What the Health Just Happened?
Chandra Manning | Jacksonville Speech & Hearing Center
[Music] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this week's episode of What the Health Just Happened. When we talk about all things healthy versus not healthy in healthcare, community, business, and life. The goods, the bads, the ups, the downs, the lefts, the rights, and everything in between. We bring in a variety of guests again to talk about all those topics. Today, I'm fired up for today because we're going to hit community in healthcare. Before that, I have to thank our sponsors to all benefits. Of course, hi, mom. I love you every episode. I say hi, mom. A lot of words here, Jacksonville, say it, introduce yourself. Jacksonville Speech and Hearing Center. Jacksonville Speech and Hearing Center. What's the acronym? Because we're going to start using that. J-S-H-C. J-S-H-C. Non-profit, doing some incredible work in the community, which, again, I promise we're going to address all that. Chandra Manning. I want to say that right because when I talked to you earlier, I said Chandra. It's Chandra-like. Like Jackie Chan. Like Jackie Chan. I love nicknames on the show. She said that. I'm like, that's going to stick. Chandra, welcome to the show. Chief operating officer. Soon to be CEO. Chief executive officer. We like claps in here. Congratulations. That's awesome. Well deserved too. Thank you. So much to cover, including this show's live, right? It's Saturday. What's Saturday? It's Wednesday, by the way. I love saying that. Right. But yesterday, when people hear this on the radio, we'll be your 75th anniversary. Yes. Big number for us. Very excited about all of the work that we've done in the last 75 years. We are officially older than Disney. And for those of you who are local, Rex the dinosaur on Beach Boulevard. Oh, I love Rex. You know Rex from UNF. So you're older than Disney. Yes. Older than Rex. That's crazy. 75 years. That's Friday. Again, these are numbers that you told me. You went from your first year seeing four patients in this year. You're on pace to see. More than 6,000. 6,000 people. Yeah. Northeast Florida. Northeast Florida, yes. So we served Duval and all the surrounding counties. April 19th is Jacksonville speech and hearing day. Did you know that? It is. Yes. We have our own proclamation. I don't think people know about that though. I agree. I don't think people do know about it, but it's our day. It is your day. You've earned it as do all the kids and adults to do it. So who are you? What do you do? Right. You and the business for anyone who's not familiar with your organization. Great company here locally. Who are you? What do you do? Well, we're nonprofit. So we're here to serve the community. We do speech, language, and hearing for individuals of all ages, whatever your needs are in that area. You come to us and we figure out how to make it happen. Say it again. Speech, audio, what was the third? Speech, language, and hearing. Hearing. So, audiology. Audiology. Yep. You know what audiology means? Audiology means. [LAUGHTER] I was in ears. Age groups. So when you started and were founded, was it directed towards children specifically or? It was. Yeah, we were actually started by the junior league who just celebrated their 100th anniversary. They're older than you guys. They are older than us. And they were the ones that started seeing those four Haitians. And then it went on from there. We've had our ups and our downs. There was a point just I think it was about 10 years ago where we were about to shut down. We were not going to be able to serve the community at all. And through the support of locals here in Jacksonville who came together and a new CEO, we came back from that. And like I said now, serving 6,000 people this year. There's a lot of people. Is it based off fundraising like money coming in? A lot of it's based off of fundraising. We do accept insurance. So we take most insurance plans and we'll work with those. But we have a lot of fundraising efforts that we do, especially our big annual fundraiser in May. We're going to nail that. Yes. [LAUGHTER] I don't know if we should talk about insurance because like I work in that space and I talk a lot of trash about the space that I work in. It's pretty frustrating. It's frustrating. It is. Yes. Let's go positive first before negative. So you're serving all different ages. How are you servicing them, right? How do people find what you're doing? How do they get in touch with you? Who's a good patient or family? Like my child needs this care. Oh, yeah. And I think a lot of children needed that don't realize, the families don't realize they need it, when my kid was young, she had a little bit of trouble with her arse. We thought it was hilarious. We would tell her at family gatherings, "Hey, say I parked the car at Harvard Yard, exactly." And then we would all laugh because she couldn't say her arse. We just didn't realize that it was a struggle for her. And I think a lot of parents are in that mode. They're like, "Oh, it'll happen. It'll comfort them later." It's cute. It's cute right now. Yeah. Again, you don't realize the snowball effect that has, right? She struggled to read her first couple of years. And we just didn't put two and two together. I didn't realize it until I was in this field. But that's where a lot of families are. They just don't know it until you know, right? So as far as like a good patient, I think we're looking at people who are just trying to figure out where their hearing is, where their children's speech language is. I'm just curious about getting a baseline, figuring out where you're at. What are some of the signs that a parent would look for that would kind of, what are the signs that a parent would look for? Do you ask that again? Was that Mike off? No, we're good. Okay. It's all the like, come back on. Hashtag no edits. We're some of the red flags that a parent would come across. So really interesting is that it doesn't present in the way you think it would. Like I said, Mike Ido couldn't do ours and I didn't think much of it. But what I needed to pay attention to was that she was getting frustrated with her reading. She wasn't comprehending. What age do you mind sharing? Not at all. She was about, she was somewhere between two and three when we started noticing that, that she was having trouble with her ours and it was really cute. And then when you get to the stage of reading, you know, she started VPK and kindergarten and she was frustrated and she was acting out. You know, she would throw tantrums and it seemed unrelated, but it was very related. And so you, it presents in different ways. A lot of it is frustration. You think a child is acting out or misbehaving when really it's a communication challenge and they don't know how to express it. They don't know what they don't know. And so I say a lot of times that's how it's presented. Young kids, young kids, young kids, like, and again, I would say, our audience probably are young parents, if I had to guess, yeah. So, so parent recognizes maybe a concern, then you all come in and do an assessment. What's like, what's souped in nuts, you walk in the door, we do XYZ and they leave the door and bam, they're president of the United States of America. Exactly. Just like that. I'm going to go home and tell my child. That's her next job. There you go. That's a lot of pressure. Terrible time to an election year. That's so of a really awesome company. Yeah. Okay. Yes. But from start to finish, I think what you're really looking at is you start with your pediatrician when you're a parent looking for services for your child, you always start with your pediatrician because they have the whole picture, right? And then they refer you to us. We're considered an ancillary healthcare service, not a necessity, which is something that eats at me. Can I actually chime in on that as tries me nuts? Yes. Hey, health insurance. We're going to do everything for healthcare except your ears and your eyes. Oh, yeah. It's absolutely a joke. And teeth. I forgot teeth. Yeah. We're just not going to cover you from the neck up. Listen, your mouth and your mouth are right in your ears. That doesn't qualify. Sorry. I hate to chime in the US. Yes. So we get a referral from pediatricians. They come to see us full assessment based on what's being reported. So like any field, there are 100 different things we could be looking at. So we're going based off of parent report, patient report, and then we do assessments that are age specific. And they're done by a master's level clinician, a speech language pathologist, and then scored. And you, from that, develop goals. Okay. These are the things that we need to work with to make sure that your communication skills are where they should be. So you're receiving and projecting, you know, the information correctly that you need to be successful. I'm actually glad you said that too, right? So recent growth, you said 10 years ago, you almost shut the doors. Yeah. Now you're in a growth stage in a good way. This is providing an incredible service to Northeast Florida, right? You went from three speech language pathology clinicians. These are masters and bachelor's level degrees. Yeah. I'm a psychologist, doctor level clinicians, to now 13 and four. Yes. In just four and a half years. Could you possibly talk about why you think you guys grew like that? I think it would change. Yeah. I think that there are a couple of things that contributed to it. One are the challenges with insurance, which we don't like to talk about. Yeah. We call it Voldemort. We call it Voldemort. We call it Voldemort. We call it Voldemort. Now it's insurance. It's insurance. Yes. The reimbursement rates are not improving. A lot of places are no longer accepting insurances and we feel it, our community responsibility to accept those. So people have a place to go. So we get a lot of calls. I can't go anywhere else. I can't. No one else will take my insurance and we either look into getting credentialed with that insurance so we can take care of them or we figure out some other financial assistance that will work for them so that we can take care of them. So insurance is a big part of that. We're seeing a lot, a lot more people come to us because they have nowhere else to go. We had someone come up from Ormond Beach the other day because they have nowhere else in their city to be seen. But COVID was a big part of this. I shared with a lot of people that we, all of a sudden we had this huge influx of people when they need to get their hearing tested. They say, "I can't hear. I can't hear. I can't hear." What I don't realize is that we all read lips. People with normal hearing read lips. So the second you cover your mouth, people think they have a hearing problem. And so we got to the point where about 50% of the people we were testing had normal hearing. And just thought they had a hearing deficit, yes. So that just got a lot more people to realize that the people that did have hearing loss, that they had hearing loss because on average it takes someone between four and seven years to address their hearing loss once they recognize it's a problem. But with that many people having hearing loss, thinking they had a hearing loss, it just kind of got it out there and people weren't so afraid to get out there and get it checked. And so we had a huge increase in that. And then the same thing happened with the children on the speech language side. They're home more, parents are realizing that there are these communication challenges. They're learning over a computer, which for a younger generation is really challenging, even if they are more technically savvy than an older generation. And so now there's just this realization that, "Oh, we really need to pay attention to our children." And this is why they're falling behind in third grade reading levels and other things. Man, I should have pulled this stat up too, but by the time you're in third or fourth grade, you're reading level, speech level, that affects the rest of your life. We've got young children, so this stuff's really important. You don't think about it. When I talk to them, I never thought about this. And again, God bless, we're fortunate we don't have these concerns, but a lot of people do. Workplace culture. I love talking about healthy cultures, healthy versus not healthy. A couple lines you said, "Workplace culture is top notch, everyone loves each other, non-profit and healthcare. We're playing clinicians less to do more." That's absolutely true. We are paying clinicians less in our non-profit healthcare clinic to do twice as much work. And that's because we work with lower paying insurances, we work with grant funders who have high expectations of what you're going to be able to do with their money, understandably. And so, yeah, we are, and to combat that, although it should happen anyway, we work really hard at creating a culture that people want to be in. We spend how much of our waking hours at work. A lot. We should really be aware of whether or not we like what we do, and so we want people to like what they do. The people that we employ have huge hearts for the community and the work that they do. You have to be built a certain way to work in anything in healthcare, especially the non-profit world, and to show up and smile and be grateful and excited, and we'll share some stories later. What was your journey? Where were you before you came on, right? Yeah. How do you end up here? I would say probably not a typical journey. I definitely never thought I would end up in healthcare, especially something so specialized, this beach language and hearing healthcare. I did project management, I did some marketing communications, quality control, and when I was about nine months pregnant with my youngest child, my employers stopped making payroll. Oh. Wow. Purple. Nine months. Yes. I'm just envisioning. Nine months. Yes. Yes. Quite visibly pregnant. Yeah. Yeah. Like a sneeze away from having a baby. Pretty much. So at that point, I just took whatever I could find, and an audiologist locally here. Can you share the name? Her name is Dr. Nancy Gilliam, but she is retired now. We sort of shout outs. Dr. Nancy. Yes. Dr. Nancy. Still one of my favorite people on the planet, absolutely love her, but she gave me a chance and she worked with a young mother, and I started out just answering the phones and checking insurance benefits and scheduling people. And thankfully, she saw the value in what I did, and I started picking up other things and really helped her to grow her practice. We need more of these. Yeah, buddy. I love it. Maybe I'm any Ellen. The world needs more of these. The world needs more people who see the value in other people too, so otherwise I wouldn't be where I am today. But she, like I said, she saw the value in me eventually worked out to being a director of operations with that practice, and then when she sold and retired, had this incredible opportunity to come over to Jacksonville Speech and Hearing Center and do what I loved doing in the nonprofit world, which makes me love it even more, is a no-brainer. And so here I am. That's awesome. Yeah. I'm going to keep saying that. Yeah. Let's go. Yeah. Your journey there. Where did you start? Where did you, like, hey, I'm going to wear all the hats? What am I? Because you're tied to the clinical side, too, right, aren't you? I am. You're all right. She wears all the hats. I do. Well, I think that's a nonprofit thing. Yes. We wear all the hats, right? But I did. I started there as the director of operations and kind of took over the same thing, just whatever needed to be done. That's one of the things I love to do. Let's see what needs to be done. Let's get it done. Let's figure out how to get it done. What can I do? How can I help? Exactly. What can I do? How can I help? And hiring and starting new programs. We have a summer camp now. We have a mobile unit. We have a second clinic. So just wherever I could see the potential to grow and the potential within our clinicians and our administrative staff just took it over. You're raising your hand and doing a lot of that. Yeah, let's do it. Let's figure out how to grow these young professionals and administrative professionals and the community need. It's there. Let's figure out how to grow us so that we can serve the community. Culturally, the practice you worked at, what did you bring from there? What I brought was what I was shown. And that was the ability to look at someone and say they have so much potential in this area. Let's feed that. Wow. Showing them how to do these other things too. So feed what they're good at, feed their talents, love what they do and show them that there's more. You don't mind. That's how I was taught. And you say like double down on your strengths. Yeah. Everyone's like, well, I got to improve my week. Just like, no, ignore those. Find someone who can sit in that seat and do that and double down on what you're good at. Absolutely. And then you love what you do more, right? Right. Because you receive all the praise because you're great at it. Good feeling. Yeah. We got about five minutes left, plenty of time here. But so I'm going to read this first. I might butcher it and I want you to just hammer this. That's it, this time after the commercial break multiple times. Where is my date here? So everybody mark your calendars, put it in the pin market, save the date, buy tickets, throw all your money at them, signature fundraise or mail 11th at Tim McQuanna at 7 p.m. It's called FinFest. It is. Right. So this is your one event every year. It is our signature gala and it is not black tie. This is fun. This is put on your. We like fun. It's a flowery party resort wear and show up with your flamingo earrings and your pineapple pants. And. Okay. All right. I like that. Especially Tim McQuanna. Yes. So this again, let's, let's, I mean, again, we got multiple, multiple time, plenty of time to talk about this event specifically. This is your one signature event. It is. How many people went last year? I think we had 350. 350. That's a big amount. That's a big amount. It is. It is. It is. Yes. Silent auction. Like all of the things because it's our signature event. It's so pretty commercial. Yes. Live music. Always lots of fun. We have shrimp and grits. We have outdoors and indoors. So all kinds of fun things to do. The silent auction is there. There are trips up for auction, which are always hot items. We have a big raffle item that's fun, cute little kids dressed up going, walking around, selling raffle items that you cannot avoid buying them. Yes. Let's see. Yeah. But we always feature one of our patient stories, at least one of our patient stories, which is the best part of the night. We're really excited about our kiddo this year. He loves basketball. He's going to receive his talk of the town award and his mom has worked so hard to get him to where he's at today. So we're excited to be able to feature one of our kiddos who's just made so much progress every year. We've seen HIPAA compliance. Can you say his first name or is that still a problem? We haven't gotten all of the paperwork in place for it yet. For your name, how about this? If I advance to that point, yes. He is four right now. Hey, four-year-old mom, son, everyone involved. Great job. Congratulations. Yes. And you all for doing what you're doing. I love that. I love those stories. That's super cool. Okay. There's so much stuff to it. We'll hit fundraising again, again too. Let me know the story. We got a couple of minutes here. You shared some really cool stories about a kid I got. Could you share a story about maybe someone a little bit older? We have all kinds of stories. So one really interesting story, actually. We had an adult come in that was having trouble with speech and language after what we thought was a stroke. And I'm talking young adult in 20s, 30s. Yeah. Oh, wow. Just multiple strokes and kept coming in. And then one day, all of a sudden, came into therapy and was doing so much better. And it turned out that he wasn't having strokes at all. He was being mistreated. He had some other kind of really rare disease. But through like going back and trying it again and saying, "Hey, your speech improved rapidly like this part's not normal. Let's look at it again. Like, let's get something else is going on here." So lots of encouragement from clinicians that kind of help you take those things back to your primary carers and your other specialists and say, "Let's look at this further." Kind of thing. So that was a really interesting case that came in. Still needed speech therapy, but just to find that they had this really rare condition. Another one that was really interesting was we had an adult come in. And one of the things that we don't like to do is look in people's ears and tell them that they need to go see an ENT or like a higher level clinician. Go see someone else. Yeah. Go see someone else. Yeah. And then not really give them any detail. Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. Terrified. Yeah. But we... You might have cancer right here. It's not. Yeah. Yeah. No, that actually did happen. We had a patient with an acoustic neuroma. So a huge growth in their ear on their auditory nerve that was causing their hearing loss. And because we told them to go see someone else because they had been to their primary care, their primary care was looking in their ear and wasn't able to identify what it was. But because they came to us for hearing loss, we were able to identify it. They had it removed. Totally clear now. Completely normal. Yeah. Completely normal now. Yeah. We'll hit some more stories in the back half. So I told you to fly by, right? Yeah. First half. Gone. Uh, chief operations officer soon to be chief executive officer. That's a fancy title. Chandra Manning, like Jackie Chan, I had to ask her that. I won't say that again for now. Let's just change our name. Great first half. Hope you had fun. I had a lot of fun. Thank you. Great for the second half. I'm ready for it. Let's do this. Yeah. What the hell just happened? Every day I'm hustling. Every day I'm hustling. Every day I'm hustling. Every day I'm hustling. Every day I'm hustling. Every day I'm hustling. Every day I'm hustling. Every day I'm hustling. Every day I'm hustling. Every day I'm hustling. Every day I'm hustling. Every day I'm hustling. Every day I'm hustling. All right. Welcome back to the second half of what the health just happened. If you missed the first half, good news, it is available on your favorite podcast platform. All the big ones. Um, we're close to YouTube, Trey, right? I think we're on YouTube, maybe, but... We're on there. We have so much great content videos. I just like, I'm not a social media guy. I don't know how to do it. The first half was incredible. Um, give me the acronym again because that's so much easier to say. It is J-S-H-C. Jacksonville Speech Inhearing Center, the chief operating officer, Chandra Manning, soon to be CEO. Yeah. Yeah. I like talking about that. That's awesome. Um, first half, we talked about a lot of stuff, the organization, what you're doing in the community, we'll hit that some more. Of course, this signature event that is May 11th at Tim Aquana, 7 p.m. Invest. We'll keep plugging that. You ready for healthy or not healthy? I'm ready for it. You got some? I'm ready. Healthy or not healthy insurance reimbursement rates. Not healthy. Ooh. Agreed. Healthy or not healthy Jackie Chan movies. Very healthy. So healthy. I love that. Um, healthy or not healthy, AirPods. Oh, in moderation. So again, we talked about this. I have to turn the volume way down, but these can't be healthy. Well, thankfully, they have their, for the most part, if you're actually talking about AirPods and Apple phones, they have their own governor. They tell you when they, you're, you're listening to it too loud. Mm. So healthy or not healthy, falling asleep, listening to a podcast with the AirPod in. I do that. Healthy. Every single night. Same here. Yeah. Okay. All right. Not unhealthy. Do you know what I did? Do you know what I did? My wife got, there's a, it's like a headband, but it's flat AirPods. Like when I fall asleep with these in, I wake up, my ear hurts. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Do you just want a greatest purchase ever? It's comfortable. She makes fun of me all the time because I look like I'm going to a spa with my little headband on, but you know what it is, I mean, um, man, I had, uh, another good health. They're not healthy. Health. They're not healthy. The city of Jax in your world, your perspective, what you see what you're dealing with somewhere in between. Okay. That's fair. That's probably most cities. Right? What you say? That's probably most cities. We are moving in the right direction. There we go. Why are they moving in the right direction? Because of you and your organization. That's why. And others like us. Oh, I know. I got one more health. You're not healthy. Let's talk about the city of Jax. Health. You're not healthy. Loud music. Not healthy. Ah, I know, but I love why loud music in my Jeep with the windows down. I know I'm big one here. I wear. How about in moderation? Everything in moderation. There you go. Right. So city of Jax, I pulled this from the website stats that you guys had there somewhere between 1 to 3 out of 1,000 children have hearing loss 16% of American adults, 13.6 Floridians have experienced some hearing loss. Let's talk about Northeast Florida. Here in Northeast Florida, just adults alone, not even looking at our pediatrics, just adults, it's estimated we have about 202,000 residents experiencing hearing loss. What? 202,000. Huh? Yeah. I've heard that before. I know. How old is that guy? Yeah. How old is he going to do it? I know. He's got to do that, Jeff. But like 202,000 in Northeast Florida. Is that the big five or Duval County? Like Ray Clay, Baker, St. John's. That's just Duval. That's a lot. That is a lot. Mainly, is it 50 or is actually predominantly men, predominantly women? Is there a study? So men are more likely to experience hearing loss than women. Women. Yeah. Yeah. Or they just don't listen. I can't. It's going to be that one. I don't mean that. I can't listen. We always say #NoEdits. Can I edit out that little joke? Although I might do it a few more times. You threw these out, right? I love the prep calls. I want any future guests to understand like these prep calls are great because we hadn't met each other. We get an opportunity to talk and spend the show. 26,000 of those are uninsured. Yes. Yeah. With hearing loss. Just with hearing loss. These are approximate numbers. They are. Yeah. They're estimated based on census data. Hearing loss. 26,000 of those are uninsured, right? Yeah. There's a cost to this service, to every service, to, you know, hearing aids. How do you say cochlear implants? Cochlear. Cochlear. Dang it. I said it wrong. That's a fun word to say. It is. People who do not treat hearing issues, here's another stat you threw out, cost $22,000 more over a 10-year span than not treating it. Right. So if you, go ahead. You hit this. Yeah. No, that's it. I mean, you think about if you're not hearing properly, then you, can you really follow doctor's orders? Do you know what to do even in an emergency situation, you know, when there's a hurricane things like that? So, just in general, it's going to cost you more. Are you taking your medications properly? Can you clearly communicate your challenges, those kinds of things? And again, soapbox, soapbox goes to cognitive decline, but I'll pause on that for a moment. So yeah, it increases the cost of your health care because you're generally not taking care of yourself properly. I would guess that that is a low number. You said 22,000 over 10 years, again, I, I'm sure there's research out there. Maybe let's do that as a project. Who doesn't love adding additional work to our work? Oh, yeah. Over 10 years, that's again, $2,200 a year. It's probably way more than that. So untreated hearing issues and the problems that come with it, I bet, is a lot higher than that number. It can be. But if you really think about that, that number, it doesn't sound like much per individual, but think about the cost to the city. That equates to about $58 million in city money. Somebody has to pay for that, right? And so that's a much larger and more realistic number. Oh, health care. I love you and I hate you. It's just the amount of money lost, money spent in the wrong places. Yes. I got to knock it on that soapbox because one of these days I'm going to get in trouble. I love you too. To benefits. Insurance is a great thing. And then sometimes not so great. Again, it is. Yeah. It has to make sense. The cost of it, all that stuff too. So the uninsured, how do they find, like are you getting introduced, someone calls you and says, "Chandra, I've got this friend of mine who's having issues. You take it. Do you have an inbound team? What does it look like for someone's like, "I need help?" Yeah. The people that need help or anyone who calls our practice gets the same help. So it's just a matter of who's paying for it. Is it an insurance carrier? Can someone afford their health care out of pocket or can they not? And then figuring out where that's coming from. How are we going to get them the help they need, right? So they're just calling the practice like anyone else. But I will say we're a 75-year-old safety net organization here in Jacksonville. That's older than Disney. That's older than Disney in Florida. 10 minutes ago. People know who we are. The physicians know who we are. The pediatricians know who we are. The oncologists, the cardiologist, all of those people that would send them to us because we have, you know, they have comorbidities that are in line with hearing loss or speech language needs. We're known. We're known and we're trusted. And so people know to send them to us. And we're connected with the other safety net organizations in Jacksonville like UF Health and Volunteers in Medicine and Saltzbacher and We Care Jax, all great, again, safety net organizations, they send them to us. I love free plugs. If any of you guys want to sponsor the show, we'd be happy to take your money, too, by the way. Do you know the Saltzbacher Center? I do not. The show come on. City, Phone, Cowser. We've talked a couple times. Yes. She's going to win. Incredible organization. Yes. UF Health. Never heard of it. Really? What were the other two you mentioned? We Care Jax. Oh, Volunteers in Medicine. And Volunteers in Medicine. I've got it. You know what? I have not talked to someone there. I think they'd be great for this show. It's a special organization. Oh, yeah. And We Care Jax. Those are all great. So you have great relationships with them. Is there anyone in Jacksonville that you don't have a relationship with yet that you want to? I'm trying to think HCA just really moved into the area, taking over Memorial Hospital. What if I could put you in touch with the CEO of HCA? I mean, I would absolutely love you for that. You hear that, Reed? Oh, personal. Yes, that's potential, but again, how do we get back to the community? Who else? Think about it. It doesn't have to be on the air. Is there anything in particular that group does that's why you would want to team up with them or work with them? Really, it's one of the only hospital organizations here locally that we are not connected with yet. We have really great relationships with Baptist, with Ascension, with Mayo. I mean, Mayo refers their tinnitus patients to us. So we have, when I say we're trusted in the community, we are trusted in the community. If Mayo is referring to you, that's next level. I know, I've known your organization for at least 10 years. Who put us in touch again? Was it Tim? I don't remember. When we talked, I'm like, I can't remember who put us in touch and me, I'm like, heck, yeah, she can come on the show. Let's go back to, I want to put you back on that soapbox, cognitive decline. Let's do it. Again, let's share your thoughts, research you've read, hearing and speech are so important early in life. But guess what? It's just as important at the end of life. It is. It's important for your initial development. Obviously, when your brain is developing in those early years and you need to learn and you're developing those neural pathways, your brain telling the rest of your body, that's a bird or, unfortunately, what it tells my husband is that's the Amazon truck again. I've been in the Amazon over the same for you. Oh, my gosh. Definitely me. Not healthy. Not healthy, I know. But it is just as important later in life and I think that's what people don't realize. We think someone's wearing a hearing aid and they're old or they're broken. At least that's what our hesitation is to address it, I think, but what it really is is that connection in your brain, so your ear is receiving a signal, but then it sends it up, your auditory nerve, right, and your brain is processing that signal and that part of your brain needs that signal as much as your leg needs to move, your fingers need to bend, and when it's not doing that, it misbehaves, it shrinks in size, it does things it's not supposed to, it rewires a little bit. Those things are so unhealthy. And I just-- Not healthy. Hashtag not healthy. Not healthy, exactly. And I don't want to be that person that doesn't know, I can't recognize my daughter, you know, when I'm 70 or, you know, that doesn't know where I live, those kinds of things. Like I want my brain to be as healthy as possible for as long as possible and I wish that people would realize that that's what it is, it's not, it's not just, oh, I don't really need to hear my wife, which again, I'm sure my husband would say it's true. This is the first time I've already had a shout out to Peter Ross, but yes, hearing aids, I told you sometimes, he'll just turn his hearing aids off. Not healthy. Or healthy, it's a bit too, yes. Have you heard, recently there's a lot of talk about health span versus lifespan, right? longevity is a big topic right now. You got Dr. Peter Attea talking about this big name, people of Huberman Labs. Hearing's a big component of it, right? So health span is how healthy are you for how long lifespan you can live to 90. But if you're last 20 years, 70 to 90, you're a vegetable, you don't want to say it, I'll say it. Yeah. You don't remember your kids, you can't communicate. That's not, your lifespan is this length, but that health span, if it drops off drastically, it's 70. Yeah. Is that what you want? And again, so hearing, going back to that stuff too, that cognitive decline, that's a big component of health span. It is. What are some good practices then to kind of stay on top of it? This guy's in my head, man. It's like we do this every week. I love that question. Well, so let me ask you, when was the last time you had your eyes checked? Oh my God. 18. 18. You want to hear a funny story? I have glasses for driving, they had broken, and I got some glasses from another family member because I refused to go pay to get the prescription updated. So sorry, that's a long-winded answer. How old are you? 38. So 20 years. 20 years. Oh my God. I still drive fine. Do you? Do you? Do you know if you get like that? You get like that. You get like that. You get like that. You get like that. You get like that. Why maybe here? I made it here. Yeah. I go to the dentist. Oh, same thing. You're bad. Okay. Next. This is most people. I bet you this is more of the population. Yeah. I live in this world. I go, I do all these things probably annually. Yeah. The dentist. I should do twice a year. I do look once a year maybe. Okay. Do you floss? So I do the water flossing at least twice a week. Okay. Back to you and what you're doing. Yeah. I test. Hearing test. Right. Exactly. I would say, especially as we age, which is when our hearing does, we expect that it's going to start to decline, most of the older population does, they do have other body parts checked regularly. Yeah. What body parts? They're bottoms. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. They do. Yeah. I mean, at a certain point you do have the bottom checked regularly too. But yeah, for whatever reason, not the ears. And a huge part of that is because when we're seeing our primary care physician, we're in a quiet environment, we're one on one. The primary care physician isn't catching it and you aren't telling them. So what healthy practices are is they came up with a cute little quote for it. They say test your ears after 60 years. So the point at which you get to be 60 years old. That is cute. Yeah. It works. I'll remember it. You should be testing it annually. It should be like part of your regular test. And like what are some of the things you're looking for? What would be signs that like, hey, I need to maybe vocalize. There might be a problem. Yeah. That's a really good question too. And there are a lot of things that you can pay attention to for that. One of the main things that we're seeing a lot more, especially since COVID, is tinnitus. That ringing in your ears. Tinnitus, I called it. Am I saying it wrong? Is it tinnitus or tinnitus? Well, okay. So the American Tinnitus Association accepts it either way now. That's like football or football. Yeah. Well, not really. You think about like arthritis and tendinitis and tonsillitis. Idis is actually an inflammation. Tinnitus is not. It is, in most cases, just a sound that your brain generates in the absence of a sound that's supposed to be receiving. Do you have that kind of discipline in himself? Yeah. Do you have it? Do you have it? These guys are going to see every docked from this show. I'm like, I'm like, I played the drums growing up from like fourth grade until I still do. Yeah. Yeah, I have it. So ringing in the ears. I'm so calling it tinnitus. Yeah. Okay. You go for it. It's accepted that way. It is tinnitus, but it's not always ringing in the ears. So we think of it as that like, you know, the beep sound right, but tinnitus can be swishing. It can be like, kind of thing. We had a patient once talk about really cool story. We had a patient, not so cool for her. Sorry. Sorry. You're nice to call my line. Cool. Sorry. Not so cool for her. She had the song Silent Night on repeat. What? In her head? In her head. Yes. Yes. Let's be honest. That's like really good. Silent. And that's all you're listening to all day, exactly. Yeah. Because like, I'll, I, with it, like, and I would imagine she's the same way, like you, you avoid being in too quiet of a room, like if in this room and we were, when we were just together, I'm like, I was like, I got to start talking or I'm going to start hearing this buzz. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But when you have hearing loss, you can't avoid that sometimes. So good news. End of that story is she did have hearing loss or hearing loss was treated. And she no longer here, Silent Night on repeat. But when we talk about tinnitus like that, it is. Tinnitus. Sorry. I'm kidding. Tinnitus. You live in that world. My background is way different. It is. It can present in all these different, like weird ways that we don't even think about. So, so tinnitus, um, I, if you have the volume turned up really loudly on anything, um, which most of the time you're not identifying someone else is coming in and going, oh my gosh, why is the television so loud? Um, even though you don't think it is, it probably is. If somebody else says, hey, that's loud, that's, it's probably a, that's like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, why is it so loud? And they say, it's not that loud. Yeah. And I tell people this one and again, like qualify it because I, I genuinely feel like there are some of a younger generation who talk a million miles a minute. And so let's just put that aside for a moment and say, if you feel like people are mumbling or talking too fast, probably also a sign that you have hearing loss, um, about high volume of speaking to, well, yes and no, um, we, like there's a different part of your brain that kind of, or a different way that you process your own voice, which part of the brain. So, I mean, not a different, sorry, it's more like a different way to process your own voice, but, uh, but yeah, generally it's not you who's raising the volume. It's other people, that's a terrible thing to do also, but, uh, um, I, I animate it with my hands. It's hard to. Are you a hand talker? I have. Have you not figured that out yet? Everything I do. Yeah. Don't do it. I don't do it. My hands. Yeah. Um, but those are your main signs, right? Volume up. And, uh, and you have tinnitus, some kind of, uh, alternate, alternate sound that doesn't happen in, in real, in the real world. So, my wife always says that, uh, it is differentiating like different noises at the same time, one, because she always, like, if I have the sink on and she's trying to talk to me, I'll be like, I can't hear you the sink song, like, Oh, that's a big thing for me. I can't. If something else is happening, that's a good question. Oh, really? I can't hear around it. Yeah. All right. So that's a little bit different. I call, I call these healthy communication strategies and they are health. We have a miracle advice. Yes. Um, healthy communication strategies are good, whether you have hearing loss or not, right? These are for normal hearing people, right? The first one I say is, um, you should not talk to somebody from the other room, right? That's one of my favorite things. I'll be like, Hey, guilty. Yes, but I mean, you all work in sound in what direction does sound travel straight exactly. So by the time, hold on, let me just write this right, yeah, oddly enough, it does not intentionally like turn to the right and then to the left to go into the office or the bathroom, right? So, um, so yeah, the, the, you should not be talking to someone from another room, but also our brains work a little bit like a computer, like, I don't know how you function, but I have 20 tabs open. I'm one of those people. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I like you more and more. But I'm only focused on the tab that happens to be in front of me, right? So that's, that's the same thing, right? You do really have to kind of get rid of all of the other noise and make sure that you're focused on whatever sound you're supposed to be focused on. And that's more of a healthy communication strategy. The way you do that is you go, Hey, honey, and then you wait for them to respond instead of just going into the next part of the sentence. It's good to know. I'm like, we, we have two stories sometimes and like my wife, staff or everyone, you know, my kids and up there like dead, but you don't just text them. Like mine does. I'm in the next room over and she's like, Hey, mom, I'm like, I am in the next room over. Get up. That's so true that the sink thing. I love that example. I'll be doing like dishes and my wife's talking to me. I'm like, I have no idea what you just said, but that's because it is, it is really hard. Like we have to intentionally tune out the rest of the sounds. You have to tune out the air conditioner or the water or whatever. So if you haven't gotten their attention to make sure that there is a clear signal and then waited for them to respond, it's, it's, I mean, it's just not there. It's an unrealistic expectation to think that they will have heard you. You know, my lease, yeah, one more. Go ahead. Good. I was just to say, we got a, my least favorite part of the show. You know what it is? What's that? When the time runs out. Oh, that's so sad. But we got a couple of minutes here left. Anyone out, like any plugs, anyone you want to mention that you appreciate at the organization. HCA will put that on the list and you that like, hey, read, right? That's G.S. Seriously, like, who are you grateful for? Who do you appreciate? I would say hi, mom, because she's, she listens to all these. Yeah. Well, I couldn't do what I do without my family. My, my husband is a saint. God love him. Since I am around town all the time. I'm Ted. Ted. Shout out. And I'm really the team that we work with because, like I said, you expect people to do more for less and people that have the heart to do just a different breed of people. And I absolutely love them. And then all of our community supporters, anyone who will get us in front of somebody else who so that we can help people improve their lives. All of our community supporters, our funders, our partners. Just everyone. We're going to get you some more too. Because we're going to do one more plug. May 11th at Tim Aquana, 7 p.m. Finn Fest, the signature event fundraiser. If you don't show up, shame on you. Stroke a check to Jacksonville Speech and Hearing Center, chief operating officer soon to be CEO, Chandra Manning. That was fun. I had fun. I hope you did. I had a ton of fun. Thank you so much. Would you come back? Absolutely. [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO]