Welcome to Explanation of Benefits, my infrequent healthcare dispatch

Explanation of Benefits

The Newsletter from Matthew Zachary

Welcome to American Healthcare. Please hold

February 2026

Why Are You Getting This?

You opened this.

That already makes you part of a very specific demographic: people willing to voluntarily receive emails about healthcare.

I appreciate the courage.

At some point you either
• signed up intentionally
• clicked something reckless
• were forwarded this by a friend who worries about you
• or have recently argued with an insurance company and needed witnesses

All valid reasons.

This email might show up weekly. Maybe bi-weekly. But certainly not daily. Definitely not hourly. And definitively not “we noticed you breathing near our website.”

Your data stays yours. If I ever change that rule, unsubscribe ASAP and put your oxygen mask on before helping others.

Recently on the Pod

Tue, Feb 17

Out of Patients EP431: Reclaiming the Vowels: Sarah Gromko

Berklee trained composer Sarah Gromko left film scoring for speech language pathology and now helps adults recover voice after stroke, ALS, brain injury, and cancer. In EP431 she explains aphasia and

Wed, Feb 11

Out of Patients EP430: Artificially Intelligent: Matt Hampton and Dr Tom Ingegno

🚨NEW EPISODE ALERT🚨

I brought Matt Hampton and Dr Tom Ingegno into my studio because they represent the kind of honesty the healthcare world avoids. Matt builds AI systems. Tom heals people with

Fri, Feb 13

These Are The People Who Believed In My Book Before It Existed

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 endor

Sat, Feb 14

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

Tue, Feb 10

Breaking Up Big Medicine

The new bipartisan proposal to separate insurers, PBMs, and providers targets the financial structure behind rising costs and denials. This piece explains how ownership concentration reshaped care,

Wed, Feb 4

No Care For You!

A new KFF poll shows prior authorization now ranks as the biggest burden in American healthcare. Delays and denials affect nearly half of insured adults, with severe mental, financial, and physical

Every year, tens of millions of Americans face illness. You know what’ll make you really feel sick? Prior authorizations, delays, denials, and appeals. In a system designed to protect profits over patients, it’s time for a second opinion.

Pre-Order Today!

One Night. New York.
Tuesday, April 28th

Matthew Zachary Live at Merkin Hall is a one night only live benefit concert that blends solo piano performance, storytelling, and lived experience. The evening marks 30 years after Matthew Zachary’s original brain cancer diagnosis and serves as the official launch of his debut book, We The Patients.

Through original solo piano music, chapter readings, and special guest voices, the program explores what survival actually looks like over time. It honors resilience without sentimentality and community without spectacle. This is not a gala or a lecture. It is a live cultural moment for people who believe art, honesty, and shared experience still have the power to move a room.

Event Deails

What Is We The Patients?

We The Patients is a nationwide patient's rights movement led by those who are done being ignored. We do not ask for awareness. We demand accountability.

Cancer flips your life upside down and then drops you into a system that working by design to prioritize process over care. No one should face that alone.

We are building the first coordinated single-issue voter bloc focused on access to care, accountability, and legal protections that prevent harm before it happens.

If you believe patients deserve standing in the system that governs their survival, join us!

Join The Movement

Take The National Poll

Stay Loud With Me

So, you made it to the bottom. That already puts you in a very specific club, so congratulations!

Follow me on all the socials, rage with me against the machine, send this to someone currently fighting a billing department and don’t take any shit from anyone. So, let’s keep keep comparing notes until the system runs out of places to hide.

Links below. Join the noise.