Join RVE Podcast host Rose as we explore health insurance for RV entrepreneurs. Learn to navigate the complexities with the Health Insurance Whisperer, Hayla Folden.
Wondering how to navigate health insurance as an RV entrepreneur? Join Rose in this episode as Hayla Folden, a licensed health insurance broker and RV enthusiast, shares her insights on navigating health insurance options for those living life on the road. Drawing from her personal experience transitioning to RV life, Hayla discusses the challenges she faced and how she overcame them.
Learn about the crucial role of insurance brokers and gain valuable tips for selecting the best health insurance plan to fit your needs and budget. Discover why considering your domicile state could be helpful and how it impacts your coverage.
Hayla provides practical advice for finding healthcare providers while on the road, emergency care availability outside of your home state, and she addresses the unique challenges faced by those transitioning to Medicare. Plus, she shares free resources to aid individuals in their healthcare journey.
Connect with Hayla:
https://www.instagram.com/Hayla_Folden
You May Also Like:
RV Insurance Coverage: What Is Legally Required?
Get the Best Health Insurance for RVers
Navigating Health Insurance for RV Entrepreneurs: Expert Tips
with Hayla Folden
Your Host: Rose Willard
KEY TAKEAWAYS
🔍 Consider working with a health insurance broker to find the best policy for your needs.
⏳ Start looking for health insurance 60 to 90 days before you need coverage.
💰 Think about your specific health needs and budget when choosing a plan.
🔍 Research health insurance options in your domicile state
📞 Call the number on your insurance card to inquire about in-network options.
⚕️ Utilize resources like telemedicine and urgent care based on cost and coverage.
🌍 Some plans offer nationwide coverage, but understand limitations.
👩⚕️ Build relationships with doctors and have an emergency plan in place.
🛣️ Plan ahead for prescription refills and access to care while traveling.
RESOURCES MENTIONED
Hayla’s Better Doctor Playbook
Get your free copy of the exact process Hayla uses for herself and her family to find the best doctors for any medical condition.
https://haylafolden.com/better-doctor-playbook/
Listen to The RV Entrepreneur Episode #340
Listen and subscribe to The RV Entrepreneur on Spotify or in your favorite podcast app. Or, read the full episode transcript below. Leave a comment, or contact us with any questions.
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THE RV ENTREPRENEUR
therventrepreneur.com
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The RV Entrepreneur #340 Full Episode Transcript:
Navigating Health Insurance for RV Entrepreneurs: Expert Tips with Hayla Folden
ROSE: Are you an entrepreneur? Hitting the road in your RV but finding the maze of health insurance options daunting? Do you yearn for personalized guidance tailored to your unique lifestyle? I’ve got just the guest for you.
RV LIFE: Welcome to the RV Entrepreneur Podcast, the weekly show for nomads, work campers, RVers and entrepreneurs looking to earn a living or build a business while enjoying the RV lifestyle. This week’s host is Rose Willard. Let’s settle in and enjoy the RV entrepreneur podcast brought to you by RV life.
ROSE: Welcome to the RV Entrepreneur podcast. I’m Rose Willard, your host. This week. I think we can all agree as entrepreneurs that navigating the health care system and finding the right health insurance plan can be daunting, confusing, and downright nightmarish at our RVing and traveling into the mix. And it’s overwhelming. So I’m eager for you to meet my guest today, whom I call the Health Insurance Whisperer Hayla Folden. Hayla is an RV and owns her own business as a licensed health insurance broker, working with multiple carriers so she understands the system and how to travel with your health insurance firsthand. In the eyes of the insurance companies, we as RV entrepreneurs are outliers. So today, Hayla is going to guide us toward finding realistic solutions to our unusual health insurance needs. When you’re finished listening to this episode, if you found it helpful, please head on over to the RV Entrepreneur Community Facebook group and let us know. So let’s get into this episode right after this.
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ROSE: Hey Kayla, welcome to the show.
HAYLA: Hey, thanks for having me.
ROSE: So I have been eagerly awaiting our conversation today because health insurance for RV entrepreneurs is a fantastic topic. It’s one that’s asked a lot in the RV community, so let’s get right to it. But first, how did you first get into RV life?
HAYLA: Oh, when our kids were small and their, um, the youngest one is almost done with college now. So when they were in elementary school, I think my husband talked me into it. I’d always been a tent camper, never an RV camper, and he talked me into it. He said it’ll be fun. We’ll camp with friends. And we did. And for years and years, there was a group of friends of us that would camp together, and we’d have as many anywhere from 12 to 14 kids with us, and it was just so much fun to see them take over, like a state park or something. And we’ve gone as far as Yellowstone with that group. So that was that’s how we started.
ROSE: Fantastic. And so then you did go full time. And how long did you do that?
HAYLA: We did. We went full time for six months. That was not our plan. Our plan was to be full time for two years. Of course, sometimes life just does what it does. And we ended up having to come back off the road early. But it was strange for us because we had always camped with a group with our friends. The most we had done was two weeks at a time up until then, and we both retired from our jobs and just left just the two of us for six months on the road. It was a big adjustment.
ROSE: Yeah, a big adjustment. And did you guys ever kind of get, uh, tired of each other, that tight space or tired of each other or your RV or just.
HAYLA: Yes. Yes, because we both worked in health care, so we didn’t see each other that much, um, those last couple of years because of Covid. So we were both working all the time. The first probably eight weeks were really difficult for us constantly together. I mean, we had 42, a 42 foot, uh, fifth wheel, and that’s just not a lot of space. When you were used to a whole house with doors, you could close and get away from each other. So we struggle. We really struggled the first eight weeks, and then we kind of found our groove. And after that it was like being with your best friend. I told people that I got to date my husband again. At that point, it was getting to know him all over again in a different way. It was so much fun right now.
ROSE: That’s an excellent point. I love that, and since this is the RV Entrepreneur podcast, what does being an entrepreneur mean to you?
HAYLA: To me, it means having the freedom to set my own schedule and to run my business in the way and the time that I want and that I see fit. It was a very meaningful to me to be able to help people on a flexible schedule. Health insurance is very seasonal, so during the times when I knew I was going to be busy, we could slow down and stay in one spot longer. And then when I was slow, we could pick up and move more frequently than we would have.
ROSE: Um, so take us back a little bit. You are a health insurance broker, but tell us why you got into health insurance.
HAYLA: When I was 28 years old. You know, we’re all healthy in our 20s. Usually I had a sudden pain that I could not identify. I had no idea what it was. I had some exploratory surgeries to try to figure out what was causing it. I had my appendix removed even though that was not what was causing it, but because I had pain in my right pelvis, they automatically went with appendicitis or something along that lines. It took three years and multiple doctors to get to a point where I could climb stairs and sit for any length of time. The medical bills that came from that, um, not understanding my insurance and then having multiple procedures, surgeries, specialist medications, I ran into a great deal of medical debt, and from that I found myself reading everything I could trying to learn it. I’m like, I’m going to learn how to do this. I’m going to figure it out. And this is not going to happen to me again. And from that point on, it didn’t. I really understood what I was doing and what bill I needed to expect. And then people started asking. Me for assistance, people that I worked with. So it went from there. Once my husband said that. So this is how I got to retire. My husband said to me, if you because I carried our health insurance for the family, if you can figure out how we can afford health insurance, then you can leave. He didn’t know. I didn’t tell him. I had been working to become a broker for several years before that, so I was all set within just a few days. I said, I got it, we’re good to go.
ROSE: That is awesome. Good for you, you’ll sneaky little one. It was. And before you got into health insurance, you were in the public health eye, weren’t you?
HAYLA: Yes. So I was a risk communicator in public health. I spent years trying to work with the media in a way to help educate people so that they knew how to respond their options during a crisis, all of those things. So I spent so many years educating people and working in that educational aspect of difficult topics, that it just fell right in. It worked perfectly.
ROSE: Yeah, a natural fit to become that insurance broker. And yeah. So what do insurance brokers actually do? Give us a little more detail.
HAYLA: Now a broker is going to be different from just an agent in that we put the client first so the client’s needs come before anything else. I work with multiple carriers not just one but multiple. In some states, it can be as many as 12 or more. To make sure that I find my client the best policy to fit their needs, their lifestyle, their budget, what they are looking for. It does not matter which carrier it is to me. I am solely working with the client at this point, but it doesn’t cost anything either for someone to work with me because I am paid on a commission from the carrier based on those plans, so I’m getting paid when people sign up, but and it’s not costing them anything. I stay with you from the point you sign up until you leave, so if you have questions, you call, I help you figure it out. And I love that. I love being able to help people answer those questions during the year, not just at the point that they’re signing up.
ROSE: Right? Yeah, I never I guess I never really understood how the insurance broker got paid. So that’s that’s an interesting fact that you’re not the person’s not directly paying you. Yeah. So shopping for health insurance is definitely overwhelming. I love that you are educating and really for the client. So yeah, it’s really great that you can help, especially entrepreneurs. Gosh, we have so many questions about this. And do you work in every state? How does that work?
HAYLA: I am not in every state. So we have to be licensed in every single state that we work in, not allowed to assist people in state, just answering questions. We’re not allowed to do that unless we hold a license in that state. Um, I am currently in six states. I’ve dropped a couple of licenses since last year. Okay. I’m a licensed in California, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Iowa and Virginia. And it’s just it’s random, right?
ROSE: Yeah. I was gonna say, is there any reason in particular or some states harder, easier to get a license in?
HAYLA: Some states are harder and more expensive to get a license in. But these are the states that primarily I’m based out of Georgia. And so Florida just being near it’s helpful. But with Texas and Virginia and Iowa and California, those are where my referrals have come from. So as referrals come in, I will yeah. Make sense towards getting that license. Yeah.
ROSE: Yeah. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, you know, people who are in self-employed, they may not understand how to find health insurance because maybe they were employed by someone else before becoming an entrepreneur. Or maybe they’re just a new entrepreneur, or they just can’t afford health insurance and therefore may go without it. Or they’re just on a very tight budget. Right? So there’s no manual on how to choose a health insurance plan, right? We’re not taught this in school, but you educate people and you help them navigate this. So what are some basic things for us as entrepreneurs to consider before purchasing a health insurance plan?
HAYLA: Well, the first thing you need to know is if you Google it, you are going to get thousands and thousands and thousands of, um, answers. And they’re not all the same. Right? And especially if you Google self-employed health insurance, it’s very difficult. Oh I’ve.
ROSE: Done that. Yeah.
HAYLA: It is important to know that if you are looking for health insurance, finding a broker can help you tremendously. So if you’re in a state that I’m not in and you need assistance, search for a broker near you in. Instead of searching for the actual insurance plan, because we have access to plans that you can’t see that are not going to pull up on Google, we have access to systems where we can search them quickly, and it’s so much easier for us. But I think it’s important also to consider what your needs are. I mean, if you have a very specific budget where this is all I can afford, talking to someone and saying, look, this is it, this is all I’ve got. We’ll help you tremendously. Because if you can’t afford a typical health insurance policy, maybe you could afford a telemedicine only plan something that gives you that access to a physician when you need it, or an accident. Only plan if you’re just very active but very healthy, but you need something just in case. So there are different types of plans that you could look into. I worry about people like myself who may have a chronic condition that are traveling, because if you have expensive medications that need to be covered, they may not be covered. And that’s going to be as important, if not more important, than the having access to the physician or emergency room sometimes is having that medication, right?
ROSE: Yeah. So did you run into any of that on the road like filling prescriptions? How did you access that?
HAYLA: I did, and I felt like such a fool because I should have known how to do this before we got on the road. But when I tell you there are things that come up that when you first go out that you just don’t think about, right? I have an injection that I take monthly for migraines and it has to be refrigerated. And I found that pharmacies don’t carry it. They order it, so they wait until you need it to order it. But there was only certain pharmacies, even out of state, that my insurance would work with. So I found myself in the position of being in one state and needing it and not being able to get it, but it couldn’t be picked up in Georgia and overnighted to me because UPS didn’t run on the weekends. And then we were moving too frequently. Yeah. So we were three stops away, sending medication ahead of us before we could get to it kind of thing. And I learned, I learned very quickly that there are nationwide retail pharmacies that your health insurance plan probably uses. You’ve got to get your medication through them and then call ahead. Sometimes I can remember calling ahead into Colorado when we were not in that state yet and asking, do you have this medication? I need to get it refilled. I’m going to be coming through your area. Can you go ahead and order it? Because if you don’t, by the time you order it and it comes in, I will have moved out of your area, right?
ROSE: Yeah. You need to think ahead, plan ahead, be proactive.
HAYLA: That was incredibly difficult. So that took me a good month and a half to really work out the kinks of that and knowing how far ahead to call and plan. Yeah. But from then on we had no problems.
ROSE: That’s good. Good to hear. Now, like you said our viewers, we have these unique requirements. We travel sometime, maybe part time, maybe full time crossing state lines, which makes health care and health insurance tricky. So what are the health insurance options for entrepreneurs on the road?
HAYLA: So it’s it really depends on your age, your health. And I would say the areas that you’re traveling in because, for instance, we were trying to get off grid as much as possible and away from people into areas where it was just us. And that’s great occasionally. But if you’re doing that all the time and you have medical needs, then you’ve got to plan ahead on getting into or close to a city, right? Because insurance is not the same state to state. My home base is Georgia, my insurance is Georgia. So if I travel from Georgia to Colorado, it will cover emergency care. If I have to go to the emergency room, it will still cover medications, no problem if I use the right pharmacy, but that’s about it. So once you go outside of your home state, then you’re really limited. And what we found is talk to your physician before you travel. If they offer telemedicine and they are using your insurance and you’ve got that relationship built, let them know you’re going to be traveling and then make your appointments with them. Try to do any kind of telemedicine with them and call back. That is quicker than anything else I’ve seen. You can do telemedicine only plans. Those are available, but there are some nationwide PPO plans and they’re great if you’re young and healthy. Once you reach Medicare age, you get your just your Medicare A and B, maybe a supplement. You’re good to go. It’s those of us that are in the middle that have health complications already. That it becomes really difficult.
ROSE: Yeah, there’s a lot of things to take into consideration there. And so for full time rv’ers, when they’re choosing a domicile state, like you said, yours is Georgia mines, Delaware when they’re just getting into it, should one of their considerations for choosing that domicile state, should it be health insurance? Should you think about that? I mean, there’s probably many other considerations, but should you think I mean, do plan offerings and costs vary or they do first state.
HAYLA: Yeah, they really do. And honestly I when we were planning we spent years planning ahead to leave to go on the road because we were going to be going for two years. Yeah. We never even thought about insurance. That never occurred to us, even with us being in health care and me trying to get licensed never occurred to me to think about my insurance. What state would be best because we were looking at taxes and tags and stuff like that. Right? But there are some states, like New York and California that have infertility treatments and care or automatically part of their plans. That’s not everywhere. And some small states like South Dakota may only have 1 or 2 insurance carriers that are on, say, the marketplace, which is where many of us end up having to get insurance from. And so your options are limited. I say, look ahead, plan ahead, talk to someone. So as you’re doing your planning for how long you’re going to be on the road, talk to a broker or someone and start asking those questions like which state am I choosing from Florida or South Dakota? Which one of these is going to work for me? Or, you know, honestly, I wish I had thought about that. I didn’t even consider it. And I’m sure I’m not the only one.
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ROSE: Oh yeah. No, you don’t really think about when we’re thinking about domicile state. We’re thinking about, yeah, the taxes. And like you mentioned, all those things. You don’t think about health insurance, how it can really vary. We just think of the one, okay, it’s health insurance. And we probably procrastinate to to the last minute.
HAYLA: Yeah a lot of people it’s too difficult to understand. So we put it off. We wait. Right.
ROSE: And that’s not a good thing.
HAYLA: No no no no it’s really not I like to advise people to start looking 60 to 90 days ahead. So 2 to 3 months.
ROSE: Yeah. That was my next question. Yeah. Yeah.
HAYLA: 2 to 3 months before you’re going to be traveling or if you’re like a lot of us, we leave that full time job to become the entrepreneur, to hit the road. Right?
ROSE: Right.
HAYLA: 2 to 3 months before your last day at work, start talking to somebody. Start getting ready for it because they’re probably going to be things come up in conversation that you wouldn’t think about, like if I asked you, do you have the money already set aside to pay a high deductible? Can you pay $77,000 right now? Right. Most of us are not gonna we’re gonna say, no, no, I’m putting that money aside for tires. Yeah.
ROSE: So, like, let’s give a scenario someone is working for someone else or corporate, right? And they have started this side gig, this entrepreneurial gig, and they’re like, when should I do this? When should I make the leap? I want to stay because I need that health insurance. But I am really I want to do this entrepreneurial thing. I want to get away from that corporate work, and I want to get into this. So how do I, like you said, start looking for health insurance, but how do I make that transition? How do I know what to do? Like how much money do I need to have saved up?
HAYLA: It’s going to be hard. You’re not going to know.
ROSE: I mean, speaking with the broker would be yeah, yeah.
HAYLA: Because you have to have the conversation because it may be that you can find insurance that costs less than what you’re paying now through your corporate job.
ROSE: Okay.
HAYLA: You may be able to find something that’s like when we hit the road, I was paying $200 less for our family than we were through the corporate job.
ROSE: Okay. Now, was that complete coverage? Was that catastrophic?
HAYLA: No, no, that was complete coverage. It had a higher deductible, but it was okay. Yeah, it was complete coverage and it was less money. So it fit very well into our budget. Okay. And that’s just it’s kind of a can I afford it can I not what is. And I always say what is the most you can spend per month on a premium. What’s the most you can spend. And then when you when people give me that number I usually back out with a copayment might be or a prescription payment if you have those. And so I try to go lower when I’m searching for something. And if you have doctors you love and you want to keep, we try to work that in too. But knowing that you’re going to be traveling, do those doctors also offer that telemedicine? Because if they do, it’s not an issue at all.
ROSE: Right. That’s great. So some entrepreneurs just. Don’t have that money initially to spend or they’re on that super tight budget like work just can’t afford it. What do you recommend for those entrepreneurs?
HAYLA: It really just depends on their lifestyle, their needs. Because if you’re very, very healthy, you’re young. Yeah, we can find something usually even catastrophic, maybe something that is going to cover you in an event that you get diagnosed or cancer, break a leg, have major surgeries or something like that while you’re traveling. Those types of things we want to make sure are covered if we can, so that you’ve got a maximum amount of pocket where you’re not like, that’s the most you’re going to pay in a year. That’s what I’m looking for, right? But if they’re like, I can’t afford anything, what do I do if I need something? If I get a strep throat or an ear infection, what do I do? Or Covid when you’re on the road, which happened to me in Texas.
ROSE: So yeah, me too.
HAYLA: So something like that. And you need help. There’s retail clinics.
ROSE: Like the urgent care.
HAYLA: Yeah. Yeah. They they have those. That’s an option. There are community health centers that are income based health departments. In many places, it’s just a matter of what do you need and what’s the least expensive option? Because if there’s somewhere you can go for $75, I don’t want you to have an $800 air bill.
ROSE: No, no. What about Medicaid? So let’s say I know that’s you have to be in your state. Yeah. For that. Yeah. But does Medicaid cover an emergency somewhere else on the road?
HAYLA: It should. Yeah. Medicaid should just about Medicaid, Medicare. I know the marketplace insurance plans will cover if you’re in another state, you’re traveling and you get sick like that. Yeah, they will cover that.
ROSE: Okay. I guess that’s another option. So I would like to kind of dive into more like how entrepreneurs can navigate the access to the health care services. So you have your health insurance plan okay. It’s good you’ve got this right. But now how do I know? I mean, I speaking with you, you’ll educate them, but how do I know where I can go? You know what I mean? Like, I guess just any urgent care. Do the telehealth Teladoc thing. What’s the plan? What should be my plan? Yeah, yeah.
HAYLA: Usually the back of your insurance card has a phone number on it. Yeah, that you can call. And I had to do this when I was trying to get my medication filled. Calling that number and asking them, letting them know the circumstance and asking them, is there somewhere that’s in network or it’s probably not. It’s probably going to be out of network, but it will still be covered, right? Because for some plans they will cover urgent care and some will only cover E.R.. Yeah. So those are going to be yeah, those are going to be difficult retail clinics. If you’re out of your home state, they may not cover those. I think if you go into it thinking, okay, this is not going to be covered, what’s going to be my least expensive option if I have to pay out of pocket, right, and start kind of start from there, which is usually either going to be the telemedicine or the retail clinic are going to be the least expensive and then urgent care and then the E.R.. Mhm. And then from there you can also call that number on your card to see what is covered. If anything is covered. Are there health.
ROSE: Insurance plans that have a nationwide coverage. You know, will they work state to state. Okay.
HAYLA: There are there are plans I am not they have captive agents. So those agents only work for those plans. So I do not work with those plans. But there are plans that are nationwide. You can see any anyone for any reason. Some of those plans don’t cover pregnancies, maternity at all, maternity care. So it’s important to know when I talk to clients if that’s an option for them, I will connect them with an agent that sells those plans and let them discuss that with them because, okay, I don’t know all of the what they cover and what they don’t. They’re usually have a lower premium but won’t cover if you have a certain number of illnesses or if you take take certain medications, they’ll automatically knock you out of that. Right. So yeah, but those those are great plans for travelers if you fall in that category right now.
ROSE: That’s good. So I know you have a couple freebies that you offer I saw on your website and Instagram. Can you explain a little more about those?
HAYLA: Yeah, my question is entrepreneurs should answer is the same questions that I go through with clients. Can you afford this? What are you hoping to get out of it kind of thing? And when you go through that, honestly, you may look at it and be like, okay, so I have the questions answered, but it doesn’t really like it didn’t tell me anything because it’s meant for you to work with a broker. Or an agent to discuss your answers. Because those answers for me, I could look at that and know exactly then what you need. So I could say, okay, so this is you need something that’s going to be nationwide or, or you have such a low budget, we may not be able to find anything, but it’s very helpful when working with an agent on that. The other one is the I forget what it’s called the how to find a doctor. Yeah.
ROSE: Better doctor. Yeah. Mhm.
HAYLA: And that one is based on my many, many years of trying to go through my illness and figure out, uh, what I needed, how to find a doctor, how to get a doctor I could love. So my doctor retired. Oh. And it was just frankly five years ago he retired. He’s the good luck.
ROSE: Oh, no.
HAYLA: I went right through those steps like I had many, many times before. Found a doctor I loved. And we clicked immediately. Oh that’s awesome. So it’s just again, it’s one of those it’s not going to give you the perfect answer, but it will walk you through the steps. There are some things I like to tell my kids have used this. I’ve taught them to use this. I like to remind them, you still have to see the person and you still have to make a phone call. But yeah, if you’ll do that and it’s worked great for them. So they’ve been able to find doctors they love as well.
ROSE: Oh, that seems so.
HAYLA: Simple and straightforward. But it works. It really works.
ROSE: Yeah, I’ll have to check that out. I’ll have to pass that along to my children as well. Part of our home schooling, right.
HAYLA: It’s great. Yeah. Now, do your children, how do they feel about talking to people on the phone?
ROSE: Um. They’re okay. They probably could use a little more work with that, but. Yeah, that’s something we can role play, right?
HAYLA: Right. So that’s what we did was role play it. And occasionally our youngest daughter and I will still do that when she’s she’s in college now. But we’ll still like let’s talk through this. Let’s just role play the questions you need to ask getting her to, uh, speak up at a doctor’s office was difficult, but the got a call and make an appointment. Mhm. She didn’t want to do that at all. So we finally she’s got to where she’s, she’s better role play.
ROSE: Building that confidence.
HAYLA: Yes.
ROSE: Yeah.
HAYLA: That’s great.
ROSE: Let’s jump to the kind of the business side. How do you for your business. How do you promote yourself as an insurance broker or market yourself.
HAYLA: I do podcast interviews. The majority of my business is word of mouth. Believe it or not, referrals from other agents and other states. I do participate in bundles where I can provide my lead magnet. My questions that entrepreneurs should answer as an option for people to to get on my email marketing list. But I’m not doing a lot. It’s mostly word of mouth.
ROSE: Yeah, but you do use Instagram. I saw you use Instagram. Yeah it definitely. I love how you educate and kind of engage and just you’re kind of answering my questions. As I was kind of going through it, I was like, oh, this is awesome. It was great. So it makes me want, okay, I need to talk to her. She’s gonna kind of be there for my needs and figure out exactly what I need, because it’s it’s overwhelming and it’s intimidating. And you seem to make that not so much, you know, relatable.
HAYLA: And I love doing it. I love talking about it, but I love figuring out where people are in their journey with health insurance and just starting from there. So some people, um, I have had some very young customers, you know, 19, 20 years old, getting insurance for the first time. They are so much fun because they’re like, look, I don’t know anything.
ROSE: Yeah. You get to teach them. It’s a clean slate.
HAYLA: Yes, yes, it is great for clients that are aging in that are getting ready or thinking about Medicare. Like if you’re getting close to 65.
ROSE: Yeah.
HAYLA: You would be surprised how difficult the insurance gets from where we are now to Medicare. It is so confusing. More so than we already have.
ROSE: Yeah, I watched my mom kind of going through that and all these. Oh, and my in-laws too. Yes. Same thing.
HAYLA: Very complicated. I’m very surprised. I don’t know how how some people manage it on their own because it confuses me and I deal with it all the time. So that was uh, that’s something to think about. If so, if you know people that are or if you’re out traveling and talking to people that are getting close to 65, yeah, just go ahead and refer them to a broker as well.
ROSE: Because, yeah, I’m going to refer them to you. That’s great.
HAYLA: Thank you. Do you have specific questions like while you were traveling, were there things that you ran into that you needed help with that would have been easier to be honest.
ROSE: So we have we have Medicaid right now. And when we’re on the road, we had Medicaid too. And it’s because. We sold our business of 20 years and once we sold, we did not have a true income or enough income, you know, to actually pay for health insurance. Right? Right. And we were so nervous and we really didn’t want to go the Medicaid route because we felt like we were, I don’t know, like we didn’t deserve that. Like, you know what I mean? Like, we felt bad, like we weren’t poor, poor, you know, we just weren’t making enough to sustain our family as well as we would like to, you know, and still be able to travel. You know, we just felt weird to us. But we did it and it worked. And we knew though going into it with Medicaid, okay, it’s not going to cover anything. Maybe just emergency. Right. But we’re all very healthy young. We kept enough money set aside. You know, we had saved enough money. We had that set aside. So that was my other thing. Like, do you suggest that, you know, someone can’t afford, you know, just have that set aside for those emergencies or for those visits. That’s okay. Right?
HAYLA: I do suggest that because and for some people that can’t afford the insurance, but they have some that they can set aside, they may not need anything more than a $75 visit. Right? Right. Yeah.
ROSE: So it’s just that possible emergency or like you said, cancer. You just don’t know. But that’s the other thing. Just get out and live your life and go travel right. Go do what you want to do.
HAYLA: Well. And then for me, there’s always that fear. I’m going to fall off a mountain or fall off a cliff because I’m the clumsiest person I know. And so that’s what I think about. I’m like, oh, I’m going to go snow skiing and break wet. Yeah, those are I am worst case scenario because I’m very clumsy. And every time we ever went on vacation, I always ended up at urgent care getting stitches. So.
ROSE: Oh no, there’s always.
HAYLA: One in every.
ROSE: Family I know. And I guess I was a bit concerned with our boys because ten well, they’re now ten and 13, but they were three years younger at the time. And we’re in, you know, boondocking a lot out in the boonies. And so it was always a concern in my mind like what if this. But so we were always prepared in some way as far as our emergency plan, our emergency kit, you know, always knowing where that local hospital or urgent care was. Right? Medication wise. We have a son that is epi dependent for Trina allergies. So we always made sure we had enough of those, and we got those before we left and we would come back to our home base after a while and kind of catch up on those things and doc appointments. So we had a plan for all those things, but that’s good. Yeah. That’s good. As far as questions, I, I don’t personally have any real questions for that, but I’m sure our audience does. And hopefully we answered some of those here. But if they have more right to go and find you, so where can they go find you?
HAYLA: They can they can find me on Facebook and they can find me on Instagram. On Instagram I’m at Hayla. Underscore folden and on Facebook, I don’t remember exactly what I am.
ROSE: Hayla folden. Yes. Yeah.
HAYLA: Halo folded. Even if you make your way to my personal Facebook page, it will eventually get you to to the business page. Um, I also my website Hayla folden.com. Right there is, there is a calendar on there where if you want more information, you want to talk to me, you can schedule. Yeah. Time to talk face to face via zoom just so that you can you can see me. You can you can get comfortable. Because I always say it’s very hard to trust somebody with your personal health information when you can’t see them face to face. I like for people to have that option.
ROSE: Mhm. I think that’s great. And I’ll put all that in the show notes today. But were there any questions specifically that you have heard from entrepreneurs or our viewers that have asked you about that you answered and were able to help them?
HAYLA: For entrepreneurs? I have had a couple of people who travel extensively and we but we were discussing, you know, they knew they needed something that was comprehensive just because they were very active. And they they finally had the what if I break something while I’m skiing or snowboarding or something like that? Yeah. So we were discussing that they’re planning their family for the future. And so with them we really had the opportunity to talk about, can you use your health insurance as an opportunity to also save your money? So we were discussing the health care savings accounts, how much money they could put into it, how if they don’t need it, they’re growing their money tax free. So those are options. If you don’t, you know, if you have the money. Again, with many people it’s I think I’m going to be better off saving my money and paying out of pocket. Yeah. To which I say, the 32 year old that was diagnosed with cancer right after she got her health insurance was not planning on that.
ROSE: So no, no, no.
HAYLA: And it’s one of those where we really have to consider those catastrophic events, or we reach a point where we cannot afford it and lose everything. And that’s what scares me.
ROSE: A little Russian roulette there.
HAYLA: Yeah, it really is. I know when, uh, when we were traveling, I caught Covid. I gave it to my husband, who has asthma.
ROSE: Oh, no.
HAYLA: There we were in New Mexico. Thought the world was ending. Yeah.
ROSE: So sorry. Yeah.
HAYLA: It’s quite all right. But again, we did not plan ahead for or they’re going to be services the marathon Texas, which is where we were when I had write that we can get to to get medications and stuff like that. Um, thankfully by the time we got he started getting sick, we were further along, um, and in an area that had lots of services available. But that access to care, you’re going to have more access in a heavily populated area. So as we were boondocking and getting further and further west and away from people, we were losing access to care. Yeah.
ROSE: Oh yeah.
HAYLA: That’s important to think about when you’re traveling.
ROSE: Yeah, it definitely is. Well, I want to thank you so much. I really appreciate the knowledge that you’ve shared with us today and how you’ve broken it down. You know, so we can kind of better understand some things. And gosh, it just really it’s empowering. So I really I just I thank you and I thank you for coming on today. Hope everyone learned a little bit and I hope they’ll reach out to you for more information.
HAYLA: Thank you so much for having me.
ROSE: You’re welcome. It was fantastic having Kayla on the podcast today, sharing her invaluable expertise on navigating the complex world of health insurance. If you’re trying to decide on a health insurance plan or you’re not sure where to find one, make sure you contact a health insurance broker near you or reach out to Hayla. If you’re in one of the states that she mentioned in this episode in which she’s licensed, I really appreciate you listening today, and I hope we answered some of your own questions about traveling with health insurance. And if you still have more questions about this topic, be sure to reach out to Hayla on her website or social media channels to access additional resources and support on your health insurance journey. Until next time, have a great week!
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