Out of Patients EP397: Patient No More, Bullsh*t No More: Helene M Epstein
Helene M. Epstein is the kind of guest who makes you sit up, get angry, and pay attention. She’s been misdiagnosed, gaslit, ignored, and dismissed by the healthcare system more times than you want to count—and she turned all of that into firepower for change.
She’s not a doctor. She doesn’t have a PhD. What she has is lived experience, a relentless mind, and a sharp tongue—and she’s doing more to protect patients than most institutions combined. For serious.
We talked about the time she was told she had breast cancer when she didn’t, the years-long medical odyssey that almost killed her son, and why she’s building a free, no-BS guide to surviving American healthcare.
If you’ve ever been screwed over by the system—or know someone who has—you need to hear this.
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.
19 years and 2000+ episodes later, Out of Patients is still the most unfiltered healthcare show anywhere.
Matthew does not do softball interviews. Brain cancer at 21 taught him that time is finite and bullshit is expensive. He gets guests to say things they would never tell Congress. CEOs admit what is broken. Patients name what actually hurts. Scientists explain what industry does not want you to know. The conversations other shows will not touch because of sponsor concerns or political correctness.
What makes him different: he has been on both sides of the mic. Featured in documentaries. Keynoted hundreds of conferences. Published in The Hill. Now marching into Washington with a national patient constituency behind him.
But he has also been the guy puking from radiation, fighting insurance denials, and watching friends die from paperwork.
That dual perspective creates interviews you will not hear anywhere else. He knows which questions make power squirm because he has 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 American healthcare.
Still the show where whistleblowers go first. Still the show … Read More
Out of Patients EP456: Fitz Happens: The Marvelous Fitz Koehler
RSS Feed 
