Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of you're the Cure. We've got a great show. We're going to jump right in with some solutions to this. Health care systems costs that are running through the roof.
It's almost time for that annual sign up again.
Renewals, prices go up every year. It seems like we'll see this year what happens, but I have a sneaky feeling they're going to go up again.
There's a better way to do it. There's a more excellent way to steward your healthcare dollars. Obviously get healthy and not need chronic medication.
But there's a lot there and we're on our journey. A lot of people learning the truth and how to exit that system. And we've got an individual joining us today who's building what I consider helping them build a parallel alternative system from a, from a dollar standpoint, how to spend those health care dollars on health insurance.
What are the best ways to do that and maybe even exit the health insurance and do health sharing. But Josh Hilgers, welcome to the show.
I've known Josh for a while. He's actually a Veritas member and I'm going to let him share his testimony, his story, but really want to highlight what he's building. He and his team are building for the benefit of the people.
I mean too too many in this healthcare system, the benefit has been to somebody else instead of the patient.
And so we're trying to change that. So Josh, welcome to program. Thanks for joining us today.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you so much Dr. Ben.
Like you said, I'm a member. Actually got an email from my health coach today, checking in on me, seeing how I'm doing.
Incredible. I really do appreciate all that you are doing and your team to help us out here understand most of what we've been taught is incomplete or inaccurate and the truth Veritas, you know, prevails. And so I really appreciate all that you guys are doing.
[00:02:04] Speaker A: Yeah, well, thank you. I mean it takes a whole team.
So we definitely want to jump into what you're building, what you and your team are building so people can steward their dollars better.
But maybe just introduce yourself more to the audience, kind of where you came from and how you got landed to where you are today.
[00:02:25] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you so much. So I am pk. My, my dad's actually still in full time ministry. He's in his 50th year of full time ministry.
Been at several churches in several states, large churches, multi site churches, small churches and grew up in that went to school to be an educator, a basketball coach, that's really what I loved. But after a year of school, I was called into ministry as well and interned for a couple years and then took a full time position working on staff as a media pastor and a youth pastor.
And my wife and I decided to have children. And a $20,000 annual youth pastor salary wasn't going to pay the bills.
She made me well aware of that. So.
And she was a physical therapist assistant at the time. And you know, as we were growing, our family wanted to step back from that a little more. So I actually was looking for insurance. The church that we were at, insurance company dropped it, said we're not doing health insurance anymore. It's going to get crazy. This is 25 years ago. They saw the writing on the wall. And so I was looking for insurance and looking for an income to supplement what I was doing. And this company that I was working with or that I found said, hey, if you're selling, if you get licensed and appointed, you actually get a discount on your own health insurance. And I thought, well, even if I never sell a policy, that'll be great for me.
And so 25 years later, here I am, still a licensed agent.
God took me down an incredible path of growing an agency, seeing kind of the future of, of how some employee benefits were going to be restructured. And I am a big. I actually found you through listening to some of Jamie Winship's podcasts and some of what, what he talks about. And my identity is as a pioneer and a connector. And so hearing about some ideas and concepts early on was able to pioneer those in, in the insurance industry.
And to make a long story short, ended up working for a company that was acquired by a bigger company, which was acquired by a bigger company, which was eventually acquired by Allstate, one of the biggest companies, and over the last few years put together one of their biggest platforms in the small business space.
I had one goal. It was a huge partner, over a hundred 1.5 million customers of this company that use them for payroll and HR services. And there's no one size fits all. There's no one solution that's good in every state, for every group and regardless of budget. So we had to pull together different solution providers so that we could help anyone in any state, regardless of budget and regardless of size. And so as we put that together, developed some incredible relationships.
It's a tremendous platform that Allstate has, but I really felt God telling me that I want you to bring this to the kingdom. I want these Faith based business owners. I want these nonprofits, I want these churches and their staffs to have better benefits, better solutions, and quit spending as much money as they are, stop sending it to the empire and invest it more in the kingdom. And that's really how I found you as well. You know, I wanted to build solutions. So regardless of which health strategy our company is trying to put in place, we wanted it to not just be sickness insurance. We didn't just want to trade premiums for claims payments. We really wanted to impact the members of these health plans. And to me, that was going to be to give them a biblically based wellness program that they could actually reverse their chronic diseases, that they could understand the health system, they could understand the food they're eating.
I became a member almost a year ago now and am off medications and have lost weight. And you know, my family, we mill our own wheat and make our bread and do all of the things and it's revolutionized our life.
And so that aspect of it, the mental health aspect of it being able to bring together solutions so that yes, insurance needs to be there, we need to be able to pay claims for catastrophic things, but let's help these people be well. And so our company, the company that I started, I stepped away from the corporate position that I had there and started what's called Flourish 15.
And if you want to check it out, it's Flourish XV. So the Roman numeral15.com flourishxv.com and the 15 comes from John 15.
In John 15, you know, Christ says, if you abide in me, I will abide in you.
But the second verse, Jesus is talking about the Father pruning every branch that doesn't bear fruit. And I think there's a lot of insurance checks that are written, you know, premium checks that are written by these companies that aren't bearing fruit. They're bearing fruit for an insurance carrier, but they're not bearing fruit for that organization. They're not bearing fruit for the members. And that's really what our heart is. So this is kind of half an agency, you know, designed to help people save money, and half a ministry designed to help people put more of those dollars into the kingdom.
I'm actually in Indianapolis right now at a conference and I'll have to send you a picture. Dr. Ben. But we have an olive tree and we have leafs that people can write on there. We estimate the amount of money we can save them and we're having them write, what would your church do with an extra hundred thousand dollars? We Think we could save you $100,000 this year. What would your church be able to do with that? And we're seeing incredible ministry opportunities of serving widows, of hiring staff, upgrading technology that'll bring more, more people into the church. And that's really what we're about is, you know, not just the bottom line savings, but what that saving does for Kingdom Impact.
And as you know, it's not just what we can do for you right now in this year. These, as you said, the renewal season is coming up and all of the news reports are anticipating it's going to be one of the highest in decades. You know, but if we're seeing an average of 12 to 15% trend right now and we can put you into a program that's more actively managed, that uses Veritas Wellness, that uses some of the 90 day reset programs and helps reduce these chronic illnesses, and we can keep closer to medical Trend, which is 6, 7, 8%.
Just to give you an example, there's a group we're working with right now that's got 50 employees. We're going to save them $200,000 this first year, but a 15% rate increase on what they have now versus a 7% rate increase over 10 years.
It's $8 million. Dr. Ben, now I can't write a check to that church for $8 million. I sure wish I could, but if I can show them how to not send an extra $8 million to a Blue Cross Blue Shield company and put it into their ministry, I. That's how God is giving me fulfillment in the ministry side of what we're doing. And we do give a lot of money. You know, 25% of all of the revenue that comes into us, we're giving to nonprofits that support pastors and their staffs and other ministries. So we want to give as much of that away as we can as well. But if we can help these businesses, these churches, these non profits, save more of their money, not just this year, but over, over time, we're just super excited about where this can go.
We're super excited about not just those savings and what Kingdom Impact can happen from, from that, but think of all of the employees, you know, being able to have access to Veritas Wellness, being able to have access to health coaches, being able to really take control of their health for the first time.
It gets me so excited. I know you and I talk about that as we're putting this together, but we want to help everyone flourish. We want to help these organizations flourish. We want their employees to flourish. You know, we pray for every organization that comes into our business. We have an app that allows any of the members that, as they're going through stuff to request prayer requests from our team.
You know, we really believe in both sides of that coin. You know, that we are participating in this physical world that needs doctors and treatment and sometimes medication, sometimes a change of behavior.
But there's a spiritual side to all of this and we want to combat that as well.
We want to be prayer warriors for all of the organizations and their members that we're able to work with. So really excited about this stage in my life. I'm a little too old to be starting a new business, but this is the season that God has me and he's done all of this leading up to this to prepare me for this and to build those relationships. You know, we wouldn't be able to do this with these solution providers had we not built this incredible platform that Allstate's using where they're seeing a ton of business come through. And I'm able to say, hey, I know they're, you know, doing quite a lot of volume for you, and this is a smaller opportunity over here, but it's more important and more impactful.
And all of those solution providers have been more than eager to come over and participate in what we're doing. In fact, one of the programs that we work with has their own network that sits on top of a carrier's network or a reference based pricing model.
And their network includes the Mayo Clinic. They've got a special relationship with the Mayo Clinic and they've extended an offer to all of the churches that are working with that program that if a congregation member doesn't even have to be on their insurance plan, but if a congregation member needs access to the Mayo Clinic and has their own way of paying the bill and has their own insurance, but needs access to, you know how difficult that can be.
They've got given us a special, you know, friends and family code that we can provide that access to congregation members of these churches and staffs that we're working with. So it's just really cool to see how God has pulled together all that history of being in ministry and growing up and having a passion for the church and then the insurance side of it and knowing and understanding strategies and building relationships with these top tier programs and administrators and being able to really bring those together now and help these church staffs and Christian. It's not just church staffs, but, you know, Christian based businesses.
Nonprofits, we can help anybody. There's not a statement of faith to work with us or anything, but that's really our niche and our market that we're looking to impact is those faith based business leaders.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: Yeah. So cool.
Shift gears a little bit, could you? I mean, I don't want to get too technical or in the weeds and confusing, but little inside baseball for the people.
You know, people are having to look at health insurance these past few years just because those rates go up and up and up. Employers are having to either switch or there's this just constant movement and things are getting, you know, deductibles are up or services are cut or something. I mean, obviously my thought on that is it's a, a sinking ship, it's going bankrupt. And while, while it's going down, it's trying to just find a way. It's. The whole thing's just collapsing, I think.
And so we're trying to find a way to manage all that. Of course, what we're trying to do at Veritas, get people off that ship that you don't need that, but give a little bit of inside baseball on what in the world. $4 trillion in health care and these insurance costs go up. These businesses are going bankrupt almost over health care costs next to wages for their employees. I think health care is the next biggest line item on their expenses. But why is that? What's going on?
And then that'll go into the solutions. You know, some of the solutions you have to that.
[00:15:15] Speaker B: Yeah, well, unfortunately a lot of the, the increase in the cost is because of health care costs increasing. The number one driver, that's something that most people don't hear about, which is hospital consolidation.
As these hospitals and hospital systems continue to consolidate, there's not competition and they dictate the price to the insurance company of what that reimbursement needs to be. That's why models like reference based pricing, which decouple, you know, from what the, what the hospital is saying you have to pay us, they're using the CMS pricing as the reference and then, you know, going 40 to 60% above CMS pricing, whereas an insurance carrier has to negotiate with this hospital.
And it's becoming increasingly difficult. If there's, if it's the only hospital in an area and the system has bought up all the rural and regional hospitals, they don't have anyone else to go to and they have to just pay up in those prices. And that actually is driving about 40% of the cost.
The other one is what you're very familiar with is that 70% of all claims are due to chronic illnesses and things that our own behavior can change. And that's why we're super excited to be introducing so many of the members we're working with to Veritas.
The other side of the coin is you have the insurance system is based on the law of large numbers. And so how risks are pooled and how they are looked at by the insurance company can impact the prices. So if you know you've got a company of 20 people and the insurance company is just looking at your 20 people and one of them gets sick and has some high claims, it's going to be very difficult to keep a decent rate increase. We talked to a group last three weeks ago, four employees got a 200% rate increase.
No one can budget for that. It's impossible.
And so they had to leave and find a different market. So you're seeing the shifting that's going on is looking for a life raft.
Which solution is going to help our group save the most money and it could be increasing the deductible and the out of pocket exposure. We actually recommend that strategy, but not leaving it as exposure. You can backfill with health reimbursement arrangements or gap insurance. There's ways to ensure that increased exposure that was created for less cost than just having the lower exposure from your main carrier. From a member's perspective, maybe they have to carry two cards now instead of one card. So it's not a big deal.
The level funded and self funded models are becoming increasingly popular. And what they do to keep costs down is they medically underwrite on the front end. So they're not taking everybody, they're taking the healthier groups and you know, saying hey, that's too expensive for you because you're paying for all the sick people.
Your people are healthy, let's just insure them. Well, that works until one of them gets gets sick or has something go on. And so there's ways to mitigate and be proactive within that model. One of the models that's becoming increasingly popular, the administration just changed the name of Ichra to choice plans. And that's where an employer can give tax free dollars and the employees can choose their own plan in the marketplace.
There's both on exchange and off exchange in the marketplace. The on exchange is what most people are familiar with because that's where the subsidies are available.
But those carriers that participate in the on exchange also have off exchange plans where there's no subsidies that can be used. But employer dollars through these arrangements can be used.
They can be used on, on exchange programs too. But we're seeing carriers be a little more innovative and creative in some of the programs they're doing off exchange. There's even carriers that participate off exchange that don't participate on exchange at all.
And so that model is becoming increasingly popular. There's the quality qualified small employer health reimbursement arrangement for groups that have fewer than 50 employees.
And when you do that, the individuals are buying insurance in the marketplace. But those risk pools are much larger. You have millions of people that are in those risk pools because those carriers, you might have some local carriers, but you're also going to have national carriers that are participating and they're able to spread that risk across a much broader, bigger pool. So even with people with pre existing conditions, you're not going to see a huge rate increase in that market because of how that works. So what we do is we try and evaluate all of those solutions. Healthcare sharing ministries is a great option if you don't have pre existing conditions or if, if they're not pre existing conditions that you need medications right away. Sometimes they have waiting periods for, for pre existing conditions.
Those are also programs that can be done in the.
Sorry, are we still there? Yep, my screen blipped out for me. But those, those are also programs that can be available through some of those arrangements like a Qsehra. When it's, when it's done a particular way that we work with a TPA that can do so it is, it is kind of like solving a puzzle. Dr. Ben, you know, we've got a really interesting case we've been working on that has a lot of puzzle pieces that have been needed to put together because understanding federal and state regulations and penalties and all of those things that go on, understanding carriers in certain markets, understanding the budget of the employer and the goal of the employer.
Everybody wants good employees. Every, everybody wants to take care of their people.
I know you talk about kind of where some of these systems that we're stuck with now that are in these death spirals started.
And a lot of people may not realize that this is not the best way to do health insurance is through an employer model. But it was a way around post World War II wage and tax controls. And that's when this whole model started was when the government said you can't give employees a raise to attract and retain them. And so employers went to the insurance markets and said, well, what if we bought insurance for everybody? Would we get A discount. They're obviously all healthy enough to go to work.
And then they lobbied the government to be able to exempt that from their income tax.
And so right now if you buy individual insurance, you don't get to you, you know, that's with taxable income but if you do it through an employer arrangement, it's pre tax. That disparity only existed because like most things, you know, there was a politically expedient way around something that the government was doing that was causing a challenge for people.
And now here we are, you know, 60, 70 years later, dealing with a system that is not the best way to do it. I mean think about, we don't have our car insurance through our employer.
You know, we don't, there's a lot of insurance programs that we, we choose what we need for ourselves, for our budget, for our needs and we pay for it.
And health insurance, employee benefits has kind of been a part of this system. Now that makes it really challenging.
[00:22:53] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure.
Um, is there a, I know it's very, so widely but kind of a ballpark average, you know, a family of four, kind of 30, 40 year old couple kids.
Were they basic. Is there an average kind of insurance right now? And where I'm going with this is to compare to those health share ministries that I want to talk about and highlight those a little bit.
[00:23:17] Speaker B: Yeah. So last year the numbers for, for last year was that the average family 4 was 27,000 and some change annual premium.
If you continue on this trend of 12 to 15% within 10 years. Dr. Ben, we're going to be at almost $80,000 a year for family insurance.
Now this $27,000 annual premium from last year, that was with the average deductible of around 3,000 to $3,500.
[00:23:54] Speaker A: Oh my word.
[00:23:54] Speaker B: This eighty thousand dollar premium in ten years would come with a five thousand six hundred dollar deductible.
So something's got to give. Healthcare sharing ministries is, is attacking that problem head on. You know, their, their premiums are 40 to 60% lower in many cases than that that traditional plan.
There's ways that, that they are super proactive. It is much more of a biblically minded program.
It's not just a direct comparison to health insurance.
It is definitely more of a Galatians 2 model of bearing one another's burdens where everybody's paying in.
They do a really good job using some of the insurance tools of underwriting and actuarial tables and understanding what things may cost and knowing what needs to come in to be able to cover those costs. And that's where they come up with you know, the numbers that are the contribution amounts for individuals and for families. But yeah, it's, it's definitely a much more affordable and sustainable model for most families.
[00:25:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
So to compare which I want to make it clear, Health share ministries or is not insurance but from a practical, you know, the person on the street, it helps cover your healthcare costs especially and most of them are designed for more kind of catastrophic unexpected things. Not that chronic disease stuff. But what Josh was just saying, that's about $2,250 a month is your average family's monthly premium on an insurance plan.
That's with paying 3500 out of pocket before you even reach that the insurance company kicking in to cover stuff. So those numbers versus and there's lots of different health shares out there and I know there's one that, that you're kind of partnered up with we can talk about but I'm just giving general numbers. I've seen anywhere from like 200 bucks a month for an individual but for a family, 500, maybe a thousand. It all depends on, you know, various factors. But I think you quoted 40 or 50% less. And that's what I've seen. When I moved years ago from traditional insurance to Christian health share ministry type of arrangement, I was like 60% drop. So I'm contributing every month. I'm sharing so that people can think of like that monthly premium. But it's a share. You're sharing the burden, as Josh said, with your fellow members who needed it that month your neighbor's kid fell and broke their arm. You're going to share that cost.
And so over time, I mean I've got six kids, I think we've used our health share maybe twice in 10 years and it was for broken bones both times I'm pretty sure.
And that's the design. We should be healthy. God designed our body to self repair, detox, regenerate, stem cells are in there, should be active and working to rebuild cartilage in your knee. Your, your mitochondria should be firing off so beautifully. They're making tons of cellular energy, very little exhaust, no inflammation, no chronic disease. And then you know, unexpected traumas and accidents happen and we share that, that burden. So I love that health share ministry model but people do need to understand it's not insurance, it's a sharing amongst like minded folks. But I, I, I highly recommend people looking at and especially if you follow what, what we teach and preach and you've been able to exit the chronic disease problem in your life, then that's just a, to me, an outstanding option to steward Kingdom dollars.
Way better.
[00:27:48] Speaker B: And one of the things you just said, they're like minded people. So if you think of the risk pool associated, if the risk pool is like minded people. So you know, these, these aren't the people that are, you know, using recreational drugs and alcohol and driving drunk and, you know, having sex out of wedlock and all of these things that can, you know, lead to diseases or other issues that would increase the cost of a health plan because they're, they're going to lead to claims that are having to be paid.
It is a, one of the reasons they can charge a lot less is because there are less of those types of claims and those types of risks that are in the pool. And so that's really kind of what we're doing on a fully insured basis with our level funded and our captive and our TPA program is bringing those same types of people that want a full major medical type of plan. It is more expensive than a healthcare sharing, but it uses some of those same principles of what that risk pool looks like and being able to bring those folks together. And that's really what we're trying to do is as much as you guys are upsetting the apple cart from the traditional allopathic medicine pathway, if we can do the same thing on the insurance side. Right. I think the third leg of the stool would be let's find those Christian based food providers, the, the farms, the folks that you've had on as guests of the podcast too, where we can get food that has not been manufactured and created from non natural sources.
But you know, if the health insurance, the food and the medical side of, of all of it, that's the world I want to live in, you know, so I, I know once we get to heaven, we're not going to have to worry about this stuff. Dr. Ben. But while we're here, you know, if folks like you, folks like me can help these, these individuals in these businesses manage what we have to on earth, but in the most biblically based model possible, you know, I, I'm just excited to be able to partner with you on that stuff.
[00:30:01] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I think it's, it'll be amazing when we open our hearts and our minds to the possibility we can bring aspects of, of the culture of the Kingdom of Heaven into the physical reality if we'll let go of that orphan mindset. Number one, that self centeredness.
I got to have my piece of money.
You know, that whole thing is a big part of why we're in this mess. And of course, the deception. Same in the farming, agriculture. We've talked about those other guests.
We just get kind of brainwashed that there's one way to do farming, one way to do medicine, one way to do health insurance, one way to do education, government, all of it.
But there's kingdom solutions to all this stuff. And I love what you just said. You know, Veritas Wellness can help you get off chronic disease, reverse chronic disease. Boom. Get a. Get a health plan that fits that a lot better and saves you a lot of money. And then maybe that health plan someday will allow you to go buy food as medicine from your regenerative farmer at the farmer's market down the road. Because those farmers need to charge what a worker's worth is wage, and they need to be able to collect a wage that pays for that excellent food they're growing and doing all that, especially if it's local. I mean, that is a kingdom, heaven on earth kind of thing. I'm not saying that's all heaven figured out, but there's aspects of this thing that we can do way better than what the world has done. So.
[00:31:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree 100%. I mean, I've got a vision in my mind of us being able to. To, you know, when. When we bring a company on board and they go through the you're the cure program, when they graduate, you know, we can send them a grain mill and a bread maker and.
And, you know, they'll have all of the tools that they need. You know, they can use the website to find, you know, where. Where to get the right meat and. And milk and the. The things that they need. Where's their local farm?
[00:31:59] Speaker A: Farmer's market.
[00:31:59] Speaker B: But that. The aspects of that, I mean, you know, you think of the scales being removed from our eyes, and every time I listen to a podcast of you're the cure, that's what it is.
[00:32:11] Speaker A: There's.
[00:32:11] Speaker B: There's scales being removed from my eyes in the different aspects, but that side of it, it's. It's just so important. And. And we fall into the worldly model. We walk into church, and there's a table full of donuts, and it's like, what. Like, I would never thought a thing about it. And now I'm thinking, what are we doing? Like this. This isn't. This isn't great here. Like, we need to be, you know, I need a table full of apples and bananas in My church, like, well,
[00:32:40] Speaker A: if those were fresh milled, if those are fresh milled, dunked in some coconut oil or tallow, I don't think Dunkin
[00:32:47] Speaker B: Donuts is fresh milling them for us right now. But no, I, but you see, what I'm saying is like, we, we, we like it, it seems like such a big problem, but now that I'm understanding and seeing it in my own life and seeing it like if, if we all just start doing our part, it's, it's that connected worldview and we're lifting others up and we're, we're bringing them into it. And the mental health aspect of it, I know you guys deal with a lot of that as well. We, we've got some partners that do some mental health coaching that are biblically based, some really cool programs that are out there, but Blue Cross is never going to include them in their program. UnitedHealthcare is never going to include them in their program. And so that's why we're trying to kind of use the aspects of that that we need to and bring in all of the aspects that we know are going to really help make a difference. And it may take a little while. You know, I know one of the things that you and I have designed and modeled out is that in 2027, as we have some of these folks on our health plan, we're going to ask them, you know, if you're a diabetic, if you have hypertension and you want to not just use your health insurance to pay a copay and go get a prescription, but you want to reverse that. We're going to pay for a 90 day reset. We're going to pay for a health coach to walk you through how to do it out of the health insurance premiums that are being paid by the entire group. And that's going to be a cost that we endure because it's, it's worth it, it's going to have lower costs in the long run.
But think of the people like these are the people. Most of our customers are church staffs and nonprofit staffs and these Christian business owners.
And who better do we want to be a champion of this than someone that's dealing with the flock and helping these other people and being able to spread that message. And when they've lost weight or they've gotten off medication, they've got more energy. They're not needing that coffee at 3 o' clock in the afternoon to get through that next meeting. They've got that natural energy that you're Talking about they're on a stage, so to speak. Like, they're seen by a lot of other people. You know, me sitting at home working on Zoom or someone sitting in a cubicle. Yeah, we interact with. But these are the people that are interacting with a lot of people. And if we can help them. I just think of the magnitude that's going to happen, you know, with all of these churches and their staffs being able to bring those solutions into their congregations as well. We've already started talking about this at our church, about, you know, some life groups around this. This type of material and education that you bring and. And how to deal with these things so that we can really start to see an impact not just on our customers and on the staffs, but seeing the congregation members themselves.
This. This movement is from a timing perspective. I don't know that there's ever been a better time, you know, being able to access the information, you being able to distribute the information.
People wanting that information, people wanting. You know, I don't think they call it health anymore. I hear longevity and looks maxing or all of these other things, but it's health, right? It's. It's. It's doing the right things for your body. There's an interest in it that doesn't seem to have been there in quite a while. And so I'm just super excited about it. I'm super excited about the way that we've been received in these conferences and with the folks that we talk to, the folks that we're able to help and bring these solutions to if we can.
I get so excited about it because it's just such a kingdom benefit. It's a flywheel. If we can help these people and then they're helping more people, then the kingdom is growing from that, and then the more people are being helped. And, you know, to me, one of the biggest things is what you're doing through this podcast. Bring Jamie on and talking about identity, bringing some of these other folks on that are helping us understand how to parent better, how to eat better, how to understand and have those scales removed from our eyes and see the truth about this world that we're living in and be able to address things from a spiritual aspect while living in a physical aspect and dealing with those interactions that we have.
It's a challenge. And, you know, I. Again, I just thank you for your guidance and for the guests that you've brought on to kind of help us through that, but it's super exciting.
[00:37:38] Speaker A: Yeah, well, you're welcome. And it definitely is a journey for all of us. It takes a team. I love what y' all are doing, just real practically speaking. Well, number one, I mean, anybody can sign up. Can individuals sign up with Flourish? Any kind of company I know, obviously highlighting the ministries of nonprofits, churches and stuff. But real practical, like, what are those steps? What's it look like? What. What's that give them access to what is kind of what's the flow if someone contacts you?
[00:38:08] Speaker B: So one of the things that I wanted to do is, is make this super easy for people.
All of the strategies that we talk about for individuals and families and for groups and employers, we actually put together strategy guides. And so if you go to flourishxv.com you can download for free a strategy guide.
There's so much content that we had to separate it out. There's one on for individuals and families, and there's one for businesses.
We encourage you to take a look at that information. It'll help you understand the different options that you have. We talk about healthcare sharing ministries. We talk about the ACA marketplaces. We talk about mech, you know, minimum essential coverage and minimum value plans. We talk about Medicare and options that are there. We talk about the fact that, you know, having health insurance is one thing, but having health is something different. And, and having the Veritas Wellness memberships, the. The beginning of that. And then on the group side, all of the strategies with the ICRAs, the QSeras, the level funded, the association help plans, all the different. It's all there for free for you to go and download. We actually have.
I wanted to do it so that for people who wanted to get in the weeds, there's weeds. You can read about it, you can get into the weeds. But I also did video summaries at the top of each section so that if you don't want to get in the weeds and you just want to hear kind of a quick summary about that, that concept, you can do that.
But if you go there and download those strategy guides, you can work with us. We'd love to work with you. And again, you know, our model is that percentage of all of the revenues that we make go into these nonprofits. You know, this. This is something that we want to do as well. But if you already have a broker that you're working with or you're. You're wanting to just buy your own insurance on the Internet or whatever, and you just want an education around what you should be looking at, use it. Use those tools.
We wanted to put it out there and make it free so that people could use them.
So that less money would be going to the empire and more money would be there that could go into the kingdom. Whether you work with us or not, if you do want to work with us, when you fill that out, we capture your email address, we'll send you an email if you want to schedule a meeting. We'll evaluate your situation, give you some advice on it. If it's enrolling you in one of these plans and you want us to do that, you want us to be your quote unquote broker or advisor, then we are able to do that with you. We can interface with the insurance carrier or healthcare sharing ministry that we put you with whatever the program is, we can kind of be your guide through that and help you do that.
It's a little easier when you have someone helping you navigate and manage that stuff. But we don't want people to think that the only way to get the information and access to these programs is through us.
If you have a broker and they're your broker for your business, but some of these ideas sound great and you want to have your broker get in touch with us and we give them access to some of these programs that we're the only ones have access to, we'll do that as well. We just want to help everybody, not spend as much money on insurance premium and have more of it that can go into the kingdom. So that's really the starting place. Go check out those strategy guides if you want to work with us. There's actually an assessment Dr. Ben, at the end of the strategy guide, that couple, you know, rate on the scale of 1 to 5, I think there's 10 different questions that kind of gives you your, you might be in a great place and don't need to do anything unless a big scary renewal comes in or something like that.
You, it may say hey, you should schedule an appointment with us as soon as possible so that we can help you out.
But navigating that and understanding it, you know, one of the things I'd love to get your take on as as well that we're trying to integrate a lot with what we're doing just from a user engagement standpoint is technology.
You know, we, we've got some AI tools that help when somebody has policies. You know, they, it can read the summary plan descriptions and be able to answer questions for them so that they don't have to dig through it and stuff. So they kind of know how their plan works.
But even having like AI Technology in an app where when you go to your physician and you're having a conversation with your physician or you're having a conversation with your health coach, it can give you questions to ask as it's listening and picking up on the dialogue. Obviously permissions on both sides are needed. But being able to give you questions to ask, having it's got note taking availability where if you have a caregiver or for me like my spouse will ask me after I go to the doctor what the doctor say. I don't know, I don't remember all the details. But being able to have the notes go to a caregiver or having them to reference again. And so how are, how are you seeing, you know, we're looking to include and I'm evaluating different programs like that. But how are you seeing technology and if it can be provided where it can integrate not only the healthcare aspects of it, but how your insurance program or healthcare sharing ministry program provides benefits to pay for some of the things that are being asked about.
How do you see technology kind of evolving and helping the users engage these systems more?
[00:43:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean we see the same thing. I mean obviously health insurance is super complicated. People don't understand it.
A lot of what conventional doctors talked about in pharmaceutical and risk benefit and all that, they don't understand how to read a study or whatever. But then the same in our world, I mean a little bit different. But some people don't even know how to boil an egg. They don't know what real food is.
So we're actually developing an app ourself. We're hoping to have it ready early 27 and it will incorporate some of that AI capability where it can really assess more individual need. You know, if you're diabetic, it can pull certain content that we've done or you just ask it a question, hey, where's the best recipe for chocolate cake? Whatever.
And it knows, it knows when Nicole did a class, you know, three years ago and it could pull that recording or a transcript from the podcast or whatever. So it's just going to make things much more efficient and streamlined. And I see that as stewardship of time.
You know, steward your dollars, steward your time.
And where are you getting your information?
I mean, obviously our app's going to be any question you ask it. It's going to pull from our content.
It's not going to pull from nih, CDC or FDA and Pfizer necessarily, or not at all. Actually, it's going to pull from our content.
So it's Important to know where you're getting your information from.
So, I mean, I've got my issues with AI and but I think like anything else is, is it evil or is there evil intent in, in the way man's going to use that thing that's holding the conversation we don't have time to get into.
[00:45:16] Speaker B: Well, that knowledge pool that the large language models are pulling from is so important. And being able to wall it off from that corrupt information and, and just have it be the information that we know is true is so important. And that's, you know, we're really looking forward to that aspect of the membership being available for, for folks really, just because of that engagement factor. You know, I think you and I are kind of in our worlds all day and, and you know, the terminology of insurance and some of the concepts and stuff. I've been doing this for 25 years. I don't, I kind of take it for granted, but it can be confusing. You know, someone might not even know what is a deductible. What, how does, you know, co insurance work? What, what are those things?
And they don't want to know so that they can, you know, pass a test on insurance. They want to know because they have a need and they want to go to the doctor. So it's not just what is a deductible, it's what is my deductible. How does my deductible apply to this thing? I need to go have done now. And being able to use the technology to just look at the health plans, the summary plan descriptions, the programs that you're providing and be able to pull all of that together.
And, and that's really the vision I have, right? So if, if I go to my phone and, and, and you know, hey, I'm not feeling great right now. I'm in Indianapolis. I'm not in my home city.
You know, what, what should I do? Where is there a doctor near me I can go to? And that pulls up, you know, the network that I might have available. But then it first says, you know, hey, before you schedule an appointment, you know, the veritas wellness program Dr. Ben is recommending. You know, you're saying it's your stomach.
Have you, have you thought about this? Have you eaten these things in the last two days? Can we pray for you while you're like, those are aspects of it. I think we could add to this technology side of things that brings the personal and the truth of the information and really deliver a kind of a substantial solution that engages all aspects of it in a really easy to use interface. You know, that's, that's what I'm excited about, about where technology can kind of bring these worlds together.
[00:47:31] Speaker A: Yeah, well, me too.
So glad that our paths crossed and that your true identity as a pioneer trailblazer, um, it's awesome for the benefit of the people.
So thank you. Appreciate you. And for you being who God made you be and you trust in God. I know this has been a venture jumping out there and pioneering and trailblazing and trusting him that he'll show you the way. Bring the team, bring the right people, the right partners along and, and of course the, the customers too, which I don't even like that word. It's just members that need the benefit. They need the truth and they need someone they can trust. I think the audience can hear clearly from your heart that you're not in it for the money. You're not in it for Josh Hilgres. You're in it for the benefit of others. Love your neighbor more than yourself or as much as yourself.
So that's really awesome. So I'm excited to be moving into the new year with you.
[00:48:28] Speaker B: Thank you so much, doctor. Fortunately for us, but unfortunately finding people that are paying too much for health insurance is not hard. And so, you know, having the time to help every single one of them and get them on the right path is a time management issue that we're dealing with. To be able to do it all because, you know, the need is great and you know, we're just so excited that God has brought them in our path. We are super thankful and supportive of you and your team. You know, me being able to have the energy and the health that I have to do this. I credit you and your information and your team and have an incredible spouse and children that have been super supportive through this. We've got some great partners that we've brought on board. All of our staff are either pastors, kids or have been in ministry themselves. And so they know what it's like to work with churches and church staffs and faith based business leaders. And so none of them have a heart that's a greedy heart or is about, you know, putting their needs first. It's about putting others needs first. And, and we know that if we can help these other people and organizations do the right thing, that the kingdom's gonna flourish because of it. And so it's really exciting for us. So yeah, we're, we're excited. I love the evolution and the things that you guys continue to create, create and, and put together. I really appreciate you having me on as a guest and letting us share a little bit about what we're doing with your listeners.
[00:50:03] Speaker A: Awesome.
Well, Josh, thank you so much. And guys, just to summarize again, because health insurance can be complicated, but basically Josh is there, he and his team, what they're building, putting together there to partner with you, walk with you, assist you in figuring all that out and seeing like you said, if you're in a good place, great. If you're not, here's some better ways, options to consider. And it's the whole thing from Medicare to in all the insurance options out there, Obamacare or Marketplace and down to health Share. It's individuals, small companies, big companies, nonprofit, anyone and everyone, he can evaluate it. And if you go, you decide to partner with his team, well, Veritas has partnered with them and then you're going to have access to. I mean, so it's this beautiful marriage and there's other, other partners besides Veritas too that they can talk to you about. So just kind of want to summarize that. To me, it's a no brainer. FlourishXV.com is a website and Josh and his team would love to help you out. So Josh, thank you so much for being with us and look forward to having you back someday.
All right, everybody, this will be recorded or archived on veritas, wellnessmember.com and all the podcast platforms and YouTube. Please share it with your family, with your bosses, with your head of human resources.
Get the word out because there's a better way to do this. And these, these renewals are going to be coming. Isn't it usually 1st of November, Josh?
[00:51:33] Speaker B: Yeah, October, November. That's when they start coming out. So, yeah, we're a timely podcast right here, right?
[00:51:40] Speaker A: So don't let that shock of a 15% increase take the wind out of you. Get this podcast to your, your friends and family and co workers.
[00:51:48] Speaker B: And one of the reasons we CHOSE the name Flourish 15, Dr. Ben, was because when people do open those renewals, they want to say an F word and we wanted to give them a better F word to say. Say Flourish, guys.
[00:52:03] Speaker A: Dang. Preacher's kid for you right there.
I'm kidding. That's awesome, Josh.
Yeah, helping us out in so many ways. All right, flourish 15 guys. Flourishxv.com Check it out. We'll be back next week with another great show. Bye Bye.
