An Arm and a Leg

Barbara Faubion got up every day psyched to go to work—which she says puzzled her friends. “They’d go, ‘You love your job?!? You spend your whole day talking to an insurance company. Are you kidding me?’” She wasn’t kidding. Because she loved to win—and she was really, really good at untangling other people’s health-insurance problems.  She's here to teach us what she knows. And we'll learn s...

Steve Benasso is an HR director who, his colleagues will tell you, hates insurance companies, and hates seeing people getting taken advantage of. So he fights off weird medical bills and bogus insurance denials for those colleagues. "I am a bulldog on this stuff," he says. "I do it every month." And on this episode, he tells us how he does it. Send your stories and questions: https://armandalegsho...

If you need medical care, it's like you've entered a casino, playing for your financial life, with the deck stacked against you. Lucky for us, we get insight — and tips the dealer WON'T tell you— from ace reporter Celia Llopis-Jepsen . To start with, she got an executive from a health-care company to talk honestly — maybe more honestly than he realized — about how his company and others are playin...

There's no time like a pandemic to (a) learn to fight back against the awful cost of health care. And (b) have a good time doing it. Yep. Let’s go. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We wrap up our COVID-19 popup season with stories from three folks with very different takes on what we've learned so far about what the pandemic is costing us: A doctor and advocate in Brooklyn looks back on the wave of black and brown patients that filled her clinic in March. A nurse-practitioner in Texas looks at how new tech is—and isn't—helping the older patients she cares for. And: One of th...

In early April, Katelyn was in a financial bind: Home sick with COVID, she hadn't been paid in weeks. And bills were due. "My landlord is kinda beating down my door right now," she said in a voicemail to our hotline. Weeks later, Katelyn got back in touch: She had made it through, thanks to a combination of playing hardball with one company and knowing how to play nice with others. Because of her...

A listener, who has worked in health insurance for decades, wrote in. "I have listened to all the episodes in this podcast, and there are times I come away feeling bad working for the insurance company." We talked. Along with angst, she shared insights and advice we all can use. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You've probably noticed: The U.S. economy is crashing. Something you may not have noticed, that may sound really weird: Almost half of that economic devastation comes from just one sector. And that sector? It's health care. If that sounds completely backwards, it is. Except in the world of how we pay for health care in this country. Because even though we as a society need health care workers like...

Anna's insurance company said it would pay 100 percent for COVID-related testing. And then they left her to pay a giant bill. She got help, thanks to a viral tweet , but... her story exposes big loopholes in consumer protections. We learn how to avoid falling in. And: The way people responded to her tweet was generous, moving, and... complicated. Uncomfortable. Weird. Even with everybody doing the...

Ryan Gamlin spent a decade working on the financial side of health care, before going to medical school. Now, as an anesthesiologist in Los Angeles, he’s on the front lines fighting COVID-19, an experience he describes as “scary, in a way that I never expected to be scared, going to work.” He was scared one day last summer, too, when a California wildfire came within feet of the hospital where he...

Lots of people have insurance plans that only cover them with certain places —providers, certain hospitals. But: in a COVID pandemic surge, who knows if you'd end up one of those places? And if you end up someplace else... then what ? That’s the question we got from a listener named Becky in Minnesota. She's got a Bronze plan — it only covers a limited "network" of providers— and she's got a $6,00...

We kick off SEASON-19, about the cost of COVID, with a dose of hope — a story about an unlikely chain of people coming together to speed PPE to a COVID hospital in Brooklyn. NYC is a couple weeks ahead of the rest of the country, we think, so there are lessons here we can all get ready to use. Especially this: Don't be afraid that what you have to offer isn't enough. Take the step in front of you,...

We were not expecting to bring the next season out for another couple months, but... STUFF has been happening. Is happening. We're here with you. Bring us your stories and your QUESTIONS: We'll ask the smartest people we know to tell us all what they know. go to https://www.armandalegshow.com/contact OR call our **hotline**! Yep: (724) 276-6534 -- which spells 724 ARM N LEG. See omnystudio.com/lis...

This bonus episode turns the tables: Ace reporter Sally Herships interviews Arm and a Leg host Dan Weissmann, about what he's learned so far, and what's ahead for the show. \They dig into the stories listeners are sharing -- the lessons people say they’re learning, and the lessons they’re sharing. And Dan previews the celebrations in store as the show hits a landmark: 500 Patreon supporters! If yo...

Cathryn Jakobson Ramin, an investigative reporter with a bad back, spent years researching the $100-billion back-pain industry. She found that the most commonly-prescribed treatments, including surgery, frequently do not work — and often leave people a lot worse off. She also learned what does work. Whenever someone I know says their back is killing them, I send them a link to Ramin's 2017 book, C...

How one family's tragedy became, decades later, a $1 million gift to their neighbors. This story has everything: Laughter. Tears. Family. Community. Generosity. Softball. AND: Punk rock. John Oliver. A taco bar. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

They say the problem with relying on journalists to embarrass providers into caving on crazy bills is, there aren’t enough journalists to go around. Fair. But sometimes journalists can scale up. In Memphis, reporter Wendi Thomas found that the city’s biggest hospital routinely sued its patients over unpaid bills, despite making tidy profits.  The hospital even sued its own badly-paid emp...

A woman got a bill from a medical testing lab she’s never heard of, for $35. Then, a follow-up bill said if she didn’t pay up right away, that price was going up — WAY up: to $1,287. Which raises a question that comes up a LOT with medical billing: Can they freaking DO that?!? Can some random lab hit you up for money — and then threaten you with a late fee of more than $1,000?? On this episode, we...

Sarah Macsalka has seen the stories about how expensive an emergency room visit can be, even for a minor complaint . So when her seven year-old son Cameron gashed his knee on a weekend morning in June, the ER was NOT where her family headed first. In fact, Macsalka did just about everything she could to avoid paying a big, fat bill to get Cameron’s knee stitched up — and ultimately failed. For ins...

It would sound a LOT like  Explanation of Benefits , which is a musical revue that actually played in New York City in 2019. ... so it would feature a parody of "Bills, Bills, Bills" — the 1999 Destiny's Child hit —rewritten for the age of GoFundMe. And it would have smart, funny musical numbers tracing the long, sad history of the U.S. health care industry. Welcome to our musical episode! An...

Meredith Balogh has spent years learning to navigate the financial side of the health-care system. She’s a type-one diabetic, she’s never had a lot of money, and for years she didn’t have health insurance. It hasn’t been easy, but she’s become a master.  “There's only three things that you're fighting,” she says. “Problems with competence, problems with greed and problems with maliciousness....

Stephanie Wittels Wachs has a daughter born with hearing loss, which is how she found out insurance didn't cover hearing aids for kids. Those start at $6,000 and only last a few years. Stephanie teamed up with a few other moms to change Texas law... and won. Stephanie is a terrific storyteller. She's the author of Everything Is Horrible and Wonderful , a memoir about grieving her brother, Harris W...

It’s going to be REALLY fun. Also, maybe useful. Catch you here soon! Also, here’s a little video preview . Bonus news: Did you know we're nominated for an award as a TRUE CRIME show? Almost too perfect. Everything on this show is legal, and that's the true crime. Here's a link — please pass it around! Wanna share it with folks? Be our guest! Here it is on Twitter , Facebook , Instagram , and Vime...

For our Season 2 finale, time for some inspiration. For 30 years, James Gingerich has run a super-effective clinic in Indiana , delivering great results at low cost — to high-need, low-income patients. James Gingerich stands in front of shelves holding books that Maple City Health Care Center distributes to families with young children. He’s not a modest guy, and two of his brags stand out — as a...

Dr. Saul Weiner is a physician and researcher at Jesse Brown VA Medical Center and the University of Illinois at Chicago. (Photo: Roberta Dupuis-Devlin) Researcher Saul Weiner has been sending fake patients — actors, wired for sound — into real doctors’ offices, to learn about what actually happens, especially: How well doctors really listen to their patients. He’s tallied up what doctors miss (a...