I wrote We the Patients for people trying to survive American healthcare. I did not expect physicians, academics, and medical educators to start asking whether it belongs in the classroom. So, naturally, I have one question: How the hell did this happen?

We the Patients is in the front window of Barnes & Noble on Fifth Avenue. For Matthew Zachary, the surreal milestone is about more than seeing his book on display. It’s about seeing patients, and the idea of patients as a constituency, finally occupying some very public real estate.

What happens after you understand how American healthcare actually works? The We the Patients reader survey asks whether healthcare literacy creates agency, anger, preparedness, or something more powerful: the expectation that the system should change.

Crossing 24,000 LinkedIn followers is more than a social media milestone. It reflects a growing community of patients, caregivers, and clinicians who are tired of insurance denials, medical debt, and a healthcare system that too often puts bureaucracy before people.

Most people assume an insurance denial is the end of the story. It isn’t. Learn why appeals succeed more often than you think, why so few patients file them, and discover a free, plain-English guide to navigating denials, deadlines, and your rights before you give up.

At the 2026 Robert A. Winn Clinical Investigator Symposium, hundreds of medical students received We the Patients and were challenged to see healthcare from the patient side of the bed rail, including the burden, bureaucracy, and hidden labor that medical training too often ignores.

OncoDaily named 100 influential cancer survivors for 2026. Matthew Zachary explains why the honor matters, why it’s bittersweet, and what survivor visibility really means for newly diagnosed patients looking for proof they’re not alone.

Every major source of patient data in this country is compromised by whoever paid for it. The We The Patients National Patient Perspectives Poll changes that. 5 minutes. Anonymous. The data belongs to patients, not institutions.

Thirty years after brain cancer, Matthew Zachary returned to the piano at Merkin Hall for MZLIVE, a night that became far more than a concert. Survivors, advocates, clinicians, and healthcare leaders confronted what survivorship actually costs and what the system still refuses to see

We the Patients officially launches today and is already in its second printing before release day. Matthew Zachary shares why readers across healthcare, advocacy, and survivorship circles are responding so strongly to a book that names the realities patients live through every day.

23,000 people follow me on LinkedIn. They are patients, caregivers, and clinicians dealing with insurance denials, medical debt, and delays in care. Here is what they are seeing every day and why it reflects a much larger problem across US healthcare.

After 30 years of cancer survivorship, Matthew Zachary explains why he partnered with Codex Labs. This post explores radiation side effects, steroid driven treatment cycles, skincare regulation gaps, and why barrier focused science matters for compromised skin.

National healthcare leaders put their names on We The Patients because they recognize what patients have endured for decades. From Scientific American to former Medicaid and CDC officials, these endorsements validate a movement to reclaim power from a system that failed the people it was built to serve.

A blinking answering machine. That's how I found out I had brain cancer. I was 21. Thirty years later, I wrote a book about it. "We the Patients" isn't a memoir—it's a manual. The system isn't broken. It was built this way. Don't try to fix it. Rig it in your favor. This book shows you how.

I was 21. Brain cancer came via a blinking answering machine. There was barely an internet. No young adult programs. We kind of all just died back then. But I didn't. I've watched three decades of impossible become ordinary—and it's been the greatest terrible privilege. 2026 is the Year of the Patient.

ACA subsidies are gone. Premiums are up 114%. 19 million cancer survivors and 150 million Americans with chronic conditions remember every denial and every EOB that reads like a threat. We are the largest bipartisan voter bloc yet to be organized. 2026 is the Year of the Patient. We will vote.