Recently, Solidarity HealthShare President and Co-Founder Chris Faddis joined Matt Swaim of The SonRise Show to discuss price transparency and how it’s more important than ever for healthcare. Read the transcript or listen to the interview below.
Matt Swaim (00:03):
Thanks for joining us on this Friday, April 10th. It is seven minutes past the hour. The Sonrise Morning Show continues. I’m Matt Swaim. It’s always great to catch up with Chris Faddis from Solidarity HealthShare. He’s president there and you can find out more about what they do in terms of health sharing for families at solidarityhealthshare.org. Chris, welcome back.
Chris Faddis (00:24):
Hey, thanks for having me, Matt. Great to talk to you.
Matt Swaim (00:27):
Yeah, there’s a recent article that came out about housing bills and medical bills and how much people worry about them. What was it and how did this strike you when you read it?
Chris Faddis (00:38):
Yeah. The study was done, this was a study in California, but I think it certainly speaks to the entire country, is that people were more concerned about their medical bills and unexpected medical bills, especially surprise bills, than they were even about being able to pay for their mortgage or refinancing their home or those kind of things. And that’s probably one of the first times I’ve seen a study like that, although I’m not surprised at all by the standards. And I think rightfully we could say this isn’t just a California problem. I mean, we’ve got, of course, skyrocketing prices all over the country and healthcare has already inflated to a level that most of us can’t even fathom. And then it continues to rise. And I think especially these surprise bills, these unknown expenses that could come from a surgery that you thought was covered under your insurance, that kind of thing.
Matt Swaim (01:28):
Well, you can predict pretty much what your rent or mortgage is going to be. Now, you might get a weird HOA thing saying, “Oh, the mowing service is going to cost $7 more a month this year.” And you’re like, “What?” But still, that’s probably pretty manageable. Whereas with healthcare, there’s just no knowing. Your kid breaks their arm while they’re out riding bikes and you think it’s going to cost one thing and you realize, whoa, this is not what I was expecting at all. So I guess part of the question that people might have is what do Catholics think about? As people of faith, how do we think about this stuff?
Chris Faddis (02:11):
Yeah. I think we come back to, and our take is A, people should have access to this kind of information, first of all. I mean, it’s a matter of justice. I mean, we have a term in our world called fair and just pricing. We believe that doctors should be paid a fair wage and a hospital should have the money they need to operate, those kind of things, but it also needs to be fair and just to the patient. And part of that justice is transparency is truth, is knowing what is that thing and what is it going to cost me and how am I going to be able to afford it? And so that to me, it speaks back to Catholic social teaching. I think it speaks back to this idea that things should be done in subsidiarity. I should be able to talk to my surgeon about the price.
(02:59):
And if he’s not able to tell me the price, and maybe there’s a problem. I think when we divorce that whole model where you talk to Dr. Bill and he tells you, “Well, this is what I need to do and this is what it’s going to cost.” And we’ve divorced that now where it’s not even us talking to the hospital, it’s the insurance company or it’s somebody else. It’s a lot easier for someone to charge more. But Dr. Bill’s going to have to face you if he says, “I’m going to charge $100,000 for that thing that costs $2,000.” And he’s not going to do that because a matter of justice, he’s facing you, he has to be able to uphold that price. And I think we have to get back to that level of subsidiarity. We need to be able to working directly with our own physicians and our own specialists and things.
(03:41):
And then also, it needs to be fair and just. We need to understand that the physician does deserve a just wage for his good work or her good work and all the other parties, right? But also that the individual should not be harmed by that fair and just wage.
Matt Swaim (03:58):
Yeah. Nobody should be like one medical issue away from going completely bankrupt.
Chris Faddis (04:06):
Exactly.
Matt Swaim (04:07):
Exactly. And that’s how a lot of people think about these things. And of course there’s lots that has to happen to reform healthcare at so many levels of the system, but let’s just bring it back down to home. Let’s say there’s a dad out there, maybe in his mid 40s who’s throwing a baseball around on Easter Sunday afternoon and wakes up the next morning and can’t raise his arm above his chest, right? And that’s fine for one day or two days, but three weeks later it’s still a problem and he can’t like function and he knows he’s got to get something done about it. How does that happen in like a Solidarity HealthShare situation? What options does he have?
Chris Faddis (04:47):
Well, here’s what I’ll tell you. First of all, Matt, if that’s you, give me a call I can recommend something-
Matt Swaim (04:51):
It sounds like suspiciously like me.
Chris Faddis (04:54):
I’m sorry. But I will say, I think that there are lots of great options when you have an injury like that. So don’t be afraid of that. It’s not always surgery. If you’re not a member of Solidarity HealthShare, I will tell you there are plenty of options. You can go to a doctor, get diagnosed, do all those things, but before you do have to go under a knife or do surgery, there’s options like REGENEXX, which is stem cell therapy that actually does regenerate healthy tissue.
Matt Swaim (05:22):
And- Yeah, ethical stem cell therapy compared to some of the unethical stuff that we oppose, right?
Chris Faddis (05:29):
We have a great partnership with them, but anyone can work with REGENEXX and they have offices nationwide. They licensed all these orthopedics offices to do this procedure. You can also look at physical therapy, all of those things. But even when you get into surgery, there are options out there. You can look for cash pay surgical centers or bundled pricing surgical centers, and you’ll find them all over the country and you could pre-plan your procedure. One of the great ones is in Oklahoma City, many people just fly there and they go and it’s cheaper to go there, get their procedure done, stay a couple nights and then fly home. And so there are options out there, so don’t avoid it. It’s not worth it. You’re going to be in pain now or later, you might as well deal with it. And honestly, if it’s something worse than that, maybe it’s not an issue with just a shoulder injury or an elbow injury or whatever, it’s something more serious.
(06:20):
It always stops more the longer you wait. So the sooner you get the help, the better, because there’ll be more options for how they can treat you. And again, look for those options, ask for that upfront pricing because of the No Surprises Act that was passed at the end of 2020, they are required to give you a good faith estimate for these kind of things and give you your out of pocket costs and all of that. So demand those things, demand that transparency, and you’ll be okay.
Matt Swaim (06:44):
Well, there’s probably a couple people listening who are like, “Yeah, that was a lot of stuff, Chris. My arm just hurts and I’d rather you deal with that than have to have me deal with that.
Chris Faddis (06:54):
Or become a member of Solidarity and we’ll help you with all of that.
Matt Swaim (06:56):
That’s where I’m going with this stuff. So if they want to have somebody like you advocating for this in these kinds of scenarios, how do they get in touch with you and get connected with what you’re doing?
Chris Faddis (07:06):
Yeah. Visit us at solidarityhealthshare.orgsolidarityhealthshare.org for sure. There’s lots of information there. We have a really great team that’ll help you. You can download a comparison chart as well to show how Solidarity works compares to other programs out there, but also visit us at … Call us at 844-313-4999. There’s a great team there to help you.
Matt Swaim (07:31): Thanks so much. Chris Faddis from Solidarity Health Share. Find him linked at sunrisemorningshow.com. Got headlines with Anna Mitchell next. It’s a quarter past