Solidarity HealthShare President and Co-Founder Chris Faddis joins The BS Show to talk about the ongoing healthcare issues and what organizations like Solidarity are doing to counteract them. Listen to the interview or read the transcript below.
Bob Sansevere (00:00):
We are joined by Christopher Faddis, co-founder and president of the Nonprofit Healthcare Sharing Ministry Solidarity HealthShare, which is an ethical, affordable alternative to traditional health insurance and is faithful to the moral teachings of the Catholic Church. Now, Chris, the new year is upon us and I’m not personally a big New Year’s resolution guy, but I know every few months or every month, Solidarity HealthShare is doing things to get better. What have you, not necessarily a resolution, but what are you resolved to change and get done and make better for the members at Solidarity HealthShare?
Chris Faddis (00:41):
Wow, that’s a big question. Yeah, we actually just spent two days on that topic. Wow, I didn’t even know. A week before Christmas. Yeah, we do a yearly planning every year. The big thing is we have some things to fortify in the foundation, some things to kind of continue and improve in the baseline of what we do. But honestly, it’s innovation and growth. We’re going to continue innovating and building out new programs for new members like we did last year with the Young Persons’ program and the catastrophic program we launched, as well as building out other tools. And then we’ve talked about this before, Bob. We’re going to take advantage of AI this year to try to make things more efficient and better for the members, not to improve or reduce our work, but to try to improve the program for the members.
Bob Sansevere (01:33):
Chris, I-
Chris Faddis (01:34):
As we’ve talked about.
Bob Sansevere (01:35):
Chris, I got to tell you, if you could master or have someone that can master AI, it’s unbelievable what it can do. Yeah. If you have people that are really well versed in it, oh my gosh. I mean, I don’t want people to lose jobs, but they could make jobs a lot easier for people.
Chris Faddis (01:51):
Yeah. It makes the job you have better because you can serve the member better and you’re not dealing with certain things. So there’s several small steps we’ll take towards that. We’re going to try to take some big steps by the end of the year. But those are some of the big things. I think it’s really, again, got to fortify, make sure we’re serving well and then growth, you’ve got to grow again. This is a good year because people are realizing that the subsidies didn’t help them and they’re not coming back. So we’ll see how it goes, but were promising signs. It’s been a good open enrollment period for us and we’re looking forward to the next year.
Bob Sansevere (02:28):
Well, and as part of that, I know that Solidarity believes in being transparent and transparency, but there’s a problem out there. Insurers, I’m talking about what would be considered traditional insurers. There’s research from Simple Healthcare. They analyze the 2025 transparency and coverage files from Aetna, Cigna, UnitedHealthcare, which based in Minnesota, and to assess the data about the billing codes and what they’re doing. And insurers are not fully complying with price transparency rules. How do they get away with this? Are they being fined? Or there’s not really anyone overseeing it to say, “Hey, well, much like in Minnesota, nobody oversaw the billions that have gone out to these fraud companies claiming-“
Chris Faddis (03:19):
Well, that was going to be my question for you. Why you haven’t been on top of that, Bob, in Minnesota?
Bob Sansevere (03:24):
Well, I mean, I’ll tell you what the problem is. Politicians, every time they shut down whistleblowers, this gun, there’s a guy named Shirley, this young fella, 23 years old, he went to a bunch of these daycares and found they were all shuttered and now they’re trying to discredit him. He’s not a real journalist. Yes, but they were shuttered. And by the way, the other day, a few days after he put out a documentary about it, suddenly kids are being bused to this one daycare.
Chris Faddis (03:59):
They found some kids to send over there.
Bob Sansevere (04:01):
Yeah
Chris Faddis (04:02):
Well, and you saw that Homeland Security is now investigating that as well.
Bob Sansevere (04:05):
You know what? Things are going to happen now because the state of Minnesota will not take care of it, but hopefully at the federal level they will because … And I’ve talked to you about this. I’m the chair of the school board in Buffalo Hanover Montrose. We are not upside down, but other districts are. And they’re in pain because they need more money and the state should be giving more money and it isn’t. We’re not getting a bump this year or any help really from the state. Yeah, but these fraud companies got it. Meanwhile, the Minnesota kids who should be educated properly and have money to run the districts, it’s not coming to the districts. We have a few more years and if we are facing drastic cuts and by cuts to programs and to staff, and I hate that. I absolutely find it deplorable.
Chris Faddis (04:55):
It is deplorable. And honestly, you’re not wrong in that it is very similar to what we face in healthcare. Although, unfortunately what they do to build the system in healthcare is technically legal. So it’s not committing fraud.
Bob Sansevere (05:07):
No, they find ways around it.
Chris Faddis (05:08):
These insurance companies are not … Just like the hospitals, Bob, we’ve talked about this before with the price transparency rules. They’re not complying fully. Even what they do comply with, it’s a machine readable file, so no one can read it. Most of the information is not very helpful. And I believe with the hospitals, there are some fines for not properly giving people good faith estimates and things like that, but it’s up to CMS to enforce it. And insurance companies without a whole lot of enforcement members in place. And so they get to play these games and continue to obfuscate. And it’s going to take something like we just talked about. It’s going to take someone to actually have the cohones to go out there, like Trump is doing with Homeland Security in Minnesota and actually start investigating these people and what they’re doing and start enforcing the law.
(05:58):
But I also think Congress has to put some more teeth into price transparency laws. And I think they will. I think that’s a big topic right now as part of the healthcare fix. So hopefully we’ll see some movement on that.
Bob Sansevere (06:08):
Well, and Chris, you know what I fear too, because I mean, you hear horror stories about it and many people have watched the movies about it where all it takes is one person at an insurance company to deny you or to not tell you what your full rights are because maybe they’re having a bad day and they don’t want to tell you and you’re screwed and you can’t get any unraveling.
Chris Faddis (06:29):
Just recently, a friend of ours, she’s been in a boot for her foot since Thanksgiving. And it was one of those things where she fell a couple months before, didn’t really know what was wrong, but it kept getting worse. And finally went to the doctor. They said, “Well, we can’t really see it in the x-ray. You need an MRI, but you should wear a boot, whatever.” Well, the insurance company denied the MRI and she just never … I said, “Why haven’t you protested that? You need an MRI.” Well, I didn’t think I could. I’m like, “No, you need to call them back and say, what do I need to do to appeal this decision? I need an MRI.” The doctor literally says in his chart note, “I cannot see the damage, but there’s something wrong, whatever, and it looks like nerve damage.” So long story short, this happens all the time.
(07:12):
And in the end, people feel like, “Well, there’s nothing I can do. ” In fact, she was ready just to go do a cash pay MRI, which is probably going to save money by doing that. But at the same time, it’s like, you need to hold the insurance company accountable. And I think they’re so big and so scary to people that nobody wants to deal with.
Bob Sansevere (07:27):
That’s exactly it.
Chris Faddis (07:29):
That’s the problem.
Bob Sansevere (07:29):
They’re afraid because again, one person can completely muddle everything for you. One person who either has a chip on the shoulder or they’re being told. I mean, in a completely different world here, I got a friend who runs a heating and air company and he says there are companies out there that you have to be aware of. If they show up with a laptop and not a bag of tools, they’re going to try to sell you a new furnace or new air conditioner.
Chris Faddis (07:54):
Oh yeah. Oh, I see that all of the time
Bob Sansevere (07:56):
And that’s what their-.
Chris Faddis (07:57):
Plumbing companies and …
Bob Sansevere (07:58):
But it happens with insurance companies too, and you have to be aware of it and you got to be careful. And that’s why I like Solidarity because I mean, I’ve never had a problem with one of the people that I talked to. I mean, you got a third party that helps you out when it comes to billing. And that’s the most frustrating thing that I’ve encountered, not with you, but with a line of health. They won’t send the bills to Solidarity, send them to me and I’m not the middleman, but I feel like that because then I have to gather information that I’m not even sure.
Chris Faddis (08:32):
It’s all that extra work.
Bob Sansevere (08:33):
Yeah. But they don’t want to give you the information you’re asking for and they decide what they’ll just break you down or wear you down to where you pay out of pocket. And I mean, Solidarity is a great alternative, as I said, to traditional healthcare. I’ve been a member for about a decade. We’ve been doing this a long time, and I encourage people to look into it as an alternative. Now, you can join at any time. That whole thing where you have this, you don’t have to just join them during an enrollment period, right?
Chris Faddis (09:03):
No. Yeah, you can join any month, anytime of the year. And in fact, check your whatever insurance you’re currently on, but you should be able to cancel your insurance at any point and join Solidarity. So even if you said, “Oh shoot, I just joined something that it’s too late.” It may not be too late. In fact, in most cases it’s not, you still have a cancellation window.
Bob Sansevere (09:22):
And I’m sure you have people on staff who can walk people through that and help them.
Chris Faddis (09:26):
Oh yeah. Yeah. In fact, we had to assign a lot of extra folks to that task now. So now’s the time to call us. It’s the most people we have on the phones. And it’s been an exciting time. A lot of people are realizing there’s something better out there and we’re happy to help. And remember, Bob, we are not perfect, but we certainly are transparent. But also things like that denial we just talked about, these insurance companies take three, four, or five weeks to respond to your need for an MRI sometimes. And we’re turning around pre-notifications, which by the way, we don’t do for the purpose of denial. We need for the purpose of helping you with those medical decisions. And we’re doing that in 24 hours. (Terrific.) We’re a small shop, but we’re doing it the way we’ve always said we’ll do it. And we’re with you through the whole process.
Bob Sansevere (10:12):
Chris, thank you so much. And I love saying this. We will talk to you next year, which-
Chris Faddis (10:17):
Yes, exactly. We’re close.
Bob Sansevere (10:19):
It’s here. It’s upon us. All right. Chris Faddis, president and co-founder of Solidarity HealthShare. Go to solidarityhealthshare.org, get the number, get all the information. Meantime, take a quick break. The BS Show’ll be right back.
