Out of Patients
with Matthew Zachary
Welcome to 2026: The Year of the Patient where the sick shall inherit the ballot.
23,000 LinkedIn Followers and the Reality of US Healthcare
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.
Prior Authorization Works Exactly as Designed and That Is the Problem
Prior authorization persists because it works for the system that created it. This essay explains how cost control, risk management, and delay shape patient outcomes, why reform keeps falling short, and what must change to align financial incentives with timely care.
What Happens If More Patients Appeal Insurance Denials?
Only 0.2% of patients appeal insurance denials, yet 80% succeed. This article examines how even small increases in appeals could shift insurer behavior, raise costs, influence Wall Street expectations, and reshape the economics of American healthcare.
Why American Healthcare Delays Care and Denies Treatment
American healthcare delays care and denies treatment by design. Insurance rules, prior authorization, and administrative barriers control access to care, often slowing or blocking what doctors recommend and patients need.
American Harmcare: The System Working Exactly As Designed
A 30 year brain cancer survivor breaks down how insurance delays, denials, and red tape harm patients by design. This is not dysfunction. This is the business model.
This Week In Cuban: Our Patron Saint Is Still Doing The Lord’s Work.
Mark Cuban is stepping in where insurers fail, funding care and challenging the system. But real change will not come from policy alone. A unified patient voting bloc could reshape healthcare power in America.
I went on Humanity Rx to say the quiet part clearly and attach names, timelines, and consequences to it.
Matthew Zachary joins Humanity Rx to break down how modern cancer care improves survival while leaving patients exposed to medical debt, prior authorization delays, and financial risk, and why policy change depends on organized patient power.
When an Insurer Calls Your Treatment Investigational and the Alternative Is Brain Surgery
When an insurer labels trigeminal nerve blocks investigational, patients may face brain surgery instead. This essay examines how coverage policy, coding decisions, and actuarial incentives shape care for trigeminal neuralgia and what must change to align patient protection with economic logic.
Eczema, Exit, Repeat: The Business Model of Chronic Disease
Millions cycle through eczema treatments that calm symptoms but never fix the cause. This essay explains how payment models, regulation, and product marketing keep patients trapped in repeat care instead of long term prevention.
Blue Cross Blue Shield Got Caught Rigging The Market. The Penalty? $2.67 Billion. The Timeline? Six Years And Counting.
Blue Cross Blue Shield settled a 2.67 billion antitrust lawsuit in 2020 after restricting competition for more than a decade. Payments begin in 2026. Six years later, customers get checks while insurers move on. Here is what happened and why it keeps happening.
Medicare Advantage Works Until the Math Changes
UnitedHealth dropping Medicare Advantage plans for 600000 beneficiaries exposes a structural flaw in how private insurers manage public healthcare risk as costs from emergency care and specialty drugs accelerate faster than payment models can adjust.
Spoiler Alert: The Middlemen Cost More Than the Medicine
Health systems consolidate. Insurers post record profits. Employers spend $20,000 per employee on coverage while workers fight denials alone at 11 pm. Insurance middlemen now cost more than the drugs. The system rewards delay and calls it complexity. Families call it Tuesday.
200,000 Patients Held Hostage While Corporations Negotiate
Mount Sinai and Anthem fight over 450 million dollars while 200000 patients scramble to keep their doctors and cancer treatment. Corporate contract disputes now function as leverage tactics, turning patients into bargaining chips in rate negotiations.
Healing The Sick Care System
A personal reflection on Gil Bashe’s Healing the Sick Care System and the growing revolt against insurance driven harm. From hospital memories to national accountability, this piece calls out who holds the wheel and why 2026 signals the rise of the patient voter bloc.
The Health Insurance Industry is the new Joe Isuzu #TrustMe
Blue Cross Blue Shield says insurers protect patients from high drug prices. The real world shows delays, denials, and blame shifting while patients wait, appeal, and deteriorate. A closer look at how insurers deflect responsibility in the drug pricing debate.
How Prior Authorization Punishes the Sickest Patients
Insurance companies promise reform while patients absorb delay and denial. From IVIG rejections to cancer imaging hold ups, this essay documents how prior authorization functions in real life and why patients now recognize the pattern.
Dear Mark Cuban: Trump’s Healthcare Plan Protects the PBM Cartel
An open letter to Mark Cuban on why the Great Healthcare Plan fails patients. It leaves PBM power intact, ignores pricing abuse, and turns transparency into theater. Patients already know how often claims get denied. We live it every day.
Freedom to Go Broke
After surviving brain cancer at 21, Matthew Zachary examines how modern healthcare policy repackages risk as freedom. From cash subsidies to math free promises, this essay exposes why consumer style healthcare fails the moment illness enters the room.
🎙️ 🚨 SEASON NINE PREMIERE 🚨🎙️
Marc Elia chairs a biotech company and lives with Long COVID. On Out of Patients, he breaks down the invisible immunocompromised population, the limits of regulatory thinking, and why empathy without action leaves patients stranded.