PowerLiving with Kimberlee Langford
PowerLiving with Kimberlee Langford
Know Your Body, Know Your Benefits: How Awareness Saves Lives
Power Living with Kimberly Langford, where inspiration meets empowerment. Kimberly is a nurse, executive leadership coach, reiki master and your guide on this journey to whole person wellness.
Speaker 2:There we go, hey, hey. Well, bronwyn, I am so excited to be able to share some time with you today. Gosh, we met a few years ago at a conference and I was so impressed with just who you are and your story and your passion and what you're putting out there in the marketplace encouraging women, especially to check their parts and get their screenings and why that's so important and I'm just really grateful for you to save some time to come on and share a little bit about your story. Absolutely, I think it's interesting just to set the stage and just share a few statistics for folks so they can get the scope of the landscape here.
Speaker 2:But according to our cancerorg, there's still one in eight of us that will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer at some point in our lives, and we catch breast cancer early. The survival rate is like 85 to 91%. It's phenomenal, and yet you know when it's caught late. You know the later we catch that, the lower those numbers are and the greater the cost. As a matter of fact, in 2020, the US, as far as breast cancer medical costs, were almost $30 billion, so it's a huge strain. In 2024, it rose up to almost $33 billion, and you know, it's just sad we still see that.
Speaker 2:And of course the pandemic did a lot because people weren't getting their screenings.
Speaker 2:We were starting to make some headway with people that were getting their preventative screenings and then everybody stopped and now we're trying to get them back on the wagon but still, you know, a big barrier sometimes is the out-of-pocket costs. Yeah, barrier sometimes is the out-of-pocket costs. So for individual patients they estimate the average out-of-pocket cost is about $1,500 per person, with deductibles and co-pays and whatnot. Even among those you know, obviously, who are insured. And after cancer diagnosis is not just getting through the treatment, but after cancer there's still a lot of care and still in the first six months people spend a little over four grand with those aftercare costs. So it's definitely something that for those of us in the health insurance industry you should be paying attention to. It's relatively simple to catch it early and do something about it and there are tremendous cost savings there and also for us personally. But maybe you can walk us through a little bit of you know your journey and you know what, what you wish you would have known back then compared to what you know now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so. Thank you for the introduction. My story is a lot different than a lot of other people's and I think that was because I knew how to navigate insurance, so I was lucky about that. I knew to ask for a nurse navigator. I knew I was on a PPO plan, I knew I had access to that, so I got one and she was an angel on earth. She helped me with all the billings, getting my appointments set, and I just keep thinking that I was so blessed to have had someone help me along the way in that aspect.
Speaker 1:I don't know how women are doing it without any help and I give them so much credit, because it is hard. It is hard to be able to get appointments, it's hard to be able to get in to. You know, from my diagnosis, from day I found the lump till the day I had my bilateral mastectomy was a month. That was it. Wow, one month. And it all just fell into place. I got every appointment I needed I got. So my story is not like many other women's that I've heard, but it should be. It should be more like that. You know it shouldn't have Okay.
Speaker 2:Well, it's interesting that you say that, because for so many people they leave that appointment where they get that diagnosis. They're told they need to go get an MRI or something like that, and then they go call to make the appointment and it's six weeks out, yep.
Speaker 1:So and and exactly Cause I and I, the lady told me it was going to be six weeks out too, and I and I was like, well, I can't accept that. How about I get on a wait list? And you know, for me getting on the wait list I asked her, for she was like, absolutely. I told her that I'm super flexible on time, so any time that they could get me in I would make it work. So I also gave them a little bit to, you know, to be able to get me in. You know, gave them a little more options and just. But also people don't know to ask that, people don't they don't well.
Speaker 2:well and with the nurse navigator, nurses know the lingo to use to get somebody you know up up the chain and so you know for you, with your background and benefits and insurance, knowing the landscape, you know to hear that that was still hard and yet those steps that you took with the nurse navigator, how that a month to to treatment, that means a different, that makes a difference between a stage one and a stage two or three. Yeah, it does.
Speaker 1:It really does and so many people I've. I've helped a lot of women. I've spoken to a lot of women. I'm in only two Facebook groups because some of them are just too overwhelming. So I'm in and a lot of women will post an insurance question and I'll reach and I, you know I'll reach out to them and give the answer. But then I also like say you know, you can message me on the side if you want to talk a little bit more, and I've had so many women message me on the side, sending me screenshots of their benefits. So I'm looking at their benefits to just try to help them understand. So many people have access to a nurse navigator and they don't even know it. They were never. They were never told, they were never taught, they were never you know, and that's a big flaw with insurance. How are you not taught to use these benefits? These are benefits that you pay a lot of good money for and got you know. They're there when you need them and you should know how to use them Well especially, especially.
Speaker 2:You know we find, I've found in my practice that you know to have that awareness if something bad happens, call us first, kind of messaging and we'll get you to the right place. Yeah, so important. And sometimes somebody goes into their benefits team or HR and says, hey, I have this problem. Yeah, sometimes benefits teams don't know where to send them. I've heard that a lot, I've heard that a lot.
Speaker 1:I've heard that a lot. I've heard. They don't give me an answer, or they'll say I'll reach out to the broker, or you know, oh, just call the number on the back of your card. No, like that's not, that's not going to do anything at all.
Speaker 2:We could talk pizza and root beer and talk about numbers on the back of cars. Somebody the other day about a nurse line on the back of cars. I was talking to somebody the other day about a nurse line on the back of a car and I won't say which insurance. It was A dummy number. It was a nurse, but she had nothing to do with the plan. She couldn't tell him anything. I have no idea what she was there for.
Speaker 1:She was very nice, but I remember because I called and she said I don't even work for him and I can't look up for benefits.
Speaker 1:I can't tell you. You know, as soon as I heard it I almost became like a deer in headlights too, like I didn't even. I didn't even know what to do. I, I, you know, obviously. I know about um, you know the how to call, how to talk to when I'm scheduling appointments, that if I need a referral or not, all that stuff. But it kind of goes out the window a little bit.
Speaker 1:So having that nurse navigator to really kind of fill in, fill in where I needed her, cause she knew I did insurance, so she knew I knew stuff, but she took care of billings and you know they said that one test wasn't necessary, so then they had to reappeal it. She was like you don't worry about anything, I take all this on. And then I just think of all the women that are doing it themselves and it really just it. It breaks my heart because I don't know how you can be diagnosed with cancer and then have to worry about fighting for your life but also worry about fighting a claim to get paid for treatment that you absolutely need.
Speaker 2:Meanwhile you're trying to hold down a job and a family, maybe a family, or yourself, or yourself together, and the financial burden how am am I gonna pay for my care? That's really scary, yeah, so how? How did you originally, how did you originally catch your your cancer?
Speaker 1:um, I had just woken up and it was the whole morning was very weird. And my pajama top that I was in the strap fell down and just the way I reached over I felt a huge lump and I'm like, what is that lump? And I'm like, okay, and I'm not even being like I'm not exaggerating. The second I touched it I knew it was cancer. I felt it in my core, in my gut. I knew it was cancer. So I called my husband in and I'm like, you know, do you ever remember feeling this lump? And he was like I know what you're thinking, bramwyn, he's like don't go to, don't go to that space. He's like you were sick a couple of weeks ago, so it could be a lymph node, it could be, you know, some sort of a cyst or whatever. So I'm like, okay, he's, he could be right. And, uh, I was just so.
Speaker 1:I got the kids ready for school, I dropped them off and then I came home to start getting myself ready for work. And you know, I'm just kind of there right now, I can't stop touching it and I'm thinking like, oh, okay, maybe, maybe it's. You know, it is just nothing. Um, so I'm getting ready and my husband is the calmest, most quiet, complete opposite of me and he came in the bathroom and he's like you know what, maybe you should just call. And the minute he said that that I should call the OB, and just it was like OK, it like in my head it was confirmed what I feel like I already knew. And and I called and the lady said the nurse on the other line said I just had a cancellation. How fast can you be here? And I was like like I could be there in 20 minutes. And I got there in 20 minutes and I saw my OB and he was like I see what you're thinking. You know, he's like it could be a lot of different things. Let's just you know we'll worry about one thing at a time and sure enough.
Speaker 1:Then you know everything kind of happened right after that. I had to to have, you know, the mammogram. Then we have to do a biopsy, which is awful. The way they get the biopsy it's like archaic. I don't understand how they haven't thought of a new tool to use. But yeah, then it was. I went in for surgery and then they, when they went in for surgery, they found it spread. So it spread to my lymph nodes.
Speaker 1:So that was not what we were expecting to hear, um, but you know, I had a whole team around me that I trusted and I felt like I was in really good hands. So and I, you know, for me, for I'm very faith, you know my, my faith, and I just kept, just kept praying. I'm, you know, I'm not ready to go anywhere yet. I have, you know, I haven't seen my kids do so many things and so for once in my life it was like I put myself first. Everything else was to the side, it was like just it wasn't, it was like this just for me and I. I couldn't worry about anything else or anyone else until I could get like a grip on myself and just what I had to do, what I knew I was walking into and had to and had to do for myself yeah, so were you.
Speaker 2:Were you uh doing mammograms or breast self-exams before?
Speaker 1:yeah, no. So I will say I guess I call it cancer naive. I never thought I would get it. I never did a self-exam and at my last visit I was 40, at my yearly with my OB, and I said to her well, I wasn't 40, I was 39. And I had it in August and I said do you think I should set my mammogram up because I'm going to be 40 in November? So and she I remember vividly her turning back and looking at me before I walked out the door and she's like no, you'll be 40 next year in October, in August too, so we'll just get it done.
Speaker 1:Then I was like OK, didn't think anything of it. And then, sure enough, it was three months. Not even three months later I felt the lump and she didn't feel anything when she did the exam on me. So whether it wasn't there or not, or it just you know, I'm assuming it wasn't there. But I did not do self exams and I now preach to my all my kids, my, my daughter and my two sons that this is important because early detection is key. It's your best chance at survival.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know it's interesting. You and I were talking about this earlier. This is important because early detection is key. It's your best chance at survival. Yeah, you know it's interesting. You and I were talking about this earlier. You know the breast self-exam. We used to teach that all the time and now they don't teach it. When you go in, a lot of times your provider doesn't do the breast exam anymore. It's not a current guideline. That being said, it's still a really valuable tool. We were talking earlier. I mean, I've had patients who have told me you know, my husband caught it. Yeah, husband, do your due diligence. Yeah, right, it is important. Us Preventative Services Task Force they recommend mammograms every two years. Yeah, women of average risk starting at age 40, 40 to 74. That being said, if you have a family history or anything like that, they're going to recommend that earlier. Did you have a family history?
Speaker 1:So my grandma, my paternal grandma, had breast cancer and my paternal, my maternal aunt, had breast cancer, but hers was local and she just had to do a lumpectomy, so no treatment or anything like that. But it's interesting because my other aunt was in remission from ovarian cancer. In remission from ovarian cancer. So when I had told my OB, um, when I went for my annual, and I said, oh, she says anything different with your family history, so I figured I would tell her that because it is different, and she's like, oh, why don't we do a genetic testing, you know? And I was like what? Okay, so we did the genetic testing.
Speaker 1:Two weeks later I went into her office and there was like 30 different, you know, panels of and I was negative for everyone. I didn't have the BRCA gene, I didn't have any any high markers for anything, nothing. So I was like, okay, so this is great. You know, I felt like for me I was so scared because I'm like what, why did I do that? Why did I do that? What if it shows something? And then I got out of there and for me it was like a huge sigh of relief, like all right, I'm good, like I'm in the clear. And then that was like mid, mid September, and then all of a sudden, you know, here comes November and I found it, you know.
Speaker 2:So Wow, that's incredible, yeah, so you know it's interesting. So I guess our advice would be if you're not doing a breast exam even though it's not guidelines you should. You should be familiar with your own body. Same thing you should be watching for moles. You should be checking your skin, yeah, and you'd be doing those things. Guys, you should be checking your parts too, yeah, absolutely Like a breast exam you should be. You should be familiar with your testicles.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the vibes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2:There's a job, pay attention to all the parts, teamwork there. And here's the difference when you look at just not counting the exquisite difference in terms of cost between catching a cancer early and a cancer late. When you look at post-cancer 12 months post-diagnosis when you catch a cancer very early, at stage zero, the costs are like 60 grand. When you catch it at one stage four this is a year after the diagnosis those costs jump up to 134, almost 135 000. It's a huge jump and that continues into year two. So it's so important, um, you know, to make sure that we're, that we're all staying alert. Yeah, you know catching things earlier and you know not ignoring. You know catching things earlier.
Speaker 1:And you know, not ignoring. So you know there's so many things people think, oh, it's just a lump. I don't have a lump. It could be a change in your skin. It could be a little spot in your skin that's all of a sudden red, or the texture stickening, or I mean these are all things I did not know. I would have just thought, maybe my like one looks different from the other.
Speaker 1:If you're not breastfeeding, right, yeah, your nipple could change shape. Your nipple could just start um having discharge and you might just brush it off as, oh, that's nothing, or you know, and you know, there there's. If you know, if you're more aware of your body visually and how you feel, and then you know the risks and the and the signs of it, which are huge. You, you're not going to be cancer naive like me. You're going to be able to be diagnosed as early as possible and you just be familiar. So if you know that you always have, you know you have um, dense breasts or you have cysts, or you, you know, you get to know those shapes of them because you're feeling, you're doing it, and then, if something's different, you're going to realize what's different because you're very familiar with yourself, which I think is very important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're absolutely right. And then acting early. And to your point earlier, being familiar with your benefits, not where to go when you have something like that. You know our health costs. Health care insurance costs are not cheap. No, you should be getting you know the full benefit of what you have in place.
Speaker 1:And they're not going to tell you that you have a nurse navigator and people don't know to ask that. So it's kind of you know, you have these wonderful women, men, that are there to help you and they aren't getting utilized as much as they should. Sometimes they call in on the backend and then ask if you need help which is great too, because they could still always help. But you've already navigated so far in that it's almost like well, I now I kind of don't need you. I needed you then. But you've already navigated so far in that it's almost like, well, now I kind of don't need you. I needed you then, but they're only getting the update from you know, comes across their desk saying like, hey, reach out to this person because they're, you know they're having this issue, or whatever.
Speaker 2:That's a great point. You know, and that's why health plans, really, if you have something like that in place, it's so important for you to own your data and have that you know if you're late, if your claims are three months late by the time the nurse, if you have a good cancer management program in place by the time the nurse sees it, yeah, and then you know the welcome letter gets sent out and you call Now you're into month four, yep, and a lot can happen between month one and four.
Speaker 2:Absolutely you know. And likewise, if you get data I mean I've had some platforms where we get data like every month, and the claim lag was only 30 days. That's so much more powerful. And for you know, cancer management programs that I've developed. You know we we jump on those quickly and it does. It makes a really big difference.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's why you know I did. You know I worked in insurance. I had a lot of my own companies and I my biggest thing was education. So I would go into these companies, you know, during open enrollment, off-cycle education, and I would teach people how to use their benefits. You would be so surprised how many people don't know what a deductible is, don't know how the deductible works with the out-of-pocket you know. So teaching them that they have these tools and they can how to use your insurance, I mean, it was. It's crazy how many older people you know don't and forget. The young people have zero idea. So you know and they don't get taught.
Speaker 2:They just are like, oh okay, sometimes it's complicated for those of us that work in it. So imagine somebody who's not in that Well, bronwyn, if you, you know your story I think is so powerful, and if you, you know your story, I think is so powerful, if you could think of you know one thing that you know, if you could do one thing for either people in benefits or you know, members of health plans in terms of advice pertaining to you know, cancer awareness, what would it be yeah, I think it would be to make that a point that you talk about.
Speaker 1:You talk about your preventative care. You talk about how important it is to go to your primary, your gynecological visit. I think that it's so important now that that's another one of those things that you don't let slide. So when you are talking or when you are with that, you know an employer and you're showing them their new plan for the year, or you know. However you're doing it, it should be something that is spoken about. It should be something on the spreadsheet. If you're doing the spreadsheet, it should be it's cancers everywhere.
Speaker 1:So and then think about it. You know there's so many people that have specialized jobs that if they go out on leave, you know it's going to it could hurt the company. But if we have this place, you know in, in, you know that where we talk about prevention, where we do and not try to scare anyone you don't want to scare anyone, but to know they have a tool that if, if they think something's going on, they have the insurance to cover it. But then, but then comes you have your deductible and how that would fall into place, and a lot of people don't do services of any kind, because their deductible is $7,000 and they know it's going to cost money. But I think, as the broker, as the employer, you have a responsibility that you are offering a plan and they should know what they have, because not everyone's going to read that pamphlet, not everyone's going to look. So that's why I think it's important to do the enrollment meetings and highlight certain things that are necessary.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Well, bronwyn. Thank you so much for sharing your story. Yeah, absolutely your passion for health benefits and for women who might be facing this kind of yeah. How would people get a hold of you if they had questions or wanted to connect with you?
Speaker 1:Oh sure, so I'm on LinkedIn, all my information's there. Just you type in my name, brandwyn Lee, and you could probably I'm sure we could post it in the um. Yeah, so we, you could have it there. You can reach out to me, you can message me um email is fine.
Speaker 1:What I say is you know and it's so cliche I guess you'll say, but I truly mean it that no one fights alone, and I and people would always say it and and it's like, oh okay, before anything ever happened, I was like kid, no one fights alone, we get it, we get it, but it it's truly, it, truly I mean it, because I have been going. I've met women that don't have anyone with them, that I've met women that don't tell their families. I've met women that that it's, and so they still need someone to to, to be there, to be there that person, because it can be really lonely. So you know, no one fighting alone is a big thing for me. So if anyone is alone or feels alone, or you know, none of their friends can understand them, cause that's another thing too.
Speaker 1:Your friends all mean well, your family all means well, they don't understand, and you don't want them to understand, but they don't get it and it's sometimes it's overwhelming for them just to say you know, oh, you're going to be okay. You don't know that, don't say that to me, like you know. So there's different things that someone who's battling would say to someone. So if anyone is even just wants to talk, sit on the phone and cry, I mean whatever. There's so many resources that I could help point them to. But I'm more than happy to to talk to anyone that needs it, even if it's a husband that wants to talk about something for their wives because they don't know what to do.
Speaker 2:You can absolutely reach out to me as well with stuff like that. Bronwyn, you're a gem. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for I'm glad you're in this industry my friend. Thank you so much for sharing time.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Okay, all right, thank you.