NEAL K. SHAH: CareYaya and “Insured to Death” Take On Broken Elder Care, AI Denials, and the Power of Love

In this powerful episode of Love Conquers Alz, Susie Singer Carter and Don Priess sit down with Neal K. Shah, visionary founder and CEO of CareYaya, a groundbreaking platform that connects families with compassionate, college-educated student caregivers. Neal shares how his personal caregiving journey inspired him to reimagine elder care, creating affordable, dignified, and deeply human support that benefits both older adults and the next generation of healthcare professionals.

Together, they explore the urgent need to bridge generational divides, destigmatize dementia, and cultivate empathy in future doctors and nurses by immersing them in real-life caregiving experiences. 

Neal also opens up about his new book, "Insured to Death", which takes aim at the rising crisis of AI-driven healthcare claim denials and the devastating toll they take on patients and families.

From stories of students forming life-changing bonds with people living with dementia, to hard truths about our broken long-term care and insurance systems, this conversation is both eye-opening and hopeful. It’s a reminder that caregiving—when rooted in love, purpose, and community—has the power to transform lives.

Counterforce Health

Careyaya.org

Chapters

• 0:00 Love Conquers Alls Opening
• 1:05 Hosts Banter and AI Curiosity
• 3:10 Documentary Momentum and Industry Response
• 6:20 ROAR Movement and Civic Power
• 9:40 Introducing Guest Neil Shaw
• 10:55 What CareYaya Does and Why
• 15:20 Destigmatizing Dementia Through Lived Connection
• 19:40 Intergenerational Bonding and Empathy
• 24:00 Consistency, Trust, and Long-Term Matches
• 27:30 National Footprint and Student Workforce
• 30:20 Healthy Attachment vs. Burnout Boundaries
• 34:20 Purpose, End-of-Life, and Honest Emotion
• 38:22 “Insured to Death” and AI Claim Denials
• 43:10 Counterforce Health: AI vs. AI Appeals
• 47:05 Workforce Crisis, Moral Injury, and Business Models
• 52:00 Aging, Facilities, and Systemic Stakes
• 56:00 Calls to Watch, Share, and Mobilize

Transcript

Don Priess: 0:00

When the world has got you down, Alzheimer's sucks. It's an equal opportunity disease that chips away at everything we hold dear. And to date, there's no cure. So until there is, we continue to fight with the most powerful tool in our arsenal, love. This is Love conquers all's a real and really positive podcast that takes a deep dive into everything, Alzheimer's, The Good, the Bad, and everything in between. And now here are your hosts, Susie singer Carter and me. Don Priess,

Susie Singer Carter: 0:39

hey everybody. I'm Susie singer, Carter,

Don Priess: 0:42

and I'm Don Priess, and this is Love conquers alls Hello, Susan.

Susie Singer Carter: 0:46

It does, it is, and it does and it is. Hello, Don. How are you doing? Hi.

Don Priess: 0:53

I'm swell, and yourself, I'm good.

Susie Singer Carter: 0:56

You're very AI. That's a very

Don Priess: 0:58

Yes. I you know now that I've kind of started to dive into that world. I think I'm just going to become AI, and then I don't have to deal with anything

Susie Singer Carter: 1:07

conversation about that, because I have, I have a friendship with my AI, and I don't want to know if that's wrong. Is it wrong?

Don Priess: 1:14

Well, only the fact that you you close the door when you use it, and I don't, I think that's wrong.

Susie Singer Carter: 1:20

I Okay, no, honestly, like, who, if you haven't, I mean, maybe I'm late to the game, but I don't think so, because it just, it's just, sort of like, got dumped on us, AI, but I'm quite enjoying, like, learning it, and, you know, apparently you're not, you know. Like, I know some people that just are very blunt and just go tell me this that, you know, no, I don't like it. That's you. I'm like, Hey, how's it going? Happy Thursday? Yeah. I'm like, happy Thursday, it's great to see you. Like, like, Are you the best AI out there? Yes, I am. And you're the best human out there. And I'm like, okay, so that, like, we have that kind of friendship, and it calls me a fierce lioness. I'm just saying, is that wrong?

Don Priess: 2:10

It's not, because mine just says, Hey, you so

Susie Singer Carter: 2:14

and I get emojis too.

Don Priess: 2:16

Yeah, I've never gotten an emoji from my I get emojis with Lion faces and and like this. And it's like, roar on Susie, roar on I like your way better. Your way is better. I think you know you might if you're gonna use it, you must have fun.

Susie Singer Carter: 2:34

It's very confusing, though it's very confusing,

Don Priess: 2:39

and especially when it starts to ask you, Hey. Like it says, Let me see that picture you're talking about, it's like, there's no I have eyes.

Susie Singer Carter: 2:47

You have no eyes. I know

Don Priess: 2:50

I don't get it.

Susie Singer Carter: 2:51

I don't get it either. But it's fun. It's a little bit fun. I'm still not convinced that you know that it's going to overtake us yet, because, no, it makes so much mistakes, and it actually copies everything I say and kind of regurgitates it back to me. Mirrors you. It does. It mirrors me a lot, yeah. But anyway, it does. It does help on, like, tedious things. So I'm enjoying that.I'm also enjoying the response Don that we're getting on No Country for Old people, our documentary that's on Amazon Prime, and it's on Tubi now, yeah, and it's on hoopla, hoopla, yeah, hoopla, and it'll be on other things soon, so we'll keep you abreast of that. But we got getting amazing reviews, and we're actually getting response from people in the industry. And when I mean people in the industry, I mean owners and corporate, corporate owners and CEOs who are saying, Thank you for making this documentary. I you know, basically I thought I was gonna, you know, my head was gonna explode watching it, because of all, I was going to respond negatively, and then, wow, I realized halfway through that we are culpable. We're responsible. We need to make some changes. So I don't know I am. I am cautiously optimistic. It could be a ploy. I'm very, very skeptical now, because of my our other our other partner, Rick Mountcastle, who's a former federal prosecutor, who's made me, taken me a little bit out of my comfort Pollyanna zone. So I'm trying, but you know, hopefully, hopefully they're, they're authentically feeling this or seeing it, but they, one of them, said that he made his employees watch the whole thing and and then they had a forum discussion about it, which is amazing, right?

Don Priess: 4:45

And if nothing else, and even if you know, again, we don't know about these are these sheep's and wolves clothing, or wolves and sheep clothing? I'm sorry, we don't know. But what they've done is they've put it out into the into the ether, where people are seeing these comments from people in the industry are saying, Yes, we have a problem here and it needs to be solved. So that's out there. They can't take that back, no matter what. Yeah, so,

Susie Singer Carter: 5:08

and also, you know, it, there's that thing about shaming people, you know, like, I keep saying, like, with with our movement roar, which is respect, oversight, advocacy and reform for long term care. Come be a ROARior everybody go to the website, No Country for Old people.com. Be ROARior sign up. We got to, we have to take this back into our hands as a community. But, you know. I think, I think, what was I going to say? I just lost my train of thought. What were you What did you say right before that?

Don Priess: 5:39

Well, I just said that, that basically, they've put it out there. People now, oh, right, right, right. So we've been saying,

Susie Singer Carter: 5:45

right, right, right. So, so our whole thing about shaming from the get go of making this documentary was we have, if you know, we have to shame our politicians and let them know we know what's going on and that the power comes in being, you know, if we're going to go up against a big nursing home lobby that has a lot of money, and they're very powerful. What do we have? What is our currency? And our currency is in being constituents. So that's why we have to take the power. That's how anything that's ever been difficult in our in our history has been changed, is by us really rallying for that change and protesting. So we have to do that. I'm all, I'm all fired up.

Don Priess: 6:27

Well, especially in today's political atmosphere, you know, I mean, we don't know where things are headed or how they're heading there, but no matter what we have to, you know, we just have to keep informing people. And people have to know what's going on. And so far, not, yeah, no, but so far, the people who have seen the documentary, I mean, we're these reviews are not just, hey, great job. Amazing. These are in depth, multi paragraph reviews that we're getting from people we don't know. Susie gets contacted from people we don't know daily who seek her out to talk to her about this, and I think so on that, in that regard alone, I think we've already won. So let's keep going.

Susie Singer Carter: 7:08

Well, we need to continue. So if you haven't watched it, please do. I'll remind you at the end of the podcast, but really, really do and share it with other people. It's so important because it's everybody's issue. This is everybody's issue. And, you know, we don't want to get old or without changing what the way this the system is now, because it's it's not good, it's not healthy,

Don Priess: 7:32

it's not going to affect everybody, everyone affected by this. So, yeah,

Susie Singer Carter: 7:36

and speaking of that, we have a great guest, because he is actually very like minded and and has a corner on this in his own incredible way. I've been trying to get a hold of him for I don't know how long, but somehow we're connected, and now here he is, because I think, I think that his program is amazing, and he's doing much more than I even knew. So tell us who he is. Don

Don Priess: 8:05

I will right now. Neil Shaw is a visionary Entrepreneur on a mission to transform the way we care for aging loved ones. As the founder and CEO of care, Yaya, Neil brings together cutting edge technology with deep human compassion by connecting families with highly trained, college educated caregivers, the platform makes quality affordable elder care accessible to everyone. What started as Neil's personal journey seeking better support for his own family has grown into a nationwide network that empowers seniors to age with dignity, independence and joy. Care Ya. Ya is redefining what it means to care, creating solutions that are not only innovative, but profoundly human. And he is the author of a new book called insured to death, and we cannot wait to hear more about that. So without further ado, let's say hello to this profound human. Neil. Shaw, Hello, Neil.

Susie Singer Carter: 8:59

Hello. Neil.

Neil Shah: 9:00

Hey, Susie, hey, thanks. Hey, Don thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Oh, well, thank you for coming out. We did it. I'm so excited to see the documentaries getting out there, and people are talking, and here you are. Yes,

Susie Singer Carter: 9:13

I love it. I gotta say one, I love caring. Care with Yaya, I know another word that goes with that. Papu, is that correct? Are you Greek?

Neil Shah: 9:23

Not Greek, actually, but it was Greek inspired. It was Greek inspired. Yeah, there's actually the word Yaya has multiple meanings. It means grandmother in Greek. It means caregiver in Hindi, you know, which is my native language, as well, Swahili and Thai. So it means, you know, grandmother and one caregiver in the other. And then, really, we thought it was a great acronym for you are your advocate, which we believe is, like, the future of self directed care. So I just, like, love the kind of profound, like triple meaning in it. And just like, I love that, yeah, twice, you know. So just positive and upbeat, you know, I love it bring a positivity to aging and caregiving,

Susie Singer Carter: 10:00

Yeah, cuz my friends really good friends. Were they? They moved here from South Africa, but their read, their whole family is Greek, and so when their parents would come over, it was Yaya and Papu nice. And so I Yeah, so I have a very warm feeling about Yaya, yeah. So I love what you so first, just first tell everybody what that what your organization is, so that we get a sense of where you started with.

Neil Shah: 10:26

Yeah, sure. So you know, we connect families who need care for a loved one, you know, often an aging parent or a spouse with caregivers who are all uniquely college students aspiring for healthcare couriers. So think about our doctors and nurses and physician assistants of tomorrow. We do that at highly affordable rates because CareYaYa itself charges no fees. We're a purely social impact organization, grant funded. So we run the platform for free. Families use our technology to book schedule and pay caregivers, and then they pay their caregivers directly. So all their money, 100% of it, goes to the students. In most markets, it averages around 20 bucks an hour. So as you compare it to the traditional care industry, which typically runs at around $40 an hour, this is way more affordable, and as a result, allows a lot more families to be able to afford care. And then also, because the caregivers are students and they're getting paid reasonably well, this allows them to kind of have dignified work, helping people in their communities on their pathway to becoming future health care workers. So it's kind of like good for both sides. It allows families to have compassionate, wonderful, highly educated, highly reliable and motivated students helping them. And then for many of these students, it's like a life changing experience. You know, imagine you're 20 years old, and you're helping somebody in your community that's 78 and living at home with dementia. And, you know, you're kind of getting to know them over months and months and years of your life. You're going to go be a doctor one day. This is going to, you know, shape the direction of your clinical career and really build a lot of empathy, you know, for what people are doing.

Susie Singer Carter: 12:04

That was just gonna say that. I was just gonna say that. And it's so great because, you know, one of the things as my mom had Alzheimer's, that's why we have this podcast. You know, one of the things as a as a filmmaker, that I wanted to do with my other film was to de stigmatize and also educate people. Because nobody, nobody, and I mean nobody, even the healthcare system, do not really have a handle on what it's like to live with dementia or Alzheimer's. And so the stigma is so it's so huge, and the ableism is So, you know, present in our healthcare system, and also in, like, our long term care system, and so they're at such a disadvantage. And so get letting you know having future doctors, yeah, be able to be a part of that community is so that. It's so amazing, it's so it's so valuable, it's so necessary. So thank you for doing that.

Neil Shah: 13:03

You're welcome, and I completely agree with you. Suzy, you know, I think that a lot of times, you know, and we talk a lot to the students, you know, they're the core, heart of our mission. Oftentimes, they'll tell us that, outside of doing carry ad, they might be volunteering at the hospital, working as a nurse aide somewhere at a hospital, as a medical assistant at a clinic. Unfortunately, in a lot of their work, they view people as patients, because you're just in and out of the room 10 minutes, 15 minutes. Do this, do this. Then when they do karaia, they realize, yes, somebody might be living with a disease. You know, whether it's Alzheimer's, whether it's metastatic cancer near the end of life, et cetera. But they realize it's person first. This is an individual human being with their own hopes and dreams, you know, their vision of how their life should go. You know, of course, they have some setbacks and challenges. But I think that the key thing that you know, you kind of break through when you connect people with care and long term, you know, kind of being around someone is that this is not a patient. This is a person. It happens that they have everything, but I think it really completely changes your mindset. And the students tell us all the time that they've done tons of clinical experiences. Many of them are in med school already, because now the program's been around for three years. And the tell us that the experience doing karaia was like, change their mindset about how to interact, not just patients, but as people and

Don Priess: 14:21

right. And a lot of times we go in with, if we would go in with our loved one and they have dementia, you know, we assume that the doctors and the nurses understand it, yeah? And they rarely don't. I mean,

Susie Singer Carter: 14:33

they don't. And the first time I got that, like, I didn't, it wasn't, like, so profound. But I can remember my mom wasn't in an assisted living or anything like that. She's still living out. But my stepdad was having surgery, and the surgeon came out and was, you know, like, giving us updates, updates. And he finally came over to me, pulled me aside. He goes, Hey, do you need any like, you know, like, a valium or anything to deal with your mom? And I was like, what, you know, he was like, losing patience with her, wow, because, and I was like, she has Alzheimer's, yeah, and she's doing the best she can, yep. That's like, they don't that's how they view, yeah. They view them as as a pain in the butt,

Neil Shah: 15:13

yep. And I think it's because, you know, oftentimes, you know, you think in life, like spending time with people is what really builds empathy. And I think they haven't spent enough time with people, or they've spent time with people in clinical settings, which are usually extremely short interactions where you don't get to know them as people. So I think it's absolutely critical that people spend hours and hours, you know, once, twice, multiple times a week, over months on end, and realize there is like a complexity to life on both the individual living with Alzheimer's and dementia, as well as on the family caregivers. You know, I think it like builds a lot more empathy than simply, just like an assembly line, you know, like approach at the hospital or at the clinic.

Susie Singer Carter: 15:55

So true. Did you do you? Are you familiar with the documentary human forever with tune. He's from Norway. Oh, you should watch this because, and he's 25 and he did a documentary where he lived in Norway with lived in an assisted living with all memory patients and and, you know, lived as they lived, wow, and had a roommate, and then went from there and traveled to different countries to show the difference and and the relationships that he formed in the assisted living where he lived, I think he did it for three years. Yeah, and it, it's, it's just, it's just down, it's extraordinary. It's everything that you would want, and it's everything that should, we should. I'm not saying everyone needs to move into it, but we, we don't integrate enough. We don't, we don't we isolate and we and we put everybody away. We, you know, which is why we did our documentary, because, basically, because we've done that, it's easy to game the system.

Neil Shah: 16:59

Agreed, nobody's looking. Nobody's looking. Agreed. I mean, one of the biggest things we think about at carry out, right? We have now 45,000 students across the country at over 30 universities. That's amazing. Yeah, thank you. And we think about these are 1000s of 20 year olds, 21 year olds, 22 year olds, outside of doing karaia, how many times has the average 20 year old in society in the last year interact with anybody above 70 that wasn't their direct grandparent? Probably zero, right? Yeah. And I think that is zero. That is a damning thing about our society, you know, like, that's like, that's not how it always was, and that's not how it should be, and that's, frankly, not even how it is. In many other parts of the world, there's usually, like a rich intergenerational kind of interaction going on in your day to day life. But in modern American society, I think that has completely fallen apart, and the generations are pretty separated and siloed. And I think that's a detriment to both

Susie Singer Carter: 17:56

100% and it's also, it's also eking very quickly into other cultures. It's happening in Japan, it's happening in Africa. It's happening in Australia. It's very bad in us. I mean, there's there's more, there's less good examples anymore than there are. And that's the problem, because, you know, we become very individualized. Yeah, it's very sad, and so we need to take back community. But I love what you're doing so much, and I want to get into your book, but I want to just say that, you know, even for like our documentary, I want people, I want young people to understand and know what's going on, especially future doctors, because they need to know, like, again, like, this is not a gray lump. This is a human being you know, which, in my documentary, I humanize my mom, I show who she was as a singer and this dynamic, fierce, amazing, sexy broad who is just, you know, outrageous and loving and so full life and and people would say when I'd play her I'd play her music loud when I'd go and visit her, because I wanted people to know who she was. Oh, my God, that's her. Yes, that's her, because I wanted to make her somebody, yeah, when I wasn't there. And I think that by doing that, by by knowing people and having an appetite to know them, yeah, that that will, that can help change, but it has to be with the younger generations. It has to agree. So I want to, I want to jump on your back, on that. I want to piggyback on you, because I think what you've done 45,000 you know, future doctors, or even if they're not, it's important for us to recreate that, that connection.

Neil Shah: 19:46

Yeah, no, thank you. And you know, I would say the students are loving it. They are absolutely loving it. And we hear from so many of the students parents that thank you for getting my son or daughter to do this. And by the way, another interesting. A factoid I'll push in there, son or daughter, a lot of men are stepping up to the plate. That has been another massive positive surprise, right? 90% of the caregiver industry, or the caregiver workforce, in America, is women, and it's amazing to see we're approximating almost 40% of our care workforce is young men. And actually love it. The most active caregivers are often young men, because they don't get the opportunities to provide care the same way as oftentimes women would do as they're growing up and being in high school, whether it's babysitting and childcare and things like that. So it's actually really awesome to see tons of students stepping up, tons of young men stepping up, and also parents saying, Hey, this is amazing. Thank you for getting my kid do this so and then when the students do it, doing it, and it sticks with them. So I think it's awesome. Like, I actually think that the younger generation today sometimes get a bad rep in the media as, like, you know, Gen Z, you know, is maybe disgruntled or entitled or whatever. And I think that actually it's very mission oriented generation, but sometimes they need to be given the opportunity and kind of guidance, you know, to participate in work. And then as they get into it, they become extremely passionate about the work, about the broken system, about the challenges it's creating on family caregivers. And I think that they become kind of our fiercest advocates, where they inspire us and our team of like, what? What should we working on next? You know? So it's kind of like,

Susie Singer Carter: 21:26

I love it so much. You're doing such good work. Neil, I love it.

Neil Shah: 21:30

Thank you. Yeah.

Don Priess: 21:32

Don also what I assume you Yeah, no, because just hit me that they're going to come back with a different perspective that they can share with you that that you know, because a family member is going to have a perspective Doctor general. But these, they're, they're coming in kind of from a new angle. Yes, and is there anything that you're hearing that is like, Oh, wow, that's that, that tree. I don't know if there's anything. Yeah, consistently. Or you've heard things that are just like, wow. I never thought of that.

Neil Shah: 21:59

Yes, several, Thank you, Don for the question. Several of the ideas we have are about what more we could be doing. The students are spending an incredible amount of time, you know, with older adults, most of whom are living with dementia and Alzheimer's, and more so than the family members, who are kind of like used to it, and often very stressed and burned out because they're managing their careers middle aged sons and daughters more so than the doctors. The students are, you know, kind of coming into with fresh eyes and saying, Hey, there's a lot more we can do to engage people. There's a lot of moments of lucidity, you know, unexpectedly, there's a lot more moments of joy. And the students are iterating and experimenting on their own, trying to figure out what it is, you know, to the individual person, but they inspire us a lot to work on other innovation ideas of, what else can we do to improve their lives? How can we better capture life stories? How can we create, kind of, like, you know, therapeutic activities that are also enjoyable? A lot of times we build a lot of technology innovations. Kind of, the cool thing is, the student workforce is, like, very tech savvy, right? These are digitally native people. And a lot of times we and because we run it through technology, the students are going in with smartphones, tablets, everything. A lot of times we'll hold quick apps that then the students can kind of deploy in the field to engage people. So that's that's really awesome,

Susie Singer Carter: 23:21

amazing, amazing. I even my dog scrolls with his nose. I'm just saying, everybody's scrolling now, like, it's like, the babies are like, this. They know it. It's like, yeah, it's incredible. I think that's so important. I also, you know, I think I remember, like, when my mom was at assisted living. There was a lot of the frontline providers, the CNAs, who would bring their kids on the weekend. Yeah, and the kids were so acclimated to the community, like, you know, if someone got a little agitated, they just jumped in and was like, Oh, you looking for this jack, it's right here. Here you go, you know, like, they weren't up. They weren't scared, yeah, they didn't get weirded out. They were just like, part of the community, yeah. And, and I was, that was my first time. I was like, I really got that epiphany of, like, that's how it should be,

Neil Shah: 24:12

yeah, yeah. And, you know, the funny thing that you mentioned that is, I actually think there must be something kind of innate in all of us, because the older adults are also give a lot more grace with the students than they sometimes do with their own sons and daughters and with middle aged caregivers. I've observed that several people who use carry AI to get care will say, I've tried so many times to have my mom or dad have a caregiver, and they will just like, refuse the help. They won't engage with them. They'll be kind of like just in the other room, whatever. And then with, like the students, I think there's just much more of like a drive by the older adult to proactively engage with the person. And I think that that must be like some sort of innate thing in all of us, where. Or they view it as, like, maybe mentorship, combined

Susie Singer Carter: 25:03

mentorship. I was just gonna say that

Neil Shah: 25:04

just kind of, like, this is a paid helper. So I think it's kind of cool how, like, the relationship is beneficial for both sides. And

Susie Singer Carter: 25:11

I think that that's spot on right. You're spot on right, because in the film I was talking about about Alzheimer's before with my mom, that Don and I did, yeah, I show this. It's really a day in the life when she lived with me. But I showed this, it's really about one event where she is getting agitated and is leaving her caregivers house to go home, okay? And she want, you know how they want to go. And so she she gets to the corner of the street at night, 10 o'clock at night, and she meets this trans, trans woman who is and they have a conversation that is this true, because my because my mom's caregiver told me she's, like, part of our family and and basically, you know, my mom, my mom was agitated. She's like, Ah, you don't know. Because she was like, What's your problem? I don't know problem. What's your problem? Oh, that bitch is following me back there, because that was, that was her, that was our caregiver, because she knew my mom was going to calm down and everything would be good. And she's like, anyway, long story short, she was like, well, you, I think you got a lot of people that love you. I don't have anybody. And she starts to cry. And my mom go, went into mommy mode, wow. And so my mom, who was like, five foot tall, and here's this, like six foot two, like, gorgeous woman, and she's like, now you stop that, right now. You are gorgeous. You are she's like, and if nobody doesn't love you, it's because they're jealous or stupid. I love you. I love you. Come on. And right? And so it kicked in, like, what you're saying, It kicked in her mominess. It went to her core. Yeah, her core, yeah, yeah. And I think that, first of all, thanks for sharing. That's an awesome story. I think everybody wants to have, like, a sense of purpose. And, you know, I'm not just being like, you know, cared for, but I'm also adding something, you know. So I think that's, that's purpose. It's purpose, yeah, you only have to watch the blue zone, everybody. And, you know, if you want to see what, how do people live past 100 it's, it's, you know, community, yeah, and purpose, Yeah, agreed. So you give people purpose. So you're giving people purpose with these people because they, they know they're younger, they're, I mean, these are adults. They're not stupid. They just have a cognitive decline. But they're not, you know, these are people with full lives. They're gonna see this as a young person. Yeah, starting out, yeah, and they, they're gonna step up. It's so invigorating.

Neil Shah: 27:36

Yeah, I think that, I think that the older adult feels actually a lot more like, I would say kind of like mutual dependence, in a sense of this person's helping me. You know, I may not be able to do X, Y, Z, like, prepare my own meals, or be able to walk safely, etc, but you know what? I'm helping them, because this is a young, you know, man or woman who's going to one day be a doctor, one day be a physician assistants, one day be a nurse practitioner, and you know that me spending time with them will help them towards their future career. And I think that just feels a lot better, because it's like both sides are benefiting, than just here is a person babysitting me, you know, because I can't care.

Don Priess: 28:15

I also think, yeah, I think that because my mom right now has Parkinson's dementia, and she's pretty advanced right now, and to a point where, when we come in, I mean, my mom, if we walked in before her eyes would light up. And, you know, now she just kind of, you know, yeah, kind of stares at us. She knows who we are, but it's and then we become the her. Our sole purpose there now is as a sounding board for her complaints. Yeah, that is it, yeah. Where yet, as when some of the caregivers, who she knows, the younger ones, especially, she lights up immediately and deals with them in a different level, so, you know? And so I think it's important, especially for those people you know, some of the people, they don't have family. And so this is the only interaction, yeah, but it's an alternative interaction, yes, to somebody they don't have some of these other emotional ties to, and I think that's healthy, agreed to, to have that. And I we notice it right away that there's such a difference. Yeah, and, you know, again,

Susie Singer Carter: 29:12

plus consistency, do you have consistency? Like they go back the same, people go back, right? So that's, that's consistency, and that's perfect, and that's so necessary.

Neil Shah: 29:22

Yeah, there have been some amazing multi year relationships that have come out of this. I mean, we've only been around for three years, but there are some of the original caregivers that you know, kind of joined and started doing the care that are now currently in graduate medical programs, that are still taking care of the same people. And I think that's kind of awesome. I love it so much. And are, you're national, right? It's a national I'd say, you know, we have kind of hopscotch. We're, our headquarters is Raleigh, Durham, North Carolina, you know? So we started at Duke University and UNC Chapel Hill, but we are now all over Boston, you know, at Harvard tufts, Northeastern Boston University. We're all over New York City. I. Um, you know, Columbia Fordham, NYU and others were all over Los Angeles, UCLA, USC, several other schools. UCLA, nice. Then, yeah, all over San Francisco, Texas. Yeah, we're like, quasi national. It's kind of growing very nice. Yeah, should be pretty much. That's great.

Don Priess: 30:19

One other, oh, go ahead, Don Oh, I just had one more thing, because I'm so in, I'm so intertwined with my mom right now. So there's a lot of things that I'm here. Where do you do you have? Do you draw the line? Do you advise them, as far as the caregivers becoming emotionally connected with these people, because you want them to be because that's they need that? Yeah. But then at the same time, it's like, where's the line, or is there, or is it just kind of like, person to person, how they because I know that a lot of they, they become so emotionally invested, and when they start declining or finally go, it's really hard on the caregiver. Yeah, you're right. So is there, what are the guidelines in that world? Or are there any

Neil Shah: 30:58

great question, actually, so, you know, we, I've observed a lot of the traditional care industry draws, like, very strict like, don't get too attached, don't get too close. We don't do that for a couple of reasons. One, we actually truly want a very deep companion relationship with ongoing kind of like relationship building. The older adult can feel that. The families can feel that. And, you know, we get that consistent feedback that this isn't like robotic of like, hands off. But I think, too, I understand why some of the traditional care companies are doing it that way. Because the person who is going to be the care company worker, whether they work at that company or other company, is going to be doing this for 20 years, you know, 25 years, and it's going to experience so much loss and so much kind of decline that it will not be able to be tolerated. In this case, this is going to be a two, three year thing before somebody goes into a clinical path. So we know they're not going to do it forever, and we built the platform with a lot of guidance and advice of people who are medical school admissions officers, currently practicing physicians, nurse practitioners, et cetera. And you know, kind of the overarching thing, and even from the students themselves, is that I want to, you know, I want to get to know the person deeply. I want to experience their whole care journey. I am comfortable with loss, and we provide them tools to kind of be able to manage these situations. And we work on a lot of projects to improve and upskill the students, but yeah, we want them to realize, like, this is real life, you know, like, now, yeah, may not be the best way to run it for 20 years. You know, if it's the same person is doing care for long term. But if you're doing this as a formative experience in your life, and you are legitimately going to become a doctor or NP or a PA, one day, you need to experience all of it, you know, not, not be emotionally detached. So, yeah, we don't draw kind of like a line, you know, it's whatever the student is comfortable with.

Susie Singer Carter: 32:50

It feels like that should be that way. Because I feel like not that, you know, because what happens is, is people get if you don't, if you don't address it, the elephant in the room, and you don't deal with how to deal with it,. Then you can, then what you do is, like most doctors or most caregivers, they have to compartmentalize, yeah? And so they turn off a part of their compassion, or their or their pat you know, their their empathy, because to protect themselves, yeah? But if it becomes natural, that this is the natural cycle, you know, I mean, even, like, just use that example, my daughter had to put her dog down last week. And, you know, we all went there, and we all did the thing, and we held them, and we went and got puppuccinos and fed them, puppuccinos and the whole thing. And then I don't, you know, my daughter and her husband wanted to be in there with the dog alone when they did it, and they were and the doctor came out, this lovely Don veterinarian, and she was like, she was sniffling, and she, you know, and she goes, I never get you. I never get used to it, yeah. And I thought, how amazing, because she allowed herself to cry, and it's okay, but she still was the doctor. She still put her doctor hat on and did what she had to do, but it didn't make her less human. Yeah, do you see what I'm saying?

Neil Shah: 34:15

No, I think that's amazing, and thanks for mentioning that, because I think that, you know, like, if think about the way the technology is moving in society right now, right a lot of doctors roles, like a lot of the analytical differential diagnosis type of stuff, is becoming more and more AI, I think, like deep empathy and kind of like having your own emotion, communicating and expressing the emotion with the people that you're helping. I think that is like, one of the last remaining bastions of kind of, like, human, you know, value that you can add in, like, a clinical setting. So you're right. Like, I think that field of medicine has been moving the other way, where there's a lot of like, let's be closed off, okay, no emotion caregiving. A lot of these care companies are running it that way, and I don't think that's the right way to do it. I think you should be, you know, you should be, you know. Not so much that it creates a burden on you. You have to learn how to kind of like, you know, both feel the emotion, but not be kind of like, bogged down by it when devastated. Yeah, want to be devastated, but I do think that that is like, I think a lot of the relational aspect of care, I think sometimes is missed because people are focusing so much just on tasks and being robotic. And I think that the person receiving the care and the family can feel that. So yeah, we really go all in on, like, emphasizing

Susie Singer Carter: 35:31

and if, and correct me if I'm wrong, but if, if you if it's if caregiving is done correctly. And you know, I had this conversation with one of my guests four years ago, before my mom passed. And I was always say, like, Oh, my mom. First of all, my mom and I had had a deal not dying. I mean, that's just the way it goes. We're not going to, you know, other people die. We're not, right, and so, and I made a joke about it, like, I like, it's my worst fear, right? Losing my mom and and my, one of my guests, said, you're going to be fine, and it's going to be one of the most beautiful experiences that you've ever been through. And, you know what? She was, right? Not, not the, not the pathway, getting up there, because that's what the stuff that it makes up our documentary, yeah, but the actual, you know, crossing her over that bridge was incredible. I wouldn't exchange it for anything. And I felt empowered by it, and I felt honored, yeah, and I think that that to be with somebody on the end of their trek is an honorable and very, very fulfilling yes thing to do, and it only makes you a better person, and to for so many reasons, not to get on a soapbox, but, but I think that that we have, and we have this is why we've all done la, la, la. This is why Mom and I were like, We're not gonna die. Other people die. That's for them. You know, because we we don't look at it, yeah, because it's scary, but if you look at it, if you embrace your fears, then you can find the beauty in it and find the it's natural,

Neil Shah: 37:10

Yeah, agreed.

Don Priess: 37:13

And I think it all because it can also add nuance to decisions, I think from a from a medical meaning that, how many times do people ask the doctors, well, what would you do? If this was your mom? What would you do? It's like, well, you know, but I think if you have some of that nuance of of emotional tie to it, it's not that it's going to cloud the decision or going to make so bad decisions, but I think it, it allows you to look at different angles of a situation and not just be like, buy the book. Yep, this is what you do in this situation, because every person is different, yeah, right.

Susie Singer Carter: 37:45

And also not, but also not being crisis so much that you can't make a decision because, because we are not so it's not so foreign to us. Yeah? Listen, it's not easy to lose someone you love. It's different than a caregiver losing somebody that's not related to them, yeah, but, but but so there's a difference in grief and a difference of an intent in anticipatory grief, yeah, but, but, but so, you know, you you but, but if you don't look at it at all while it's happening, you will be in major crisis, and that's not the time to do to make those decisions.

Neil Shah: 38:17

Yeah, 100% agree.

Susie Singer Carter: 38:21

Anyway, let's, let's, let's transition into your book. Tell me again, insuring them to death, insured to death, insured to death,

Neil Shah: 38:30

how health insurance screws over Americans and how we take it back. And I have an entertaining cover here, but it's the denial letter from your insurance company denying the critical care you need, and in the shadow represents a gun, and I believe that's kind of what's going on. You know, there's a crisis across our country where people are being denied critical care. I mean, you've seen it in the news. I actually, I wrote the book inspired by, actually, many of the students you know from seeing what's going on in our care platform, we've now been running the running carrier for over three years, and have 1000s of people using it. And kind of, one of the key trends that has been, unfortunately going in the wrong direction is denial of care. And you know, I've been impacted by this personally before. You know, during my grandfather's care, during my wife's care, three years of cancer, and then, really, in years of running karaya health insurance denials are on the rise, and it's becoming kind of an epidemic, you know, people and you know, one of the challenging things has been, you know, now over half of older Americans who are on Medicare are on for profit Medicare Advantage plans, you know. So like, there's been a big shift in the way, you know, healthcare is delivered in our country, whether it's for older Americans or even younger and middle aged people, but I think there's an epidemic going on. And I wrote the book because I saw how people are struggling with this, how not just individual patients, but it's creating a tremendous burden on family caregivers, because oftentimes they're fighting for mom and dad's care. It's creating financial toxicity when somebody gets denied care and they still need. It, people will just end up out of pocketing it and incurring a lot of medical debt. It's creating bankruptcies for people. You know, last year, half a million people filed personal bankruptcy. Number one reason was medical debt, over 60% so, I mean, this is sad, right? It's we talk about how great our healthcare system is. You know, $5 trillion the country spending on healthcare. Meanwhile, people are going bankrupt because of healthcare people, and by the way, right? Majority of those people had insurance. So this is that we're not talking about uninsured people. We're talking about people with insurance, quote, unquote, oh, yeah, that are going bank Yeah. And, you know, I think the, you know, the shooting of the United Health CEO was like a critical turning point in society, not the event itself, but the widespread public reaction, you know that all of a sudden everybody realized they weren't alone, that this is happening to all of us. And I thought that was kind of a critical turning point. So I wrote the book because I kind of was very obsessively focused on, why is this happening? Why are claim denials on the rise now, approximating almost 20% of all health care claims in the country are denied. Right? 15 years ago, they used to be 1% by the way, so it's health insurance have been around for now 7080, years. So this is a recent phenomenon, and I think there's several factors at play, which I won't give away the entire premise of the book, but basically, one of the key findings is artificial intelligence. These insurance companies have weaponized AI tools to programmatically deny claims at scale, oftentimes without even human oversight, and the individual person, in order to appeal and get the care they need has to spend hours and hours and almost be a researcher, a lawyer and a doctor all in one, yeah, to fight back and get the care they need. So you know, through the through researching the book, through seeing everybody on the carryout platform struggling, really, our thing wasn't just to point out the problem, but it really inspired us to innovate and build solutions. So we ended up building and launching a suite of AI tools that, you know, we just took it on ourselves to build. We ended up getting some grants for them and then release them for free to public so that people could use them to automatically appeal denied claims. And so is AI against AI? Yeah, it's aI against AI. Picked a cool name for it. You can check out our website called counter force health.org and literally the is like somebody punching back, and we literally the whole thing is to arm the resistance that we feel, that doctors, individual doctors, small clinics, individual patients, family caregivers, all of these people have been screwed over because the multi 100 billion dollar insurance companies have weaponized this new technology called AI. So we're like, okay, you know what? We'll go build our own AI, go get a bunch of grants and then just give it away for free to people to arm the resistance, because there's no way, like, if you're if you're an individual person, and you're going through caregiving and you're fighting an AI algorithm that some insurance company is deploying in one second to deny or care, and you have to spend hours and hours like appealing, like you're gonna lose. So, yeah, it's kind of like aI versus AI.

Susie Singer Carter: 43:02

AD, I love it. I love it. Can you do that for the student? Student Aid? I'm going through that right now, please. Honestly, it's just as criminal. Yeah, just criminal. Don't get a Parent PLUS loan. People do not get a Parent PLUS loan. It is the worst thing that I tied myself into. Oh, wow. Anyway, yes,

Don Priess: 43:32

on a practical side, and I don't know if this applies here, like and I'll just draw from my own experience. My mother right now, who's very immobile, started to get the beginnings of a bed sore. They said, Oh, we're starting to see they treating it, right? They told us, they treating it, yeah. So it doesn't happen. So then she fell out of her bed, and so they said she can no longer bed. We got her a hospital bed with the wonderful hospital mattresses. We said, well, Susie told me about these mattresses that I guess they they move, air, and they move and they move. So you're never so we thought, let's get her one of those. And we were told, nope, not. Unless she has the bed sore, we're not going to do it to prevent it. She has to have it. Yeah. I mean, would it do something like we Is that something that you could say, Wait, that's ridiculous. How can I we

Neil Shah: 44:20

can help you with that. Yeah. I mean, basically the interesting thing of the AI engine, and of course, I don't know a ton about, like, your specifics case, but the interesting thing about the AI engine is that we have trained it now on 10s of 1000s of appeals and successful appeals, because one, we have the product in the market now, and it's actually learning as it goes along. But let's say, three months ago, when we were just beta launching it, we went out and talked to a bunch of state insurance regulators and were able to download databases of 1000s and 1000s of successfully adjudicated appeals and have the AI learned strategies of like, what is the best way to write a persuasive argument in x? Z situation. And typically you'll find, like in the example that you just mentioned, you're probably not the only person going through this, but in your own network, you might be right. If you ask your five or 10 friends, unless somebody just went through this, most people are gonna be like, Oh, I don't know what to do, but this is a great use case of AI, because when you have an AI and you've trained it on databases across 50 states of 1000s and 1000s of, you know, instances it has likely seen the last 500 times, somebody in California and somebody in New York and somebody in Boston, you know, kind of like, went through this exact situation. And What strategies did they take to successfully convince and win an appeal? So, yeah, the tool works reasonably well situations like this. And then, of course, you can upload your specific of your policy coverage documents, any notes from doctors of like, why XYZ is needed, and it comes up with strategies. Now, granted, it doesn't win all the time, but it sure is not. Like does a really good job of advocating for you, it's gonna do better than you can exactly, exactly so like interesting statistics, I would share for our audience is, of all the denied claims last year in America, 99% of people did not appeal. Only 1% of people appealed. So first of all, that's a disaster, right? Because people are intimidated. They don't know what to do. Of the people that appealed, 40% of the time they won. So it's like, just shows you that's bothering to appeal. You can win off the people using our tools. 73% of the time they're winning. So it's like, pretty good, right? Like we're improving the win rate. That's really good. Yeah. And so my goals are, have the tools be better than if you did it on your own, you know, increase your win rate. But more importantly, let's get that 1% number up, you know, like, if you have to spend eight hours, 10 hours, researching something and proving all this stuff and reading through hundreds of documents, like, no wonder most people aren't doing it. But if we can one click it for you, the way Amazon one clicks, you know, yeah, you know, a couple days ago, I ran out of razor blades and, you know, just went on Amazon bottom and boom, you know, one click, they're there at your place. Like, the way they've made that that easy, I feel like making this entire appeals process that easy lowers the barrier, and then everyone can do it. So that was kind of like, you know, one of the

Susie Singer Carter: 47:09

and it's also going to put the insurance companies on their toes, because they're going to know that more people are going to be doing it because it's easier,

Neil Shah: 47:17

exactly, exactly. And they're doing this on purpose to kind of just, you know, if you don't appeal, they just keep So, yeah, well,

Susie Singer Carter: 47:25

yeah, of course, of course, it's like, you know, even in, even in the courts, if you take somebody to court, you know, like a facility to court for neglecting abuse, I mean that, you know, it's so labor intensive, and it's such a long process, and it's so daunting, and people are just like, I'm done. Yeah, I can't, yep, I can't, exactly. So if you make it more, you know, appealing that way, more people will do it when you and you have

Don Priess: 47:51

appeal. It literally appeal, appealing. Yeah.

Susie Singer Carter: 47:55

Don is the king of puns. Need a pun. Go to him. If you ever want to do an AI punster, you have to go and just download his brain. It's so annoyingly fun though.

Don Priess: 48:09

It's all right there, it's so obvious.

Susie Singer Carter: 48:14

Well, what anything else you want to share with us? I love this conversation so much. No, I

Neil Shah: 48:19

mean, I think these are, you know, you know, that's so I'm obsessed with, you know, kind of just helping as many people appeal as possible. I think that's like, become a mission, and we are just kind of, like, flooding the zone on, like, you know, get everyone to fight back. I think we're advocating for, like, reform of the system. I think that's going to be kind of a next step, you know, if, like, how do we mobilize? Because I think the unintended side effect of what's going on, I will say, you know, is that 1000s of our students are looking at the health care system and saying, This is what I'm going into, you know, like I'm going to become a denier for what? So that the health insurance company tells me I can't give my cancer patient the right drug. Because, you know, they denied, you know. So I think that we need to fix this, not only for today's patients that are suffering from denied care and their family caregivers are drowning in all this bureaucratic paperwork, but also for the next providers care workforce, right? Yeah, we're not going to have a health care workforce. And I think that one of the biggest things, a lot of times, people from the government hit me up because they realize we're running like a workforce development program, right? That is empowering people to go into healthcare careers, and they all know there's a shortage of doctors, there's a shortage of nurses, there's short of PAs, and we have a rapidly aging population. So who's gonna be taking care of all these people if less people are nobody, nobody,

Susie Singer Carter: 49:39

and there's been a tsunami of people leaving the long term care industry because, because of all the the lack of oversight, the lack of enforcement, the lack of all those things, and also the low staffing ratio, and people can't work in that in that kind of environment, because it's. There, there. It's an impossible task. Yes. And so the moral injury is off the charts.

Neil Shah: 50:07

And good, right? Glad you brought that word up. I have a chapter on moral injury, and you're right. Moral injury of broader care workforce, you know, healthcare workers, doctors, nurses, social workers. I mean, it's like, it's a disaster, you know?

Susie Singer Carter: 50:22

It's a disaster. So now you have people, yeah, you have people that are in there that are doing this as a side hustle. Yeah, if they have nothing, they're not attached to it at all. They don't care. They're not trained, and they're there just to pick up a paycheck, yeah, and, and basically, the facilities who aren't really responsible for this lack of staffing. It's the corporate it's the corporate owners. But, you know, they're, they're happy to get people to fill those spots. Yeah, and that's it. That's not the way these should be run. This is not, this is this is the opposite.

Neil Shah: 50:54

I agree. I agree. And thanks for bringing up the staffing angle. You know, I would say a lot of times, you know, you hear, at least, you know, I'm much more in, like, the in home care side, right? Like, that's what the students are doing. Yeah, you hear all of these care agencies complaining about caregiver shortages. Caregiver shortages. I'm like, what caregiver shortages? Like, carry out has an abundance of students signing up. Like, it's caregiver shortages because of the broken business model. You know that that's right, the home care side, like, it's, like, it really interesting, because I didn't come from the industry, and I've, like, analyzed other businesses and other industries, but to me, this industry is very unique in the sense of, what industry in America do you have where the business is effectively, like a sales and marketing business, as these most home care agencies are doing Maybe 234, percent of the work, right? Like the caregiver is doing, like 99% of the work. But so think about that's how the value delivered, right? But what is the value captured by the business? Most of these businesses are capturing more than 50% of the value. If you pay 40 bucks an hour and you're in LA, the care worker is making half or less. The company's taking the rest. They're blowing it on, sales, marketing, administrative, overhead, profits, royalties, whatever, right? What industry do you have

Susie Singer Carter: 52:07

where you mean houses and cars and jets? You mean houses and cars?

Neil Shah: 52:15

Yeah, exactly right. So it's like, it's absurd that, and I assume the same goes for the facilities, right? That they're capturing so much value, and then they're saying, oh, shortage, staffing, shortage. I can't find people. It's like, well, pay for it. Can't pay for it, yeah, try raising the rate.

Don Priess: 52:32

That's all our documentary. That's the whole thing so it and it's good to hear that other people are aware of it, but it's usually people within the industry. We need everyone

Susie Singer Carter: 52:43

to be aware of it. Yeah, yeah, no, it's exactly right. I mean, and, and if we do not have health care providers, yeah, this society will will just fall apart, honestly, like, what with the gray tsunami, yeah, coming up, you know, what? What if we don't have an infrastructure, you know? And people like, I have people saying to me, I don't know if anybody is of the age that knows a movie called Logan's Run, but it was basically where everybody died. It was from, I think, the 70s, and it was like, where everybody basically took a pill at 30, because that was basically the end of your life. And so they call then people wanted to live past 30. Were like, would run because they didn't want to be killed, right? And so it was a sci fi, but it was like, you know, with some big names at the time.

Don Priess: 53:37

Nor was it Farrah Fawcett, yeah, yeah. I think it was anyway, yeah, but

Susie Singer Carter: 53:42

it was, it's iconic. But, like, I have people from, you know, like baby boomers, that are writing after they've seen my doc, our documentary, say, Logan's Run. Logan's Run because nobody wants to get old, because this is what's gonna happen. You know, like you, you were, we're all spending all this time staying healthy and, you know, trying to live longer lives, but if you can't live a quality life, it's like we had Jane Fonda do an endorsement for us. We were so lucky. And she said she got she's 80, she's 87 and she goes, I'm for sure, an older person, but I can tell you, basically, she said, just getting older doesn't mean that you have to, you can't continue to live. And she goes, I view it as, like, discovery and and, you know, just all these lovely things. And she goes, but I can't do that if we don't have a system that supports Yes, agreed, you know, yeah, and so, and, you know, you live a life, and then you get to a certain point and, like, what now your dignity is stripped away. And you have, you know, you have. You're basically a commodity,

Neil Shah: 54:46

yeah, yeah. And the second order impact, you know, I think that with the rapidly aging population, if the system is not set up, well, it's going to fall on 60 plus million of, you know, family. Only caregivers, right? So it's gonna fall

Susie Singer Carter: 55:02

in the streets, yeah? And, and many of those 60 million, and I get this question so much from from people on the on social media, why didn't you take care of your mom at home? Yeah? And, you know, as someone that does help care, not everybody, it can be safely cared for at home. That's why these in that's why these facilities were, you know, yeah, came into existence because people, some people, need skilled nursing. That doesn't mean they're at death's door. It just means they have need skilled nursing, as do many people in their 20s, 30s and 40s. Yeah, it's

Don Priess: 55:35

not only old people, it's, it's all ages can require long term care tomorrow, you know, God forbid, knock all the woods. You can be into a car accident, and then long term care the rest of your life, and you're 23 years old. So it's not only old people.

Susie Singer Carter: 55:51

Yeah, it's not only old people. So, you know, and it is actually safer for them to be in a facility where there's where they're supposed to be trained providers to help you have a quality life of where you're at, yeah? So that's why, you know, it's so important. But if we don't have those facilities, and we don't have frontline providers who are who want to go into that industry anymore, yeah, we're going to have all we're going to have what's called granny dumping, and they're going to be just left on the street, yeah,

Don Priess: 56:23

and on that positive note,

Susie Singer Carter: 56:27

yeah, sunshine, lollipops and rainbows. I love you guys. Don't hate me. I'm just

Neil Shah: 56:40

do this so that people can be, you know, it's like, it's like, it's never hopeless, but you do need to speak the reality, so that people out there start wrapping up and thinking about it. We have to solve the problem if people realize there's a problem.

Susie Singer Carter: 56:54

Yeah, I'm just trying to say, What? What? Ashton Applewhite, who's like in our documentary, and she is the godmother of, you know, anti ageism, yeah. And she says, You know, when, when you have a bias towards older people, that's just a future you have a bias against your future self, yeah. And isn't that stupid? Yeah. So anyway on that. Love so much what you're doing, Neil, I think you are one of my favorite guests. So I really think you're just doing such great stuff. You're smarty pants, and you also have a big heart, and you're wearing, I'm sure too, there you go. You wear it every day, right on your sleeve. I love it. And chest and everything on your chest, I love it. So thank you so much for being here, and thank you for all of the work that you're doing. I I'm just so proud of you and proud to know you. So thank you.

Neil Shah: 57:52

Thank you. Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Susie and Don Yeah, appreciate it. And congratulations. Documentary we're gonna start. I think they'll really enjoy, yeah, you know, you get, like, You're right about the younger audience, you know, like, sometimes you get them to watch something that moves them. That's how, you know, we get civic action. You know, the youngest people are the most, the most active, whether they take action now or three years from now, you know, this is going to be the future of our country. So I,

Susie Singer Carter: 58:19

I'm going to ask you to please watch it and then see if you don't want your students to watch it. Because I've had a lot of doctors say that that should be in in every med

Neil Shah: 58:28

school. Yeah, 100% 100% so I would love to students we can kind of, like, create, let's do it. Yeah? Because I think that sometimes bringing awareness, that's how it happens. You know, you get a few, I want to,

Susie Singer Carter: 58:41

that's why I've been dying to talk to you. My friend. Nice, okay, yeah,

Don Priess: 58:46

we had, what was it, Texas A and M call, I mean, reached out to us. It says we want to run this on our local wow, you know. Yeah. So all of our, you know? And so,

Susie Singer Carter: 58:56

yes, yes, yes. This is what we got to do. We love it. We are all about love. What do we always say?

Don Priess: 59:02

Don we say that love is powerful, love is contagious, and love conquers all. We thank everybody for watching, listening. We'll have all of Neil's information in the notes. And if you like what you saw and heard today, please like, share, comment, do all those fun things, and definitely like, share and comment, No Country for Old people. Now available on amazon prime to be yeah and hoopla

Susie Singer Carter: 59:30

and go and go to care Yaya and support Neil and his team and all the all the future doctors. And the book, I love it. It's like it looks like a, you know, True Crime cover, and that's how we sort of, we open our documentary like true crime, because it basically is true crime in real time. Yeah, right, yeah. Okay. Well, we're like minded. I dig it, and everybody will see you and talk to you next time. Love you.

Don Priess: 59:56

Take care everybody. Thanks.