Eric Chong

What I actually do

I read denied medical and dental claims for a living. When a claim is denied, I can read why it lost and the appeal that wins. That is not a theory I picked up. It is the work, done on real claims, week after week. It is also the credential underneath everything else here: I am not commenting on the system from outside it. I am inside the paperwork where it actually decides who gets care and who does not.

Why this fell to me

I lost my father to a system that kept people dimmed. Too sick, too distracted, too disqualified to see what was being done to them. He had two infected root canals, left untreated for years, in a system that treats the mouth like a separate country from the body. I will not tell you a tooth alone killed him. I will tell you that untreated infection is a real risk factor for the rest of the body, that every clinician grants the pathway is real, and that his went unaddressed inside the same gaps I write about here.

I did not plan to do this. Nobody else was paying attention to this one problem, so it fell to me.

What I am building

A publication and a movement around one idea: everyone has an insurance plan, and almost nobody has a health plan. An insurance plan is sold to you, built around what someone will cover. A health plan is drafted by you, for you. I help people build theirs, and I do it in public, with receipts. Health starts from the mouth.

What I know cold

• Health planning
• Health consciousness
• Medical and dental insurance denials
• The oral-systemic (mouth-body) connection
• Medicare dental reimbursement

How I hold the line

I keep the physical the proof and the consciousness the consequence. I name a mechanism when it is earned and I hold a question open when it is not. Correlation gets stated as correlation. Causation gets the words it has earned and no more. When I am wrong, the record shows it. That is the whole posture: the most grounded person in the room, saying the biggest thing.