Out of Patients with Matthew Zachary
Out of Patients with Matthew Zachary
The longest-running independent healthcare podcast, Out of Patients with Matthew Zachary has supplied 17 years of unfiltered truth about American healthcare. A 30-year brain cancer survivor, Matthew built the young adult cancer movement from scratch. Now he channels patient rage into political power, featuring on the air battle-scarred survivors, exhausted caregivers, and the rare insider brave enough to name what's killing us. It’s real stories from real people who refuse to accept that healthcare has to hurt this much. New listeners come for the truth. They stay because finally someone's saying what they've been screaming.
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Out of Patients with Matthew Zachary

Recent Episodes

3
Aug. 17, 2026

[HIATUS] The Cancer Mavericks EP3: The Navigator and the Negotiator

In 1967, breast surgeon Dr. Harold P. Freeman arrived at Harlem Hospital expecting to treat cancer. Instead, he confronted a healthcare system where poverty, racism, lack of insurance, and institutional barriers often determined who lived long enough to receive treatment. Patients frequently arrived with advanced disease, not because medicine lacked answers, but because access to care had failed them. This episode explores how cancer survivorship expanded beyond medical breakthroughs to include
Aug. 16, 2026

[BONUS] Subject Matter: Four Teenagers Built a Play From Scratch

Welcome to a very, very, very special bonus episode of Out of Patients, and one unlike anything published on this feed before. For nearly 20 years, Matthew Zachary has handed these microphones to patients, caregivers, doctors, advocates, troublemakers, and people with something worth saying. This time, he handed them to his daughter. Hannah Greenzweig grew up around this show, and now she has commandeered the studio with 3 of her wonderfully creative high school friends to talk about something t
Aug. 12, 2026

Standard Deviation S2 E6: Margins of Error (Series Finale)

A man is struck by a car on the streets of Los Angeles. In the emergency department, a CT scan ordered to look for traumatic injuries reveals something nobody expected: a mass in his colon. Days later, sitting across from Dr. Belinda Waltman, he calls the accident “a blessing in disguise.” Then he changes the subject. He is less worried about cancer than about whether he can afford to miss another day of work. In this season finale of Standard Deviation, host Dr. Oliver Bogler explores what hap

Recent Blog Posts

July 28, 2026

Out of Patients EP4534: Your Benefits May Vary: Rebecca Bloom

🚨NEW EPISODE 🚨 Rebecca Bloom spent years inside one of the least sexy but most consequential corners of American healthcare. Employee benefits law. Executive compensation. HR policy. The part of the machine where cancer quietly turns into paperwork…
July 22, 2026

Out of Patients EP453: Mission, Margin, and the Women Left Waiting with Vasanta Pundrika

WOMEN MAKE 80% OF HEALTHCARE SPENDING DECISIONS. THEY ALSO SPEND 25% MORE OF THEIR LIVES IN POORER HEALTH. THE SYSTEM FINALLY NOTICED THEY HAVE WALLETS. 🚨NEW EPISODE ALERT 🚨 Vasanta spent 20 years in healthcare investment banking before walking aw…
July 15, 2026

Out of Patients EP452:You Shouldn’t Need AI to Survive Cancer: Brad Power

Brad Power spent years helping corporations understand systems, incentives, and operational failure points before cancer forced him to study a very different machine. Now he runs Cancer Patient Lab and Open Cancer AI, which sounds futuristic until y…

About the Host

Matthew Zachary Profile Photo
Matthew Zachary

Producer

Matthew Zachary invented healthcare podcasting before podcasting was a thing. In 2007, fresh off building Stupid Cancer, he grabbed a mic, launched The Stupid Cancer Show and started broadcasting patient stories on internet talk radio when everyone else was still writing blogs.

17 years and 400+ episodes later, Out of Patients is still the most unfiltered healthcare show anywhere.

Matthew doesn't do softball interviews. Brain cancer at 21 taught him that time is finite and bullshit is expensive. He gets guests to say things they'd never tell Congress. CEOs admit what's broken. Patients name what actually hurts. Scientists explain what industry doesn't want you to know. The conversations other shows won't touch because of sponsor concerns or political correctness.

What makes him different: He's been on both sides of the mic. Featured in documentaries, testified before Congress, keynoted hundreds of conferences.

But he's also been the guy puking from radiation, fighting insurance denials, and watching friends die from paperwork.

That dual perspective creates interviews you won't hear anywhere else. He knows which questions make power squirm because he's asked them from hospital beds and boardrooms both.

No pre-approved questions. No PR handlers. No seven-minute segments. Just real conversations with people brave enough to tell the truth about healthcare. After 17 years, Matthew's still the guy Mark Cuban reposts when he wants to understand what patients actually think.

Still the show where whistleblowers go first. Still asking the questions that make everyone uncomfortable.

Because comfortable conversations don't fix broken systems.