office visit, um, every operation you can think of. Those are C those are described by C P T codes. [00:14:42] Step two. You're going to take those. C P T codes and Google them. You're going to go into your browser, Google the C P T code for each and every service that you were sent an accurate the itemized bill. And you finally get it. And you're going to say, okay, this is the description of the service. That comes up when I Google it. The C PT code, let's say 99, 2 1 3 is, you know, an outpatient visit of some sort. Okay. Well, the, what you're going to do also in this next step is you're also going to Google what Medicare pays for that service. So if it's good enough for the government. The US government, the Federal Government, the, um, CMS, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. If they're saying, you know what, this is what we think is a fair price for the service provided well, if it's good enough for the Federal Government, it's good enough for me. So that's going back to, you know, some folks who do this work say, ah, we'll give them two times Medicare. And the providers say, well, you. If everybody just paid Medicare rates, we couldn't make money. We couldn't stay in business. Right. Uh, yeah, you could not. My problem. That's another issue for [00:15:55] Ashley: That's a whole other conversation. [00:15:57] Dr Virgie: How the kids stay. It sounds like a you problem. Not a me problem. yeah. And I shouldn't be so flipped, uh, seriously. Um, that that's another issue. I. I think that, um, part of the problem with the system is that the, um, rates set by facilities are incredibly, um, higher. It's like the manufacturer, uh, sticker price [00:16:19] Ashley: Mm-hmm [00:16:19] Dr Virgie: Because they know they have to provide discounts to the insurance company. So they're stuck in a system, right. But still I'm not going to the American patient. The American public should not be in the middle of that system. Getting taken, um, uh, essentially getting taken advantage of by the system. So number three. So I've got the number that I'm willing to pay. If I think that, okay, the C PT codes describe the services that I believed I received, and this is what Medicare pays for each of those services. This is what I'm willing to pay. So you're gonna call back the facility, the billing office, and you're going to say, you know what, I'm going to ask for an interest free and that's important interest free payment plan. That fits my budget. So, you know, unfortunately yeah. You know, Ashley you're gonna get hit. Um, hopefully not, but folks often get hit with, you know, um, they have an accident or something and they get hit with an unexpected 10 or $20,000 hospital bill. and, uh, or, you know, an unexpected surgery operation. And they're like, okay, I did all the research. I, I did the three steps. I made sure that this $10,000 is what I really owe. [00:17:33] Um, they, uh, Google it and say, okay, the C P T code says, yeah, I, I believe this is the operation that I had. Okay. And this is how much Medicare pays for. But there's no way that I can pay this off without just paying, like in my budget, I can only pay like $250 a month. Well, when you're talking with the, uh, billing office representative, their job, and this is their job, they're trying to say, well, you know, that would take a really it'll take years and years to pay off that could take, you know, 20,010, $20,000 bill that could take 10 years, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. [00:18:11] Um, yeah. There's no deadline. Right. Um, so you're, you're they're gonna say, okay, well, can you do three 50? No. If you can only do two 50, stick to the two 50 stick to your family's budget, stick to your budget and your family's budget. So that's what you do when you get a bill, every single medical bill you get in the. Don't pay it right away. Don't pay it automatically. Don't whip out a credit card. Don't agree to say, oh, we've got these medical credit cards or the facilities now are getting in on the game and saying, you know, this is our facility credit card or medical care facility credit card. Uh, or they call it medical care card. No, don't pay it automatically. Cuz you haven't gone to determine gone through to determine that you haven't applied the three steps to make sure the bill is accurate. [00:19:04] Ashley: Now what about when we get a bill from um, well, I guess really anywhere, but let's say our doctor's office and, you know, we have insurance and you know, like everybody, myself included has these high deductible plans now. So we have to pay so much out of pocket before they even really pay anything. Is there anything we can do with those type of bills or we just pretty much have to pay what they say that we. Or do the same process? [00:19:31] Dr Virgie: E every single. Thanks for asking that question, Ashley, it's just, we have to remind ourselves no matter what, no matter how small or definitely big the bill is, get in the habit of paying it the only right way to pay it, meaning what's accurate. So applying the three steps, number one, calling for an accurate bill that doesn't have C P T codes at the top of the bill, uh, it may say detailed summary or detailed bill. , but if it doesn't have CPT codes, which are like five digits at the top. Okay. Or sometimes it'll say C P T slash hick picks. Um, HCPCS but doesn't say that with numbers underneath, it's not an itemized bill and that means it's not an accurate bill. [00:20:13] You've gotta apply each step. Once you get the accurate bill, take those C PT codes, run them through the second step, Google them, figure out what, uh, find out Google, what Medicare pays for that each, each service. And then number three, call up and say, you know what, I can do this. And I, I need it to be interest free, but this is what I can do. And the reason why they agree to this, Ashley, they meaning, you know, healthcare facilities agree to this is because they know it's better to get a little bit of something than all of nothing. Right. And it's cheaper for them to get you into a payment plan. Instead of chasing you for part or all the money, you know, takes the resources. And the more time they spend chasing you without getting any in, you know, uh, any of that revenue that it costs them. [00:20:59] Ashley: Yeah, exactly. Now what about, um, oh my gosh, I forgot my question. no [00:21:07] Dr Virgie: worries. No worries. [00:21:13] Ashley: Oh, now I remember. Sorry. [00:21:15] No problem. Just had it. now, what about, uh, people always say, and I don't know if this is just a myth or what, uh, that as long as you send them 10 bucks a month, they'll just keep taking it and not send it to collections. Do you know anything about that? Because I heard that's a myth over and over and over. [00:21:35] Dr Virgie: Yes. Yes. That is a total myth, man. Yeah. At any point, even if you've agreed to a payment plan, uh, by the way, let me back. When you agree to a payment plan, when they say, okay, fine, we'll take $250 a month to pay off this $20,000 bill. Make sure you get into writing. Say, can you send me that in writing before I send in my first, um, my first payment please. Um, and these, these phone conversations are recorded. So, you know, good to know, um, even though the recorded, please, um, say, look, I need to be mailed a copy of this agreement then that, you know, this is a payment plan, but at any point, these facilities can send your debt to collections to try to make, you know, make some money again, you know, they'll, they'll say, okay. All right. Pennies on the dollar, but we'll take it. We'll sell it for pennies on the dollar. Because again, the number often is artificially inflated of the price of the services. Anyway. But, you know, the, the, um, laws are such that even though they're supposed to wait, like I think it's, um, 180 or 240 days before they send it to collections, they can do it at any time, even if there's a verbal, um, conversation with a billing department saying, okay. Yeah. All right, fine. Just send us something every month. They can, they can, uh, send it at any time. [00:23:03] Ashley: So even if you agree to that, they could still send it to collections. [00:23:07] Dr Virgie: If you have it in writing and you say, okay, this is the amount that I agreed to pay and you have it in writing and you're making that payment every month. You don't miss a ma payment. No, they're not gonna send that to collections but if you get a bill, and's like, you know what? I can do $10 a month and you haven't had a conversation with them and had that agreement documented then yeah. They'll send it at any time or, or unfortunately if you had, um, made an agreement and it was a little bit more than you can afford, you know, my example of you have a $20,000 bill, you can only pay two 50. They talk to you into doing, can you do three 50 and you do it. Like it's a stretch. And if you miss that payment or only do you know, two 50, you know, one of those months they'll send it to collections. That's, that's a real significant risk. And it does happen very, more frequently than we would like. [00:24:01] Ashley: Yeah. I mean, the, and I don't remember the percentage off the top of my head, but the majority of bankruptcies in the us are because of medical. Which is surprising. [00:24:10] Dr Virgie: The number one, cause of all debt and bankruptcy in the United States is medical bills, medical debt. Exactly. And you know, unfortunately there's some numbers that say up to 30% of that, um, is bills that people did not owe, or there are bills that, um, they were overcharged. [00:24:34] Ashley: Ah, so that's heartbreaking. [00:24:36] Dr Virgie: There's a lot of statistics running around, but all the statistics at the end of the day say the same thing, the United States, um, the number one cause of of, uh, debt and bankruptcy is medical bills, medical debt. [00:24:51] Ashley: Now, why do you think that, um, people are overpaying their medical bills? You've got top five reasons. Uh, I feel like we've probably talked about some of them, but what are maybe some of the other reasons that people overpay their medical bills? [00:25:05] Dr Virgie: So the, the reasons why at the end of the day, Ashley, the reason why we all, if you re, if you received a bill and you live in the United States, a medical bill rather, and you live in the United States, you've been overcharged you've overpaid because 80 to 90% of all medical bills have mistakes. And if you can imagine, they're not gonna be in our favor, right. They're not gonna be in favor of the patient. They're going to be in the favor, either the provider and, or the, uh, insurance company, the payer. but the, I just like to go through, you know, quickly the top five reasons why folks in this country, we don't know any better and why we end up overpaying. [00:25:43] Number one is we don't negotiate the bill. We just think, oh, this is what it is. And we don't realize it's a manufactured, you know, MRSP you know, uh, MRSP right, manufacture, retail, sticker price. We don't apply the three steps, the only right way to pay a medical bill. The second thing is, is that I talked earlier about how most of the hospitals or medical care facilities and systems in this country are nonprofit, or I call tax exempt 65% of them. Well, there's a lot, a lot of folks that should actually get a sliding scale of their medical care charges. In return for being tax exempt. These facilities have made an agreement with the IRS, with the federal government saying in ex in an exchange for being tax exempt, not paying any taxes at all on their revenue that they're gonna provide sliding scale charity care, um, that has different names, charity care, financial aid, uh, financial assistance, or, um, call it, uh, income discount, whatever you wanna call it for their community for folks providing care in their community. So that's a, a, a big deal. Always, always, always, always ask for financial aid or just ask for, um, I, we call it now to try to destigmatize it, I was talking to, um, someone who, um, does this work in terms of making sure hospital, nonprofit hospitals have every person who walks through the door, apply for financial aid. Oh. Or, uh, uh, fill out a form to make sure that if they're eligible, that they get financial aid, instead of getting sent to collections inappropriately, um, they say, you know what? Call it income discount, income based discount, basically sliding scale mm-hmm . So you don't have those, um, negative connotations associated with it, but even if you make like a lot of money, like six figures, a hundred, 150 K a year, the bill is big enough. And you went to a law, um, nonprofit facility to receive your care from a nonprofit facility. Sometimes that entire bill can be wiped away. Oh, because of the sliding scale. I've seen it happen because of sliding scale in re in return for tax exempt, um, uh, uh, status and providing care for folks in their community. [00:28:10] Ashley: Wow. [00:28:11] Dr Virgie: A third one, I call it credit crushed. We talked about this a little bit. You're right. Ashley never, ever, ever, ever, please never put any of your medical bills on a credit card. Don't pay for it with a credit card. Because number one, if you haven't applied the three steps, you're overpaying, just, you know, eight to nine times outta 10, 80 to 90 times out of a hundred you're overpaying. If you don't apply the three steps, then once you figure out, okay, this is the number I can afford. If you put it on a credit card that wipes away, special protections that you get from the credit agencies where medical debt and medical bills are treated differently from consumer debt. [00:28:49] Ashley: Mm, that's a good point. [00:28:51] Dr Virgie: That's really, really important. Uh, number four, I call it being dubiously denied. Uh, that's essentially, if you have insurance where the insurance decided they're not gonna cover it, they're not gonna pay for the services. They're denying the service and denying the claim because for whatever reason they say, uh, no, we don't think that this was medically necessary or a fancy name. They call it sometimes is, uh, experimental and investigational. Well, if you think that it was medically necessary and your provider, your physician who provided the care IEL was ne medically necessary, or sometimes you'll see crazy things like, you know, some things deemed, not an emergency and is totally an emergency, like, you know, um, like an ambulance ride from, from one, um, one ER to another, ER, um, things like that. Or like a really, uh, outrageous one was. [00:29:46] Um, parents who got an 80 K bill and got sent, it was, they were threatening. The facility was starting to send it to collections. And this $80,000 bill was because they were saying the insurance was saying that the care provided for this couple, she had twins. so the twins needed to go. They were born a little early. They needed to spend time in the NICU and the NICU sent them a bill. The facility sent a bill for $80,000. Their insurance didn't refuse to pay for it because they said it was not emergent. It's like, wait, what, what yeah, we totally plan this. yeah. [00:30:26] Ashley: What? [00:30:28] Dr Virgie: All right. That's a great example. So if you feel that your insurance is denying it and you're dubious about their, uh, reasons and that they're correct, please, please dispute it. And number five, I call it, uh, double dealed, which is my term for balance billing. So balance billing is when you go to your in-network provider and um, they say, you know what, um, the. Person that the physicians that you had no choice in picking, they don't participate in our insurance. So, you know, you get a bill from a facility saying, well, we don't participate in your insurance. So you're getting our full manufacturer sticker, retail price bill, which is usually outrageous [00:31:09] Ashley: Mm-hmm [00:31:10] Dr Virgie: And, um, yeah, you're stuck with it. Uh, no, no. Um, that is a, so that's called surprise billing. And as of January one of this year, um, the federal government says you can't do that anymore. So that's great. If you get a bill, a surprise bill where you thought it was an in-network provider, um, then you can say, you know what? No, the, as of January 1st, the facility has to negotiate their differences and payment directly with your insurance and leave you out. In the past they will come after the patient mm-hmm and ruin your life. [00:31:48] Ashley: Oh, I didn't know that changed. Oh, that's good. [00:31:50] Dr Virgie: Yes. Cause all The No Surprise Act. Oh, yeah, January 1st, 2022, it went into effect. [00:31:56] Ashley: Awesome. Well, you've given us so much good information today and we do have to wrap up now. Um, I always like to ask people at the end of every episode, if they have a favorite nonfiction book. So do you have a book to share with us? [00:32:11] Dr Virgie: You know what, ashley, my all time. Favorite nonfiction book that I kind of like built my, my life on. And my family's life on is like, probably like at least about 30 years old and is called Your Money Or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicky Robin. And they teach you how to essentially make sure you only spend money on things that are truly, truly, truly important to you. And don't spend money on anything else. So if you don't spend money as little as possible as humanly possible and things that don't matter to you, they're not part of your value system, then you'll have resources to put towards things that are important to you. You don't have to buy into the, um, you know, the system, you know, the, the American system of, you know, working nine to five, selling your soul, not spending time with your kids for 50 years. And then you get a gold pin, you know, exactly from some company . [00:33:09] Ashley: I love it. I haven't had that [00:33:11] Dr Virgie: Impacted my life forever. [00:33:12] Ashley: Oh, great. I'm gonna definitely adding that to the list. I always love it when I get new recommendations, cuz you know, there's all the popular ones that people say, but I love getting new ones. Um, now where can people follow up with you? Um, I believe you have a free medical bill paying checklist. Um, if you don't mind sharing that as well. [00:33:30] Dr Virgie: Absolutely, uh, go to crushmedicaldebt.com and you can find it there and you can apply the three steps, which is the only one, right way to pay a medical bill and protect yourselves in your family. [00:33:45] Ashley: I love it. So thank you so much for taking the time to be with us and for sharing this great information, because it needs to be out there and there's just not enough people talking about it. So I just appreciate this mission that you are. [00:33:59] Dr Virgie: Thank you so much, Ashley, for having me. It was my pleasure. [00:34:03] Ashley: Thanks. [00:34:03] Wasn't that some really great information like, Ugh, it's so wonderful. When you know, your rights know what to do and know the steps to take when you know that you weren't billed correctly. And once you have that information, it just gives you the confidence to deal with it, right. Instead of just avoiding it. So I hope you enjoyed that episode. If you did, please leave us a five star review. If you don't have that option on what, however, whatever app that you're listening to, please go to Apple Podcasts and leave me a five star review there. If you have that option, cuz that would be wonderful. I'd love you forever. If you would go leave me a five star review, I would greatly appreciate it. And as always, I will see you next Monday for another episode.