A Candid Discussion With Jeff Byars, Lifelong First Responder and Award-Winning Advocate

This is the story of a rural EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) who made the career decision to become an Independent Patient Advocate after his young daughter’s misdiagnosis. Jeff Byars is a Board Certified Patient Advocate (BCPA) in Cullman, Alabama. Like so many professional advocates, Jeff knew the healthcare system from both sides. Not only was he a first responder for 30 years, he also worked in healthcare reimbursement with direct access to administration. Jeff thought that when his daughter entered the healthcare system, he had the knowledge and experience to handle it.

Jeff’s story is indeed inspirational, but it also embodies the essence of what it takes to be an Independent Patient Advocate. It’s all about using your skills and life experiences to help others. Jeff’s entry into the profession demonstrates the wide range of specialties, training, and life experiences that make up this emerging profession, and should encourage healthcare providers and administrators everywhere to recognize how viable and rewarding a career in advocacy can be.

Please enjoy this candid discussion about the personal and professional life of the 2022 Independent Patient Advocate of the Year.

Transcript:

Host

Jeff Byers, thank you so much for being on the patient advocacy now podcast. How you doing today?

Jeff Byars

I'm too good, thank you for having me.

Host

Yeah, it's a pleasure. You probably wouldn't say this about yourself, but you were, I'm gonna say it for you, you were awarded advocate of the year at the health advocate summit last year, were you not? Congratulations, that's amazing. And so we got an award-winning advocate with us. I guess the first question is, what do you think...

Jeff Byars

I was. Thank you.

Host

Why do you think they were so insistent on naming you Advocate of the Year? What makes you different as an advocate? And how do you go kind of above and beyond the call of duty there?

Jeff Byars

One of the things that I do different is I'm available beyond standard business hours. I realize that your healthcare doesn't happen on a nine to five schedule and I try not to operate on that as well. I've dealt with clients as early as six o'clock in the morning and as late as midnight and I think maybe even a little later.

Host

Yeah, and I think that's important to know because when things happen, they happen totally outside of your control.

Jeff Byars

Absolutely.

Host

What's your your background so that everybody can kind of understand your journey into becoming an advocate?

Jeff Byars

So I have been an EMT for over 30 years now. I've done that as a career, and still do it as volunteer with my local fire department. I've been very active in EMS in the state of Alabama. Have a degree in accounting from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Spent 14 years in reimbursement audits for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama, auditing both hospitals for private insurance, Blue Cross and for governmental for Medicare. I worked a few years

at UAB Medicine doing reimbursement for clinical trials. So I got to anything that was implanted in the hospital that was a trial device, got to come across my desk for financial analysis. Really interesting, because you looked at some stuff that was really space-age type inventions that were coming out, and other stuff you just looked at and shook your head and said, why did I not invent this? So I did that, thought I had a pretty good grasp on medicine. I had worked as a provider of healthcare and had done that for, like I said,

Host

Hehe

Jeff Byars

years I had worked on the business side of it doing audits for Blue Cross, worked in the in the hospital, in the business side of it. I knew both sides of the business and that's that's kind of my background how I got started in this.

Host

It's a pretty diverse, it's a pretty weird and diver, I mean you're an EMT but you have a lot of financial background as well, which is not, it's pretty uncommon isn't it?

Jeff Byars

It is, it's kind of unusual to find somebody that in healthcare, when you're in the hospital setting especially, it's kind of unusual to find somebody that is on the business side and the healthcare provider side. That's kind of unique.

Host

What did you, I want, we'll go back in a second to how you kind of got into advocacy, but before we drift away from this, first of all, I have to ask, what was one of those things you saw where you were like, why didn't I come up with this? Do you remember any of those gizmos? Ha ha.

Jeff Byars

Oh, there was one device that they were, it was essentially saving in like orthopedic surgeries, saving some portion of the bone when they're shaving off and attaching different pieces to use that as a graft to reattach and to spur growth for bones. It was really a fairly simple device that they had that worked to.

extract that and to save what would essentially be a waste in a surgical procedure to use to help that patient out.

Host

And it's something really simple where you're like, how did everybody miss that?

Jeff Byars

Yeah, very simple. Yeah, it was essentially just, you know, getting some of the excess fluid out of some of the bone marrow to reuse that bone marrow.

Host

Wow. Wow. But it's that significant though because bone marrow is an exact, it doesn't really grow on trees. So you don't want to waste any of it. Yeah. One other question I have for you since we talked about your diversity in the background between healthcare and finances and you also, it sounds like when you talked about your background you had experience on the government side and the insurance side. There is this kind of look that advocates have when it comes to.

Jeff Byars

Exactly.

Host

healthcare and finances and whether there's, you know, do you have a particular viewpoint on if that's hurting or helping the medical system in America? And what, do you think anything's broken or needs fixing? Um, I'll just kind of leave it open ended to kind of get your thoughts on it.

Jeff Byars

Health care finance is a unique animal in the fact that it's probably the only industry that I know that revenues are really more of a statistic than they are actual cash money compared to other industries that they sell something, they get $100 for it, it's $100 they've got for it. Health care, it may, and I'm exaggerating this extremely, but if it's a $100 procedure, it's probably not putting $100 into their pocket.

negotiations with insurance, it may be they're getting $25 for this or maybe even less. If you're negotiating to do it self-pay, you may be paying less than that. But the charges still hit their balance sheet and their income statement is showing that $100 worth of revenue on their income statement rather than the money that they actually received. They have to put a contractual in there to reduce that down. So it gets really confusing when you look at it and somebody gets a bill and they've got this $50,000 bill.

wow, insurance paid $2,000 on this and I don't owe anything else. And that's kind of the buying power that you get with insurance, is that discount that's in there. But oftentimes you can negotiate that discount as a self-paid person as well. If you have advanced knowledge that you're gonna need this procedure, you may be able to negotiate that with a facility and ask for a reduced rate to pay cash and pay all at one time.

Host

Do you find that that hospitals struggle with, you know, because it's funny, most advocates when we talk to them, they take on, because they work with clients directly, they take on the perspective of the clients and the patients saying, you know, this is confusing and stuff, but you kind of bring up a good point. Do hospitals kind of struggle to figure out how much they're actually going to be able to collect from insurance with negotiation? Is it a burden on the hospital as well?

Jeff Byars

You know, there's always negotiations that go on with these. And it kind of depends on which insurance company they're dealing with, what their basis is for patients in that area that have that insurance, what the saturation of the market is. There's a lot of factors that go into that negotiation to get those rates of where they're gonna be for insurance purposes.

Host

Okay, so it's just part of that part and parcel. It's just kind of business as usual for hospitals. Yeah. Your background as an EMT, when did you decide to become an advocate? Because you, at what point?

Jeff Byars

So I really didn't know anything about advocacy. You always hear the term, you've got to advocate, and you really hear it in pediatrics. You gotta advocate for your child. You've gotta advocate for your child when they're in healthcare. But it didn't ever really click with me on anything until my daughter was diagnosed with, we found a tumor in her at seven months of age. And she went through quite a spell with that, was misdiagnosed by several facilities. We went in for a surgical procedure to have her tumor removed.

We came out, I think it was 86 days later that we come out of the hospital. Went through lots of chemotherapy, I said several surgeries, more blood transfusions than I can count. And we realized just how difficult it is to navigate that system. And it was difficult for me, my wife's a biologist. So for the two of us with the background we have, you would think we would be able to navigate that system really well. And I'd never really thought of it until I got put

into that scenario with my daughter and realize just how complex and difficult it can be when you've got a really serious medical condition and you've got oncology, you've got nephrology, you've got urology, you've got all these different subspecialists involved and making sure that they're communicating with each other.

And it's just really difficult and more difficult than it should be. And if it was difficult for me with my background and difficult for my wife, then somebody that had no connection with the healthcare industry whatsoever and no background in medicine was gonna be lost. And I realized that. So once we got Claire past the point of-

Host

Yeah.

Jeff Byars

where we were in depth with treatment every day. I took a leave from work for a couple of years to manage her health care. And once we got past that, I started looking for something to do to get back into the workforce. And I thought, well, I've been in healthcare reimbursement all this time, but if I'm gonna make a shift, it's a good time to make a shift. I've been out of the game for a while and started looking at it just by luck, call it a God thing, whatever you think on this. It was just sheer coincidence. It was just a blessing.

Host

Wow.

Jeff Byars

that I stumbled into the patient advocacy certification board and I found that exam three days before the closure of signing up for the very first sitting of that board certification and thought about it decided to go ahead and set for the exam. I set for the exam passed it to the first setting of that and then I sat on that still for a while I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do and finally just decided to go into business on my own doing independent advocacy and

see how it panned out.

Host

What do you find, and obviously it's panned out for quite some time, how many years has it been?

Jeff Byars

So I opened up in 2020 just right before COVID hit. So it was a wonderful time to open a new business when right as COVID is coming up, but managed to survive that. Luckily, a lot of what I do can be done remotely. So, I'm still able to interact with clients and help them out. Even though we weren't able to go into hospitals often and weren't able to be there face to face, we were still able to help folks out.

Host

And what do you find people are in need of most in your own practice with your help?

Jeff Byars

The two biggest things that I get calls from clients on are help with billing and insurance issues and I help them whether it's there's been a you know there's so much that has to be precise in the health care billing for it to go through with insurance and it's if you get a code wrong it's going to be rejected you get a date wrong anything that's that's not read by the computer correctly it's going to get rejected and then you've got to figure out what that problem is to get it to go through. So I do a lot of that.

Host

Just to be clear, the code on the health care side is getting rejected by the insurance company or vice versa.

Jeff Byars

From the healthcare side when they submit it, if it doesn't match, if it just doesn't make sense and it doesn't go through their algorithm, it's gonna reject it. It may be a completely incorrect code. And the codes for medical procedures and charges now are so complex. Had a physician friend of mine tell me back the last code update that they had was, it used to be if you build on this, it would tell you that a patient had come into the ER because they had a bump on the head. And now they've got a bump on the head that come from a golf ball that was hit.

from 150 yards away by a left-handed golfer. It's so precise now of what these charge codes are telling, and sometimes they get off a number, and it may not coincide with what the diagnosis code is, so it will reject a code. And there's so much complexity that can happen.

Host

Who makes the code? Who makes that book of code?

Jeff Byars

That, I'm assuming it's a government, I don't even know exactly who controls that and pushes that out. To be honest with you, I just know it's a lot. It's more than what I get into, actual coding. I do have someone that helps with the coding process if it comes down to that. But there's also other things that can kick things out. I've had a recent client that it was simply they needed the hospital, or sorry, the insurance company needed more supporting documentation from the hospital.

Host

sure.

Jeff Byars

got lost in translation. The hospital didn't send the additional documentation. The insurance didn't get the documentation, so they rejected the claim. It goes back to the hospital is rejected. They send the bill to the patient and then they're calling me saying, what's this $20,000 bill that I owe? Can you help me untangle this? And.

Host

How do you even begin to process, it's this game of telephone. What is the actual work? I mean, the process you just described, there's seven or eight different connections that need to be made. How do you play detective and figure out where the ball was dropped? [«The Ball is Dropped»]

Jeff Byars

I wish I could tell you I had a magic wand that I could wave and just get to the right person at the insurance, but it's not always that way. I know kinda how those insurance agencies work or the companies work. So that helps a little bit, but a lot of times it's just you've got a call, get through their phone bank system. And everybody's made those phone calls to whether it's a doctor's office, a hospital, a bank, wherever you call and it's press this number, press this number. And you just get so frustrated going through the phone bank. You've got to get past that to actually get to somebody that can.

can understand what the problem is that has the authority and is high enough up to make that decision and to escalate that scenario to where they can find out what the problem is. And sometimes that takes several phone calls just to get to the right person. And it may be a phone call, you get to a right person, they tell you what information they need, you've got to go back to the client, get that information or maybe to their provider and get information and then back to the insurance. So a lot of times there's a lot of back and forth with a lot of moving pieces there.

you

Host

And so if you're someone who's not used to having that be part of your daily process, I could see how that's not only confusing, but frustrating, and you're trying to manage, in your case, it was your daughter's health issue, it's the last thing you wanna deal with.

Jeff Byars

Exactly, when you've got family member that is ill, they're in the hospital, maybe they're at home but they're recovering, they're undergoing outpatient treatments, they've got multiple appointments at multiple times and all of this stuff to go through. The last thing they wanna worry about is having to call somebody and press this number and press this number, settle and hold, call another number, try to get a hold of somebody. That's just not what you wanna have to do when your loved one's ill or if you don't have anybody to do that for you.

trying to recover and trying to do this at the same time. It's just near impossible.

Host

Yeah. And you've been in those shoes as well. You're a cancer survivor yourself. And did you have to do this while you were dealing with your own treatment?

Jeff Byars

Luckily, my treatment was not as severe. I had thyroid cancer, so it was not as difficult. I did have a little hiccup with it. I had the small percentage of cancers that don't show up on the initial pathology report, so they pulled part of my thyroid out, had to go back in a week later and pull the other side out. So, I won't say it went completely without hiccups. There's nothing like hearing your surgeon call and you're a week out and you know there's a problem immediately when the surgeon calls.

So there are issues to deal with, but I didn't have the billing issues to deal with with that. I had good insurance at the time and it's, you know, everything flowed through as it should. But occasionally you run into that. You run into, I did have some issues with FMLA and it was not on my employer side, it was on the physician side. Getting them to actually complete the paperwork that had to be completed for me to be off work, to submit that. Had a physician at the time, the endocrinologist that I was paired up with told me.

it was fine that I needed to be back at work at a period that they had me off of all thyroid medication, getting preparation for a radioactive iodine treatment. So I was off thyroid meds for two weeks. And anybody that's on those meds will tell you that is a disaster if you're off of it. I didn't know at the time, so I kind of went along with it. Drove back and forth to work. It was the middle of summer. I was wearing long sleeves, wearing jackets. I was going out in the sun to warm up because it was so cold. And realized after the fact that I should have

I've never even been driving in that state. But the doctor had told me, you need to be going to work, you're fine. And wouldn't sign any FMLA paperwork for me to be off work during that time period. So I went to work thinking that's what I needed to do and realized looking back on it is I didn't need to be driving in that state. Cuz my reflexes were not as good as they should be. And so you do run into issues that's not just billing. You run into communication issues with providers and other members of the healthcare team that can really cause problems.

you

Host

And in your particular case, do you believe that it was just a misinformed physician or the endocrinologist or was there pressure being put on him to not fill out the paperwork for some reason?

Jeff Byars

I couldn't tell you on that. I will tell you that particular provider, once I got beyond that, I did fire them and go on to a different endocrinologist and haven't had any problems. So that's not the peak of what I do is getting rid of physicians and say, see you later. But sometimes there's just not a good fit with people. You know, we all have different personalities. Sometimes we don't get along. It may not be the best fit. Maybe they're overworked. Maybe their caseload is too much and you just need to get to one that can give you a little more attention and work with you.

the better.

Host

I think that's a fair point. Yeah, everybody has their own match of what is and isn't a good fit.

Jeff Byars

And we've all got our good days and our bad days, we're human, it happens. I don't know did that doctor have a bad night's sleep the night before, was their kid up sick and they lost sleep so they were not as on top of their game. There's so many variables that can go into this. And really my point is not to point blame at anyone when I get involved with a client that has a situation like this, but to figure out what we can do to solve these issues and move forward that's an improvement for everybody.

Host

Yeah, absolutely. And it sounds like your practice expands beyond just insurance and billing, is that right?

Jeff Byars

It does.

Beyond the insurance and billing, the other major part that I work with is a lot of it's just communication. Making sure that whether it's the patient and their family understands what's going on, sometimes I'll go to doctor's visits with say your mom or dad was sick and needed to go to the doctor. And you're doing this podcast in the middle of the day, this is your job, you're not able to go with them, you can't take off short notice to go. I can be that person to go and be an extra set of eyes and ears

understand what's going on, make sure they ask the questions that they need to get the answers that they want. And also be able to relay that to the family if that's what the patient wants to make sure everybody understands what's going on and everybody's on the same page.

Host

Yeah, I think people often underestimate how important that is. When I have four kids myself and oftentimes if my wife's busy and I got to take one of the kids to the doctor and she says, make sure you say this, this and this. By the time I get to the doctor's office, they're like, and how long ago did this start? And I'm like, let me try to call my wife. I don't. Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff Byars

You're lucky if you got the right date of birth with four kids, I imagine, on there. So I completely understand. And a lot of folks have what we refer to as white coat syndrome. They get in the doctor's office and they freeze up, they forget, they get nervous. And oftentimes you've been through and answered these questions 10 times before you actually get to the physician that you're seeing and you may forget some of that. It's kind of like when we were in elementary school and you played telephone and you told the person beside you a story.

person. You do it enough you kind of forget some of those details and it's real easy to do.

Host

Yeah, so when you go in, do you have a pad and kind of like a little bit of a medical history with your clients then to try to keep things going?

Jeff Byars

I do, I try to, when I onboard a client, I try to do a really in-depth history with them, which is, I'm able, fortunate enough to spend time with them, but most of their physicians are not in that scenario. And this may be two, two and a half hours that I'm having a good conversation with them, depending on how complex their disease or diagnosis is, to find out exactly what's going on, what medications they're on, what symptoms they have, and beyond what the medical, just in life, what's bugging.

causing them problems, what is a fly in the ointment if you will, if it's yet really difficult to park at this facility or it's hard to get a hold of somebody on the phone or I've got this insurance issue, whatever else beyond just strictly the medication part of it, the medicine part, what else is hindering them from getting the best out of their medical care that they can.

Host

Yeah, and a doctor who has so many patients, they have to see a day with a certain protocol in the hospital, just doesn't have the time, can't afford the time to do all that.

Jeff Byars

They can't afford the time, sometimes patients feel rushed. They know that that doctor's gotta get to the next patient, so they feel rushed. They don't wanna stop them as they're going out the door and say, hey, wait, I forgot about this. So that happens a lot, and I try to be there for that. And like I said, I have the intake consult with them where I get in depth with them. But then before each meeting that I go to with them, each appointment, I'm having a session with them to let's go over kind of where everything's at today. Has anything changed?

or anything else and kind of have our bullet points ready of what we want to make sure that we discuss with the doctor. Now that being said, I'm not making any decisions for my clients, I'm just helping them make sure they get the information relayed to the doctor that they want them to know and that they're finding out the answers that they want to know.

Host

Yeah, that's pretty clear. I think that's, and that's important because like we said, with between the white coat syndrome or the fact that there's just so much that you might forget, it's important to kind of have that organized mind going into that session you have with the physician.

Jeff Byars

And sometimes these clients may be seeing three, four, five different doctors in a day. If they've had their care coordinated where it's one trip to a major medical center, they may be traveling several hours to go to this bigger facility that has all of the specialized care that they need. They may see a lot in one day and it's overload to them. And you get into that third or fourth appointment of the day, they're exhausted. They're ready to be done with it. But the end, they're there, they need to find out what answers they can and get that information relayed.

to their care team to make sure they can make the best decision for them as well.

Host

Yeah, it's a great point. On the professional side, as an advocate, you know, what do you think of the importance of collaboration? Because you like, as an example, you mentioned you have a code person, but maybe there's a medical guidance, you know, advocate who has a bigger specialty or may or you know, collaborating with someone like Namapa. Is that part of your practice?

Jeff Byars

It is, you know, absolutely. If I get a call from a client, I'll be the Johnny on the spot to let them know, hey, if this is something I don't think I can handle.

let me see if I can find somebody that can. And I've tried to make a pretty good network going to conferences, podcasts like this, just being able to reach other people to make connections as best I can with other advocates to find those who do specialize in certain areas and certain things. And maybe it's a difference in locality. If the patient is in a different area that may have different part of the country, that's got somebody that's there close by, I may be able to help them better than I could remotely and maybe a particular disease. And I know this other advocate.

has worked with clients in that area before. They may have more expertise on it. I've got other advocates that I've called before just, hey I've got this issue, what do you think about it? Being able to bounce ideas off of people to come up with different solutions to the individual problems to try to provide the best service for our clients, whether that's me providing it or referring them to somebody else. My end goal is to make sure they get the best out of their health care as possible.

Host

Yeah, and I think that's a running theme you see with the, at least the advocates that we've had on the podcast is people wanna help. And so that's why they've gotten into this field. And the question is, if I'm not the best person, how do we get you to the best person? When it comes to educating yourself and staying connected, is there a lot of work to kind of keep on top of things? Because the landscape is always changing in the healthcare field.

Jeff Byars

It is, it's tough to stay on top of it and like you said, there's always changes. So I don't claim to be on top of everything by no means. I do my best to stay on top of it, whether it's listening to podcasts from across the country, different topics on there, going to conferences, seminars, continuing education. As a board certified patient advocate, I'm required to have 30 hours of continuing education to renew my certification on there. So going through those continuing education programs.

anything I can to learn more about a topic. If I get a client on and it's a disease that I'm not really familiar with and I let them know right up front, hey, I haven't worked with this or something unique on there, I'll do my homework with that to research to try to find out.

what specifics are tailored to that particular disease or condition that they've got, if there's anything that may benefit them. Oftentimes, I have clients that call and they're looking for another opinion, they just don't know where to go. And if you've cut your finger and you need stitches on it, you can pretty well go to any hospital, any ER, somebody can stitch up your finger. But if you've got a very specialized, rare disease, maybe the local hospital is not the place to go.

the largest university hospital close to you is not the best place to go for. There may be a group of physicians three states over at a university hospital that is doing trials on this. They've studied it and this is their life's work is this one particular disease. And I try to research and find where that's at to give my clients the option of, hey, here's some other places if you're looking for a second opinion of where might be another option for you that you may be a good fit for.

Host

And do you find that you, when you go to these seminars or conferences, I know there's another one coming up in September in New Orleans and, and do you find that just kind of going and attending this stuff kind of exposes you to things like that, that you might not even see, uh, otherwise, where you.

Jeff Byars

Absolutely, and I tell you the single biggest thing I have got out of these conferences going to is meeting other advocates. Finding out what they're doing, how they're helping people, you know, we're always coming up with different solutions to things and if you don't communicate that, you can't spread that and help other people. So that really helps to broaden my network of other advocates, other people in the industry at the conference you mentioned in New Orleans.

different pharmaceutical companies, different insurance. I mean, there's just all different platforms of people that will be there, different hospitals. So there's tons of connections to be made to help navigate through this process. And you never know when one of those may come up and you may meet them this year and three years down the road may be the hey, I've got somebody that's in your area that I need your expertise for or I need to refer you to them or they're coming to your hospital. Can I call on you to find out who we need to help them out?

of just whatever we can to help.

Host

Your company Sunback Moon, is there a fun story or a reason behind the name? Sunback Moon? It's not what you immediately think of when you think of an advocacy.

Jeff Byars

So...

You know, I had a colleague of mine said that that name will never fly because people don't know what it is. So I put the tagline out behind it of Sunback Moon, private patient advocacy and healthcare solutions. But the Sunback Moon comes from when my daughter was going through treatment. And I told you she was seven months old when she was first, this tumor was found. She was really young and took two and a half years going through this treatment. She had all sorts of chemotherapy. We moved out of state for six months for treatment. So we did a lot. When she got to where she could communicate and

Host

Sure.

Jeff Byars

she wouldn't tell you that she loved you from the sun, the moon and back. She would tell you love your son back now. And that phrase just kind of stuck in our household and it's still used on a day to day basis in the buyer's household. And that phrase just kind of stuck with me and I wanted to put that out there as a reminder of kind of the reason and why and how I got into this.

Host

I think that makes it a real poignant and emotional and impactful name. I think, and for me on a personal level, my mom says it to my kids, you know, I love you to the moon and back. So it totally resonates with me. And I hear, and my kids say moon and back and they just, they don't say the whole phrase. It's very similar, you know, so I totally get it. And now I see it. I mean, if I, I would probably end up doing the same thing in your shoes because it's always good to kind of remember why you're doing something.

Jeff Byars

Yeah, Sunback Moon just kind of stuck in it. It reminds me every day when I see our logo or business card or even my email address, it's a reminder of what I'm doing and why I'm there.

Host

That's fantastic. How do you keep a balance? I mean, you talked about, and you were very boldly talking about how you are available after hours, and you have your own family. How do you find?

a balance for yourself so that you don't get burnt out and you don't get worn out. Because this is a, it's a hard field. It's a, it's a field filled with really tough decisions and emotional, emotional states and stuff like that. How do you keep, uh, how do you keep that balance for yourself?

Jeff Byars

Part of this of doing this after hours and outside of your routine business hours, I think, stems from my background being in EMS. Responding with my local fire department, as a volunteer, it's not like I have shift assigned that I go and I work this shift and I go back home. Where all the volunteer fire departments across the country, most of them, folks are in their house, they're at their work, they're in their yard or whatever, they get a call, they drop what they're doing, they go to that call. I've done that for 30 plus years.

Host

Right.

Jeff Byars

in me that you never know if at supper that there's gonna be a call that you have to jump up and leave to go to. So I'm okay with having to drop things to take care of somebody, to help with a problem. This could become part of who I am, but I also like to travel, you know, take vacations when I can to try to get away from it. I do occasionally will block off some time on my calendar that's just I've got to have a cool down period and I realize that back from you know even being in the fire department. There's times that will go by that it's

Host

It's become part of your life, essentially.

Jeff Byars

I've had too much, I'm tired, I'm turning the radio off, I've got to unwind and relax and not worry about going on a call. We've got others to catch that and sometimes that's the way it is. Occasionally I'll get a call. Last year I had a call that come in right before we were leaving to go on a trip with my daughter for a follow up with her care. And I told the lady, I said, look, I would love to help you. We are flying out tomorrow morning going to Philadelphia. I'm gonna be kind of unavailable the next few days.

somebody else that's able to help you immediately as opposed to me. So I use these connections I have to not get overloaded if I get to that point. I've got others that I can kinda push that work off to and ask them to, hey, can you pick up on this? And they do the same. So I get referrals from other advocates and I'm able to refer to them.

Host

And I think that kind of just is yet another reason why having that support and that network of people you can rely on is so important.

Jeff Byars

And I will say, I'm in Alabama, so there's only, I think, eight board certified patient advocates in the entire state of Alabama. Only two of us are practicing independently. So it's not like there's a plethora of advocates out there. I think there's around 1,200 or so board certified patient advocates in the entire United States. So there needs to be more. And I've mentored others that are looking into going into this career field to try to help them make a decision, is this something they wanna do?

I met with somebody, had lunch with a lady just three weeks or so ago. And she is looking into taking the exam this fall and going into that. And I told her, absolutely anything I can do. And she's just down the road from me. Like I said, we actually were able to meet and have lunch and discuss things. And I welcome that with open arms more. I don't look at it as competition. We're all in this together to improve the healthcare system, to improve everybody's experience with the healthcare system.

try to improve everybody's outcome.

Host

Fantastic. I think that and that's the spirit that I think a lot of advocates have and if anybody's listening who's been thinking of becoming an advocate, you should know that that warm embrace of needing more of more advocates in the field is pretty universal. People see the need and need even just the referrals when you're going on vacation. You don't want a skinny little Rolodex, you want to be able to know someone's there to help.

Jeff Byars

Yeah, and I see this kind of kind of

bouncing off of that of the idea of an advocate. I see this a lot of times with healthcare providers. I go in with a client and they look and ask who I am and I'll introduce myself. And sometimes they're not aware of what an advocate is or their experience with an advocate is the inpatient hospital advocate that they've experienced this employed by the hospital. And I'm upfront with them very, very quick to let them know, look, I'm here to help the healthcare team just as much as I am my client.

provider out of my client of exactly what symptoms are going on, what's happening at home, what experiences they're having that they're concerned with. If they don't get that information, they can't help them. And that goes to the communication piece of this. It's not just a one way street, it's both sides. So while they're working for my client, the patient, but it improves the care from both sides. It improves the physician and the nurse practitioner,

client on there to make sure they get the full picture of what's going on and not just a little snapshot. So that often puts them at ease that I'm there to help both sides. It's not just the client, it helps both sides of things.

Host

Jeff, thank you so much for all your time and wisdom and sharing your story. If people wanna work with you, is the easiest way to go to sunbackmoon.com. Sunbackmoon.com. Jeff, I really thank you for all the hard work and trying to make the healthcare landscape a little more easy to navigate for people in this country. I really do, from the bottom of my heart, I mean, I'm so grateful that there are advocates out there like you.

Jeff Byars

I'm just glad to be in the business and being able to help people out. That's the rewarding part of it for me is being able to help people.