SPEAKER_01: 0:01

Good day, everyone, and thank you again for tuning in to Speaking with Sandra L, the patient experience. As you all know, with us being patients, and I say us because I'm a patient as well, with us being patients, a lot of times, we focus so much on our health that a lot of times we miss everything else that goes along with health, such as finances, such as legal, you know, a number of other things, you know, life insurance. We don't focus on those things. And so what happens is that when we're placed in a position where we have, you know, a really bad patient experience, or we're faced with an unseen or unheard of health diagnosis, where within our community there is not a lot of specialists that deal with a lot of the unseen and unheard of diagnoses. What happens is that we panic. And we panic, and that panic leads to stress, and that stress leads to, oh my God, so many other unknown things that we proactively, if we were taking care of them proactively, it wouldn't be that big of a stress. But because unfortunately we wait sometimes until we get that bad news, or not so much bad news, but that news that we just didn't want to hear, um, good, bad, or in between is something that we just didn't want to hear. We retroactively try to, you know, work through those problems and work through those issues and try to make sure all our T's are crossed and all our I's are dotted. But it's unfortunate that when we are you know retroactively trying to work on things that we should have been proactively working on, guess what? It doesn't happen. We lose sight. We, you know, we're when we're we're trying to remember everything, but we just can't because we're you know, we're sick or we're going through and there's so much devastation that we can't. Unfortunately, in our communities, a lot of times, we're not educated on the things that we should be doing. We're educated on, hey, go to the drugstore, pharmacy, and pick this prescription up or prescriptions up, medication up, go to therapy. We're told all of these things, but we're not told, okay, well, go to therapy and go pick your medicine up, but also look at what paper documentation you have on file so that should you need some additional, you know where to go get it while you're in good health versus once again waiting for you to retroactively be in health. So today, our special guest is UN Ambassador Dr. Angela J. Neely. Now it's a mouthful, but she deserves that mouthful because she does so much. Um, one of the things that she does do is she works as a senior manager for Legal Shield. Many of us have heard of the name Legal Shield. Many of us know a little bit about what Legal Shield does and how Legal Shield helps us in other circumstances, but not enough is known about how Legal SHIL can help us with our medical paperwork, our healthcare paperwork. And that's the part that we need to hear about. That's the part that we need to know so that we'll know, you know, well, I need these papers, but I don't have thousands and thousands of dollars to go get a lawyer to help me with these papers. So I really need to get someone that I can, you know, afford that can send me to someplace that can help me so that I have these paperworks, this paperwork together. Should something happen to me, everything is all done. Without further ado, I'm gonna go ahead and introduce you in Ambassador Dr. Angela J Neely. And I'm gonna let you her fill us in on what it is that Legal Shield offers that we as patients need to know about because when we know about it, that patient experience becomes so much better. Our stress level is reduced, our worry and anxiety and fear about the unknown becomes a little bit clearer. And so without further ado, you and ambassador, please go ahead and tell us what Legal Shield does in terms of health care for patients who may need to have documentation written.

SPEAKER_00: 4:33

Thomas Washington, thank you so much for the invitation. And I really want to reference uh, I have a website, and there are some items on the website that can really benefit uh a potential client in our leadership business. Um, what we do is cover the opportunity for a patient to understand what's happening to them. So if there are documents they're being given, um if they are recommended for surgery, if they're recommended for an extensive process, that they can upload to our membership an app on their phone, and a real-time attorney will return a call within four hours based on reading over the documents and spending time on the phone with that patient. It's not an extra$500 to speak to the attorney, it's not$300 to look at the document. That comes with the membership. And we have three different levels, but based on the information you've given me, um we have there's the premium level, and that's at rounded up to$50 a month. But what it does if you have extenuating medical issues, it allows you to understand a couple things. One, and I'm looking for my website while I'm talking to you, there's will preparation, durable power attorney, physicians directive, living will. Those are three subject areas that our audience needs to understand and they need to be comfortable with. So if you know that you have attenuating health issues and you are going to see your physician and your specialist, I mean regularly, like every week, and you know that you are positioned for a major surgery, one of the things the physician does is they ask you, and definitely the anesthesia, they ask you, do you have a will? You should have a will, and you should have a living will. And in that living will, it's called the physician's directive, and that directs the physician to care for you as you decide. Now the physician will say, I need you to do A, B, C, and D. I recommend you have A, B, C, and D surgery. But ultimately, it is up to you, the patient, to make that decision. But you also must understand what is going on with you internally, and you should be able to look through those documents, understand them, and share them with the physician, which is which is a part of the HIPAA process. In so doing, once you do that, if you decide or you elect to have the surgery, maybe it's not an elective surgery, you still have in your will your durable power of attorney, your physician's directive, in your will preparation, you have the right to do what you want to do. Um, the physician may say something to you like, if you don't have this surgery, you're going to pass away in the next 30, 60, 90 days. I understand that and I hear that, but don't be crunched if I can use that word by what they're saying and feeling stressed that you have to do that. Ultimately, you have the last decision. Can you consult with your attorney based on this aspect and this and the locker in your area where you live? Yes. Can you see the attorney in person? You can. Can you do things like phone, Zoom, yes, whatever it takes? But once you invest in the membership, okay, and I give it to the highest one, which we call the premium, especially if you have intense uh healthcare needs, um, then from there you have the option to do what you need to do. Again, I want to emphasize if you don't understand the legal paperwork they're presented to you, the option is to upload that paperwork in the app. Attorney can explain some of the final print just to put you at ease so you can make your decision. You don't want to make a quick decision and you don't understand what's going on. You also want to parallel that information in with your the will that you should construct. It can be basic. Just at least have a basic will. And from there, once you finalize it with the app, you can change it once a year. You still have access to those attorneys or attorney that you've identified, that they've identified for you to clarify the information as often as you need. Again, let me emphasize it's not five hundred dollars every time you call the attorney, it's not three hundred dollars every time you need a document read, whether it's one page or thirty pages or forty pages. I just want to be sure I get just the outline of the conversation.

unknown: 9:59

Ms.

SPEAKER_00: 10:00

Washington, do you think anything you want to add or ask? Or does that cover the area?

SPEAKER_01: 10:06

Well, I it does. And you know, speaking of the will, the living will, many people feel as though, okay, well, I'm married, so who do I need a living will for? Especially in, you know, if you're a business owner or an entrepreneur, even a solopreneur, and you're like, oh, well, I'm married, I don't need all that, or I have kids, I'm just gonna leave it to my kids. Uh, can you explain how legal shield can't walk a person through thinking about a husband, a wife, or a child leaving information, leaving a business to them and helping them sort through that?

SPEAKER_00: 10:45

So you have what's called an estate plan. Typically, an estate plan has five parts. And I've had an estate plan since I was early 40s. And even though I'm single, I had to direct what is to happen to me if stigmatically I become unresponsive for X amount of time. So if you're married, you have to tell your spouse, you have to put it in writing, both of you. The husband has to tell the wife at his will, the wife has to tell the husband at her will, and you have to give specific instructions. You have to give specific instructions if something should happen to my husband, I'm happy, but if I something should happen to my husband, okay, the next persons in line are the ones who have the opportunity to speak on my behalf. That's called durable problem of attorney. The physician's directive is what each of you in the marriage gives to the physician their specific position. Okay. When you finally uh identify that, the individuals who you've identified must have a copy and they need to know their role. So for me, I have two businesses, legal shield and a machine. So my administrator uh is not the same person as the beneficiary. So my niece is the beneficiary, for example, of everything that I own. Her daughter will receive both of my businesses. She won't hear both my businesses. The administrator of the will is the one who directs that activity and ensures all the legal details are covered. So I hope that that kind of gives you a framework of how the structure begins.

SPEAKER_01: 12:38

It does, and I want to thank you so much because of the simple fact that a lot of times, you know, once again, we especially in our community, we're retroactively waiting for things to happen. And we're like, well, I don't have the money for this, and I don't have the money for that. I would much rather spend, you know, a minimum amount of money making sure that I have access to getting every document I need. Because how many times do we hear our loved ones, or how many times do we say to ourselves, I love you? And love, when it comes down to that, should mean so much more than just saying those three words. It should mean going out and proactively ensuring that you do have the paper, the correct paperwork. You even if you don't, you know, we're talking about legal shield today because you're an ambassador nearly. That's what product she works with, and that's what product she represents. But there are other products out that you can look into and see, you know, okay, well, this doesn't work, but this does. Our importance to you today, as far as patients' experience, is this we want you to stop sitting on these sidelines, stop spending your money on things or materialistic things that can you if you have a fire, those materialistic things are gone, right? If you get in an accident, car accident, you have no the materialistic things that you're spending your money on, you you what is what what worth does it have for you? You know, you you say you love, let's start showing our family that we really do love them by going out and making sure that we're covered, making sure that in addition to having the paperwork, the HIPAA, the durable power of attorney, the legal will, making sure that that information that we have is the correct information because there's more than a living will. But you wouldn't know that if you didn't talk to someone such as Dr. Neely or you didn't talk, just such as Ambassador Neely, or if you didn't know that a legal shield even existed for amount that you could afford to pay, you wouldn't know these things, right? But you have to start knowing these things. Time is not standing still, time keeps moving. The times that we are in now, we can't continue to sit on the sidelines and say, Well, we're just gonna wait for them to fix it. If you're doing that, it's not gonna get fixed. You know, you're waiting for a savior to come save you that's not gonna come. You have a part as far as a patient, you have a part to play in this whole situation on whether you get well, whether you stay sick, whether your patient experience is good, whether it's bad, whether you have all the documentation you need or whether you don't. And you know, and to be really honest with you, some of the documentation that you would need as far as legal, we're sitting on this call today talking, but we don't really know every document that would, because it's individualized. So we wouldn't know every document, we'll know the main ones you need, but you talking to an attorney at a price that you can afford will actually point out all of the documentation that you need that's specific to you. But you're not doing it. I mean, I love you as a broken promise, really, when you say that and you're not doing what you should be doing in order to, you know, take care of your business proactively. Uh you're an ambassador. Is there any other points that legal shield can help a patient or a care, even a caregiver? Are there documentations that a caregiver should have in addition to what is already being held by the patient?

SPEAKER_00: 16:34

Yes, on Sundays at 3 o'clock, we have a love letter to our family Zoom that happens an hour long, 3 o'clock Eastern Standard Time, every Sunday. And it's one of your associates, uh, Ms. Martial, who conducts this uh real seminar is for nine. Well, she talks about the whole process, talks about all nine fees that have to be filled out. So the will is a part of you know your state claim. But you have to understand that in that the drive attorneys, I mentioned before, the physicians directive, which is part of the living round, the revocable living trust reparation, that's those components to make that up. You have to make sure you have life insurance, and it suggests the minimum is$15,000. That's about it costs about$11,000 to the very person in at the end of their life. And so you want to be sure that the person who's you've decided that administrative will knows that, okay, and that the beneficiaries know who they are. And so you put those kinds of components in the will. You also make sure that the person um who needs those understands those terms, they understand durable power of attorney, they understand the physicians directly, which is part of the living will, they understand remountable living trust reparation. If they want to do more than, for example, 15,000. Let's say they want a million-dollar policy. Now you're leaving funds to their heirs, those are the people who are the beneficiaries, heirs are beneficiaries, and so you want to decide who is receiving what so that there is no conflict at the end of life. Everybody knows that life insurance policy is from, let's say, a company B. And that company then is contacted by the administrator of will immediately upon the death of the person. Okay, from there, now the living brain and all that directive is out of the picture because the person has passed away. Now the will comes into play, and so everything that that person has said must be followed. So the monies will immediately go to a trust. If their heirs are younger than a particular age, and a trust has been set up, and they cannot access those funds till they're to the to what the person passed away said. Maybe they can't have the funds out of the million dollars till they're 25. They can't have the next amount of funds till they're 35. So it's very specific kinds of things. But inside the will, the person now passed away, the insurance policy now begins to pay um for the archair that they choose. It begins to pay for their funeral and all of those kinds of things that are associated with it, the casket, the um uh the limousine, the process, the pastor who's doing who's a fishing of the of the funeral, all of those things. And I think we have to think through them, and all of it has to be a writing so that everything goes smoothly because don't find the kinds of things I see out there. The average person doesn't make the kind of income, like 100,000, 150,000. You know, the average person, a citizen of the United States, uh, out of 400 million people, you know, 200 million, 250 million adults, don't make that kind of income. So what legal shield does, and it's unique compared to other entities that are available, is that we have the attorneys. The attorneys follow through. They read the documents, not just to set up the will, it's that you follow through with the will. And that's the beauty of having what we do and why we're so unique. We're out of Oklahoma, we've been around 52 years, 253 years, we've refined this process, there's a happening family. So the ability to communicate and how it's going on with everybody in their family is is wrong. It's not it's not a situation, it's a macro situation. So I think that that it was some clarification on who is doing what and where and how all the parts fit together to complete a suiting process because we shouldn't have in our community, but we do. We shouldn't have had the GoFundMe's. The life insurance policy is something that even the young person should have. And it will take care of all those things. You won't need a GoFundMe, okay.

SPEAKER_01: 21:02

I thank you so much for giving that information. And I do want to ask you this before we close out. I want you to take three things that are related to legal and related to health care, and leave us with three words. I don't want to say three words of advice, but three call to actions to help us in our community see the importance of having healthcare documents, but also having those healthcare documents reviewed by an attorney, which we can actually pay for legal shield services to get us to someone that can help us um prepare, correctly prepare, correctly document um those those items that need to be documented. What three call of action call to actions would you could you put out to us?

SPEAKER_00: 21:54

So first can you put your estate plan? That's the um roll, the estate plan. Under the estate plan is your will. Under that, those next two items, if nothing else, durable product attorney, that means if something happens to you, someone can speak on your behalf. So that's the administrator's will. That's his or her role. And then the last case is the physician's directive. Again, when you're ready to go into like heart surgery or brain surgery, your physician's gonna ask you for that. They're gonna ask you for that information. And so that information will be available uh via on your phone, uh, in paper, somewhere where it can be seen. And it's been it's been uh witnessed, you have two witnesses, and and then you have notarized and based real pieces. I have that in place. I buy parts of my my state plan, but those three things. So your state plan, your will, and then the dual power attorney's physicians directed, those who come together.

SPEAKER_01: 23:03

I do want to ask you another question before we get. Well, actually, two more questions. It just came to mind, and that's because so often I hear from people that do this and say this. I don't have a house. So what are they gonna take? I I don't have any property, so what do I need on this date planning for? Can you please insert that?

SPEAKER_00: 23:27

Yeah, yeah, those things are materialistic, and and what you want is from a health point, we're really talking about the health of the person. We need somebody who will speak in a compassionate and pathetic manner on your behalf when you become incapacitated. So they will, and the physician's directive allows for that, and so even though you don't have marriage and all those kind of things, it is your health. It is how should we care for you so that you either transition smoothly or that you come out of this stressful medical emergency situation, which happens. So it's not about it's not always about that you don't have property or cars or dominance or stuff. It's about you personally, and that's that's important in our community because we are so plagued with diabetes and hypertension and high blood pressure, which takes us out so early and incapacitates us. We have to have a will that says, here's how once we cared for, who's the individuals, it would just protect uh you, the person, from anybody else having information other than you and your physician, which is really how it works. But it just became wrong, you know, 15, 20, or 15 years ago.

SPEAKER_01: 24:46

So thank you so much for that. How can someone that's listening to this podcast or viewing this podcast and they say, you know what, Sandra, you're making perfect sense. I now see, thanks to that conversation that you have with you and ambassador, I now see that I need help, I need dental, I need vision, I need to have life insurance, but I also need to have legal insurance to kind of round out every plan that I need. So if someone should say that, how can they get in touch with you? Or how do they get in touch with legal shields so that they can speak to someone to see what they can purchase? And is legal shields something that's offered to employees?

SPEAKER_00: 25:34

Yes, there's two ways to do that. You can reach out to me as an associate, I'll be more than happy to take care of you. Um, I say the best way to do that, you can reach out to me on LinkedIn or I can give my email, which I don't have a problem doing that, and you can email me and we can discuss it from there. Um, another way uh in general, if you if you work for your company, okay, ask the HR reach HR department and ask them is there a policy or or is there legal shield available through their plan? Because only we only have a 3% market penetration. So we only have 4 million, 4 or 5 million people that we that are benefiting out of, as I said, more than a million people and uh 250 million adults. So we still have much, much ground to cover, and I'll be more than happy as I said to facilitate any conversations. I'm on LinkedIn. Um I can give my email, angela jamdeealy at gmail.com. I can give my website and I think it's a pretty long interact address. But I think emailing me would be great. I'll be more than happy uh to accommodate you.

SPEAKER_01: 26:48

Thank you so much for that information, and thank you so much for taking time out of your super busy day. Every time I ask, you always come through. You're always like, Yes, Andrew, you know, what when do you need me? What do I need to talk about? You know, and as I thought about it, I said, you know, I really could have her talk about something dealing with the environment or something touching one of the five social determinants of health factors. But then I thought about it and I was like, you know, I thought a little harder about it. I said, you know what? She does do legal shield, and our community is not getting the point of the importance of having legal as one of those benefits that they have every year, even going to the employer and saying to their HR person, especially as open enrollment time opens up this time of year, and saying, Hey, I see you don't offer legal shield. Is there a way that we can get an offer or can I purchase it on my own and being reimbursed for it? You know, closed mouths don't get fed. But if the idea doesn't even populate in your mind, now is a better time to actually, you know, put it out there. Like, hey, ask and see and take advantage of this because you never know when you'll need it. Now, it doesn't, Legal Shield covers so much more than health, but because the importance of our podcast is health and it's patient education and patient knowledge, that's why we brought the health into it. But legal legal shield offers a lot of benefits to those who need those benefits, they are offered. So once again, please reach out. UN Ambassador Neely is on LinkedIn, she's also on Facebook. She had, you know, her information is out there. And if you need her information for whatever reason, you're like Sandra. I I know she said it, but I didn't get it. That's fine. Please reach out to me and say, can you send me the information for the legal shield senior manager that was on your show so that I can talk to them? Because I would love to be able to, you know, get a policy so that I can make sure I have all the all my legal documents together as far as health care. Because once again, it makes no difference whether you're married, whether you have kids, whether those kids are adult or those kids are are children, um, not yet of the adult age. These documents are needed, they needed to be discussed, they needed to be discussed with their family. So should something happen to you, you'll know how to actually get, you know, what to do and how to get a hold of things and what the proper order of things is. So I thank you for that. And I ask everyone to continue to be kind always. Being kind does not cost anything, it's free. When you're looking for freebies, being kind is at the top of the list. You never know what someone is going through where they need for you to be kind to them, even if they're being mean to you. A lot of times it's something that they're dealing with, and you being Kind to them may cause them. I'm not gonna say it will cause them, but it might cause them to think about what the situation is and then to turn around and be kind and be kind not only to themselves but to others. So with that being said, I thank you so much. I want you to have the rest of a beautiful day, a beautiful evening, and I shall talk to you soon.

SPEAKER_00: 30:21

Thank you, Mr. Washington. Have a good day.