PowerLiving with Kimberlee Langford

Send us Fan Mail

A hospice kitchen table doesn’t sound like the start of a movement, but that’s exactly where Susan L. Combs takes us and it’s impossible to forget. We talk with Susan about the moment her dad, Roger, asked for pancakes near the end of his life, how she carried that request with both tenderness and realism, and how it became Pancakes for Roger, a gratitude ritual that grew into a veterans nonprofit with measurable impact.

Before we get there, we zoom out to Susan’s bigger philosophy: do more better. She walks us through building Combs and Company, working in healthcare benefits and health plan design, serving as an expert witness, and her walk as an industry mentor. Then we dig into what she believes is most broken about healthcare and employee benefits: small employers get treated like an afterthought even though they make up the overwhelming majority of businesses. If you’ve ever felt lost in insurance jargon, renewals, claims, or plan changes, you’ll recognize why she says people need an advocate, not another dashboard.

We also connect the dots between CrossFit, leadership, and community. Susan explains why doing hard things together builds trust, how patience beats instant gratification, and why PRs can teach you to stay in the long game. We close with her Wonder Woman work spotlighting women, including female veterans, and why story ownership, consent, and voice matter when you put someone’s life on the page.

Follow Susan on LinkedIn and learn more:  PancakesforRoger.org

 - and thru September, the application window for otheir Veteran Housing Grants is accepting applications: emergency housing support, critical home repairs, or vital accommodations, we are here to help provide up to $1,500 in direct vendor-paid assistance.

 

Housing Support & Improvement Grants Applications:  https://pancakesforroger.org/grants

 

Stack Attack Dragon Slayer Ruck:  https://competitioncorner.net/events/22249/details



Subscribe for more conversations like this, share this with a friend who cares about veterans or benefits, and leave a review with the biggest lesson you’re taking from Susan’s story.

Send us Fan Mail

It has been a real honor to co-author with Christopher Voss and other leaders from around the globe. 

I sat down recently with Ryan Ruff on this Podcast, and our conversation is delicious - join me as we go beyond my chapter in "Lead with Empathy" as we get to talk about what truly drives me in my personal and professional life.

"This is the quiet revolution of empathy: it transforms everything it touches, including and especially the person brave enough to wield it."

Send us Fan Mail

Stress doesn’t always need a new plan. Sometimes it needs a pause you can actually feel. We recorded a short guided meditation designed to help you settle your body, slow your breath, and remind your nervous system of something simple and powerful: “I am safe in this moment.” If you’ve been pushing, performing, or trying to power through, this is your permission to stop forcing it and come back to center.

We start with gentle breathwork for stress relief, then move into a grounding body scan from your feet up through your legs, hips, abdomen, chest, shoulders, neck, and face. Along the way, we soften the jaw and forehead, release what we’ve been carrying, and let the breath become steady. From there, we use a calming visualization of crystal and golden light moving through the body, clearing out noise and restoring steadiness across mind, heart, digestion, muscles, nerves, and spirit.

The meditation ends with a vivid image: a strong, luminous wheel that represents your health, energy, peace, and purpose. We place our hands on that wheel and remember we’re not powerless or lost. Instead of trying to change everything at once, we focus on one number to notice, one ritual to practice, or one boundary to protect because small strategic shifts change momentum. You’ll also hear affirmations you can repeat anytime to anchor self care, compassion, and sustainable habits.

If this helped you breathe a little easier, subscribe so you have it ready when life gets noisy, share it with someone who needs a reset, and leave a review to help more listeners find this kind of calm.

Send us Fan Mail

Send us Fan Mail

A single procedure can leave you with five bills, a stack of jargon, and the nagging fear that one surprise charge will hit collections. We wanted a better answer, so we sat down with Dr. Kikkeri, an anesthesiologist and pain management physician who helped build a bundled surgery model designed around one clear price, measurable quality, and a calmer patient experience.

His motivation is not theoretical. He shares the moment that changed his career trajectory: seeing a patient with metastatic colon cancer after she stopped getting preventive colonoscopies because her deductible rose and she could not afford screening. That story pushes us into the real stakes behind transparent healthcare pricing and bundled payments. When access to care collapses under financial stress, “choice” becomes meaningless, and preventable disease becomes catastrophic.

We break down what bundled surgery pricing actually means in practice: what is typically included in a bundle (facility, surgeon, anesthesia, routine pathology, and even implants in many cases), what may be excluded (certain imaging or pre-op specialty work), and why knowing the total cost upfront changes the clinical experience. We also talk about surgical navigation, quality metrics for surgeons and ambulatory surgery centers, and pre-op risk stratification that helps lower complications and infection rates. For self-insured employers and TPAs, we connect the dots to predictable surgical spend, reduced stop-loss pressure, and better member satisfaction.

If you care about independent surgical centers, healthcare cost transparency, and building a system that feels human again, press play. Subscribe, share this with a colleague, and leave a review with your biggest question about bundled pricing.

Send us Fan Mail

What if the most important part of healthcare lives between the five‑minute doctor visit and the rest of a patient’s life? We sit down with Mendel, CEO of CareCo, to show how an AI co‑pilot can remember every touchpoint, guide better conversations, and finally give care teams the tools they deserve—without replacing the human heart of care.

Across eight years running a coordination service, Mendel learned that success hinges on workflow, not shiny features. Care teams everywhere follow the same core loop—pre‑call prep, post‑call documentation, follow‑up tasks, and ongoing communications—yet juggle it across tabs, systems, and memory. CareCo stitches phone, video, text, and ambient capture into one surface so the AI can build a living “brain” for each patient, then generate a call guide that’s both clinically smart and personally warm. Think motivational interviewing prompts alongside reminders about the orange pill bottle they couldn’t find last time.

We dig into quality and compliance in a way that actually helps: organizational call‑guide profiles encode standards, consent language, and end‑of‑call summaries, while every conversation is scored with citations to the exact moments that mattered. In a value‑based world, that level of attribution—who did what, when, and with what effect—may be the difference between getting paid for outcomes or getting lost in the noise. Early results show around 40 percent efficiency gains, richer conversations, and less burnout, but the real question is how to use that time: push more volume, or cap caseloads and move toward six‑hour days or four‑day weeks so clinicians can practice at the top of their license and feel the joy again.

If you lead care teams, this is a practical blueprint for turning AI from “another tool to learn” into an always‑on partner that protects attention, lifts quality, and proves value. We keep it transparent, hands‑on, and focused on what actually changes patient lives: trust, follow‑through, and clear next steps. Subscribe for more conversations at the frontier of care coordination, and if this resonated, share it with a colleague and leave a quick review—your feedback helps others find the show.

Send us Fan Mail

Send us Fan Mail

Send us Fan Mail

Send us Fan Mail