“Zander Was a Big Surprise” Perry Learns a thing or two about Health Insurance, Birth Control (!) and Getting Experts to Go To Bat for You
	Z-Man: He was kind of, um, unexpected, but now we can’t imagine life without him!

With three kids in tow and a house full of chaos, we decided we were ‘done’ having babies and I paid the doc a visit for a little ‘outpatient surgery’ (fun, fun, fun).

One Saturday afternoon about 3 weeks later, Laura says to me, “Guess what, Perry? I’m pregnant.”

Looks like Mr. Pollywog made it through just before the alarm bell, “Well I guess God has a sense of humor, doesn’t he?”

A few weeks before Laura’s due date, though, her blood pressure shot up and things started going haywire. At the hospital we found that she had preeclampsia which is a very dangerous condition. Sometimes fatal. Not good.

Because I’m self employed, health insurance is more expensive and has less benefits. And because we – er, didn’t expect to have any more kids, we didn’t have maternity coverage, either.

Health insurance wasn’t going to pay a dime.

The hospital offered us this deal where we could pay $2500 up front for the delivery. By getting it all taken care of at once, we’d get a discount. So we got that out of the way.

But preeclampsia was a whole new ball game. Emergency medical procedures, very expensive. Not covered by insurance. (Not that you really worry about that when mother and child are at risk, but more about that in a minute.)

The baby wasn’t due for 3 more weeks, but because of the high blood pressure, they had to induce. And I’m happy to report that on April 27, Zander (aka “Z-Man”) was born  a happy, bouncing baby boy. We took Z-Man home, and of course as you can probably guess, we were instantly in love with the little guy.

(Some of us sort of dread having kids before they show up, but after a little snuggle time, you couldn’t pry us apart, you know? Z-Man is a keeper!)

So all is well, until.

The hospital bill shows up.

Treatment for preeclampsia complications – $13,000.00.

(The $2500 we’d already paid up front didn’t cover the complications. And the medical insurance didn’t cover pregnancy complications, either.)

Ummm, I was not anticipating that. Oooof.

I don’t know what goes through your head when you get a surprise bill like that, but here’s what went through my head:

1) There has GOT to be a way to negotiate this bill,

2) I do NOT have the time to learn everything there is to know about hospitals and billing procedures and insurance and all that stuff, but:

3) Shortcuts must surely exist, and surely there is someone I can find who knows said shortcuts.

After all, I’m a marketing consultant and I know tons of business shortcuts. People routinely pay me hundreds or thousands of dollars to give them the shortcuts, and they often make it all back, or recoup the costs in savings, in a matter of days or weeks. I bet there are people like me who deal with hospital bills.

So I started asking around. The people who manage my mom’s finances put me in touch with a gal named Mary Jane who does this kind of thing every day.

Mary Jane’s deal: Small fee up front, plus we pay her 25% of whatever she saves us.

You’ve got yourself a deal, Mary Jane. And I don’t have to mess with this anymore.

A few weeks later, Mary Jane rings us up.

“Perry and Laura, I’ve reached an agreement with the hospital. I can save you a whole bunch of money, but you have to pay the amount right away.”

“How much do we owe them now?”

“Three hundred dollars.”

WHAT????? You got them from $13,000 all the way down to $300 ???

How did you do that?

She said, “Hospitals make HUGE mistakes calculating bills, you would not believe how often they make billing errors. I found a few chinks in the armor, a few problems with your bill, and I just started working it forward from there. I know how to work the system. But you do have to pay it right away. And remember, you also need to pay me 25% of what I saved you, so that’s $3175. Would you like to use Visa or would Master Card be better?”

Some people would grudge her the three grand, which is absolutely asinine. Now I may be a lot of things, but one thing I’m not is stupid. If someone saves me thirteen grand, I do not hesitate for even one millisecond to pay them their fair share of the bargain.

What Mary Jane does is not black magic. I’m sure it’s good old fashioned cost accounting and shrewd negotiation. But as far as you and I are concerned, it is magic. She obviously has great skill in manipulating the system, and she knows it well. Experts always do. Which is why, when you’re faced with a really big challenge like this, you have an expert go to bat for you, rather than trying to fend for yourself.

If there is any lesson in this, it’s that whatever problem you have,  a marketing problem, a tax problem, a medical insurance problem, a hospital bill, a persistent marriage communication problem, or even a toilet that keeps overflowing,  it’s probably not really that unusual.

And there’s probably an expert who can maneuver you out of it quickly. Or teach you exactly how to solve the problem yourself, so you don’t have to learn the hard way.

God bless experts like Mary Jane, and God bless the people who are smart enough to use ‘em.

Do you need Mary Jane’s expertise in cracking a medical bill problem or insurance dispute?

Things You Should Consider Before You Hire an Expert

If you need an expert, then… hurry up and get one. If they really know what they’re doing, it’s almost always worth the money.

Hiring Mary Jane to negotiate our hospital bill is one of those things where you give the expert the file folder and they do the rest. This required almost no involvement from us whatsoever.

Not everything is like that, though. There are some things you can just throw over the wall’ (like an invoice from a hospital). But some things you can’t. Some things you need to retain some control of. Supervise closely.

You can outsource payroll. You can outsource manufacturing. You can use outsourcing for a secretary or virtual assistant. You can outsource web page design and product development. You can outsource almost anything in your business, except marketing. You certainly can’t ‘throw that over the wall.’

Why? Because sales and marketing is the highest leverage aspect of almost any business. She or he who owns the customers, owns the biggest asset in the business. You can hire copywriters and you can get all kinds of expertise, and it can be extremely valuable. But you can’t abdicate it to others. You must be the executive in charge of the marketing process, and you must thoroughly understand it.

The classic pitfall is when people hire ad agencies. Most of the time, all they get is a bunch of smoke and mirrors,  if sales go up, the agency takes credit. If sales go down, they blame it on something else, like the economy. And since no one can fully connect the dots, nobody’s ever sure anyway.

People who truly know how to do cost-accountable, results-driven direct marketing are difficult to hire and usually quite expensive. The very best of us are almost impossible to hire, because we can do our own projects and own the process, instead of being a hired gun.

I’m notoriously difficult to hire for project work. I’ve got a waiting list that runs 2-3 months… well, actually, now that I think about it, I haven’t taken on a single new client in almost 5 years. “2-3 months” is just the official thing I say on my website.

Why? Because I’m up to my eyeballs just marketing my own business, And I won’t take on anything that I don’t have personal enthusiasm and conviction about. Besides, the best way I can empower you is to educate and guide you to make wise judgments, write your own excellent copy, to buy your own web traffic, and own the process yourself. In any case, new clients of any stripe start out with a 30 minute consultation.

What can you outsource? What problem do you have that an expert could solve for you? What can you hire someone to teach you or coach you through, and get you up to speed fast? Those are probably the most productive questions you can ask yourself today.

Perry Marshall

P.S.: We know that Zander is going to be a winner in life – he comes from an extra-strong, extra-determined, extra-lucky Polywog. With an extra push from the “God’s got a sense of Humor” department.

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