Red Flag Hero 🚩

We drive revenue for innovative healthcare companies thorough storytelling & strategic communications. 

Our engaging content simplifies complex health & health systems navigation information into messaging that resonates with patients while empowering them to become more informed, confident consumers of healthcare.

Founder

MdAPA

Brand Ambassador for Maryland Academy of Physician Assistants, promoting the PA profession and advocating for healthcare excellence across Maryland.

Brand Ambassador

The Healthcare Liberty Lab Podcast

The system wasn't designed for you to win. It was built to confuse, complicate, and control. Every week, we deconstruct the healthcare machine that profits from your ignorance offering real world solutions that patients can use TODAY. 

No sugar-coating, no corporate agenda- just actionable intelligence on reclaiming your medical freedom.

What You'll Get:

*. Raw conversations with insiders
*. Tactical frameworks to navigate billing & medical decisions
*. Proven methods to question systemic practices that don't serve patients
*. Clear paths to medical autonomy without a bunch of garbage industry jargon

Most people spend a lifetime surrendering their health decisions to a system designed to extract maximum profit. Then wonder why they're broke, sick and dependent.

You don't have to be most people.

The modern patient needs clarity, not confusion. 
Transparency, not transactions. 
Freedom, not fear.

If you're ready to transform from passive patient to informed decision-maker, this is your blueprint.

Subscribe now to join a community of free-thinkers reclaiming their health sovereignty—one informed choice at a time.

https://thehealthcarelibertylab.substack.com/

Host

CrowdHealth

I quit paying obscene health insurance premiums to faceless corporations & joined a revolution where real humans support each other's medical bills - it's awesome.  No networks. No premiums. No BS.  

Ask me how I sleep at night knowing healthcare doesn't own me anymore.

red flag writing collective

Stop asking for permission to achieve greatness.  ​

Cofounder

Privia Health

Plan, execute, and oversee multiple clinical trials and research studies involving human subjects. Collaborate with Principal Investigators and research teams to ensure the ethical and scientific integrity of research endeavors.

Key Responsibilities:

Study Protocol Execution: Implement research protocols, including participant recruitment, informed consent, and data collection, while adhering to ethical guidelines and regulatory requirements.

Patient Care: Provide comprehensive clinical care to research participants, including physical assessments, medical histories, and monitoring of adverse events.

Data Collection and Management: Accurately record and maintain research data, ensuring data integrity and compliance with Good Clinical Practice (GCP) standards.

Regulatory Compliance: Collaborate with regulatory affairs to prepare and submit required documents for institutional review board (IRB) approval and maintain ongoing compliance throughout the study.

Safety Monitoring: Monitor and manage participant safety, promptly reporting and addressing any adverse events or protocol deviations.

Collaboration: Work closely with the research team, including coordinators, nurses, and other investigators, to ensure smooth study operations.

Participant Education: Educate participants about the study, procedures, and potential risks, ensuring informed consent and understanding.

Data Analysis: Assist in data analysis and interpretation to contribute to research findings and publications.

Quality Assurance: Maintain high-quality standards in research conduct and documentation to meet regulatory and sponsor requirements.

Clinical Trials Investigator

MZQ Consulting, LLC

Director of Fiduciary Services

Direct Care Connect

Direct Care Connect was founded by a team of clinicians and advocates with a vision to provide free direct primary care services to underserved and uninsured communities in the US. We are a non-profit healthcare delivery model committed to serving the medical needs of every American and especially those in populations that make it demonstrably more difficult to access and pay for primary care.

Founding Partner | Executive Director

University of Maryland Medical System

Provide consistent, high quality care to patients in a fast-paced and challenging environment.

Emergency Medicine Physician Associate

AFC Urgent Care Edgewater

Awesome experience practicing in urgent care seeing 35+ patients a day.  Amazing team; great patients.  Missed Emergency Medicine too much to stay.  Have stayed on PRN.

Physician Associate

NFL Cheerleader turned EMPA | Award-winning Health Leader | Functional Medicine Advocate | International Speaker | Media Contributor | Podcaster Extraordinaire 😉

I burned out as an Emergency Medicine PA after treating thousands of patients through lockdowns, mandates, and with conflicted guidance and uncertainty.  I ended up depressed, apathetic and completely demoralized. 

I was drowning. The healthcare system was broken and I felt powerless to fix it. 

I started writing on LinkedIn in Summer 2021 with zero followers. I had no idea what I was doing. Just a burned-out healthcare worker who needed an outlet and had strong opinions about fixing the system.

This led to:

• 10K+ followers in 6 months
• Non-clinical unicorn position
• Flexible clinical research role
• Regular podcast appearances
• Keynote speaking opportunities
• Featured in Medscape and US News
• Brand consulting that 3x'd my clinical salary
• Press access to cover FDA and HHS (my dream)

I'm not that smart and have no special training in marketing, and yet, writing online saved my life and changed absolutely everything from my finances to my mental health.

The healthcare professionals I've helped have experienced similar transformations.  

And I love being a part of their stories and I finally feel fulfilled. Through their work and my own,  I'm finally changing healthcare and helping patients in a real way. 

Your expertise is your competitive advantage - you just need to show up consistently and authentically.

My beliefs that drive everything I do:

- Healthcare needs more voices online
- Your expertise deserves a bigger stage
- Opportunities come to those who show up
- Mental health matters more than any paycheck

How can I help you?

• Writing systems that create opportunities 
• Sponsorships for mission-aligned companies that connect you with your customers. 

Join our community for insights and connections that will change your life: https://www.send.co/a/rhlBOCQ9

Tiffany Ryder

Oshi Health

Founding Medical Director

Forbes

https://www.forbes.com/health/medical-advisory-board/michael-bass/

 Forbes Healthcare Advisory Board

US Digestive Health

Gastroenterologist

AngelMD

Co-Chair, Clinical Advisory Board 

GI Digital

Strategic Advisor

On Deck

Health Fellow,(ODH1)

Medtronic

Medical Consultant

CarePortMD

Medical Advisor

CapsoVision, Inc.

Expert Small Bowel Capsule Reader

Consultant

Union Hospital of Cecil County

Gastroenterologist | Medical Director, Oshi Health | LinkedIn Top Healthcare Management Voice | Forbes Health Contributor

Dr. Bass is a diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine, with a sub-specialization in Gastroenterology and Hepatology. He believes technology can transform the current landscape of Healthcare. He's the founding medical director of Oshi Health, a venture-backed Virtual Care startup that provides comprehensive gastroenterological care. In addition, he's had advisory roles in multiple med-tech startups. 
     
    Dr. Bass believes U.S. healthcare was built on reactive strategy. Often the solutions are geared toward the symptoms rather than the root cause of chronic illness. The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in a societal inflection point. Technology has the potential to change the fabric of our healthcare system for the better. But, clinical practitioners must lead the charge because they understand what patients need. If we ignore their insight, we’ll build solutions for the wrong problems.

Key Achievements: 

✴️ First physician on the east coast, second globally to perform Virtual Pillcam ( Medtronic's SB3@home Pilot Program with Amazon)

✴️His Clinical research was instrumental in obtaining FDA clearance for a novel mode of delivery of wireless capsule endoscopy (The American Journal of Gastroenterology: October 2021 - Volume 116 - Issue - p S619-S620)

✴️Founding Medical Director of Oshi Health, the first comprehensive virtual platform for patients with Gastrointestinal Conditions 

✴️During the height of the pandemic, he developed and oversaw the First Responders COVID-19 Testing program with New Castle County Executive Matt Myer, in partnership with Labcorp.

✴️ Linkedin Top Healthcare Management Voice 

✴️ Linkedin Top Working with Physician's Voice

✴️ Linkedin Top Healthcare Voice 



Michael Bass, M.D.

Big news in cancer diagnostics today. Abbott  is buying Exact Sciences in a deal valued around $23 Billion dollars. That number is so big it almost distracts from what’s actually happening underneath it.

I’ve been watching this space for years, and the signal here is loud. Cancer screening isn’t a niche innovation lane anymore. It’s becoming infrastructure. And Abbott just decided it wants to own the pipes.

Exact brings more than $3 billion in revenue and high teens growth. Abbott’s diagnostics business jumps past $12 billion. They’re willingly absorbing near term earnings drag because they see what everyone in GI and oncology is already feeling in clinic. Earlier detection is where the world is moving.

What stands out to me is the ecosystem they’re buying. Cologuard. Cologuard Plus. Oncotype DX. Multi cancer early detection blood tests. Molecular residual disease monitoring. Genetic risk tools. It’s the entire arc of the cancer journey, from the first hint of risk to the decisions made after treatment. And now all of that sits inside a company with global reach.

From a GI perspective, this is going to push screening even further upstream. More patients detected before symptoms. More noninvasive testing. More risk stratification before anyone gets near specialty care. The funnel shifts and definition of early changes.

When companies make bets this size, they’re not betting on a product. They’re betting on a direction. The direction here is obvious: Earlier signals, broader access and scaled prevention.

LinkedIn Top Voice | Gastroenterologist I Medical Director @ Oshi Health

Open article: Abbott bets on cancer screening with $23 billion Exact Sciences deal by reuters.com

A logo of Abbott at the company’s booth at the 8th China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai, China, November 6, 2025.REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

Abbott bets on cancer screening with $23 billion Exact Sciences deal

Elon Musk and Jensen Huang described two different futures for healthcare. Only one reflects what’s actually happening in medicine today.

At a recent conference, Jensen Huang argues that AI makes clinicians more productive, not redundant. His evidence is radiology . A decade ago, experts predicted AI would eliminate the specialty entirely. The opposite happened. AI absorbed high-volume pattern recognition. Radiologists focused on diagnosis, complexity, and clinical judgment. The result was better accuracy, greater access, more jobs.

Elon Musk recently claimed that Optimus will eventually perform superhuman surgery, implying that robotics could replace surgeons altogether. Jensen is describing a system that already exists. While, Elon is engaging in a thought experiment.

Jensen seems to understand the underlying reality of medical care, its messy. Surgery isn’t a factory assembly- line. It’s context and improvisation . Anatomy that varies with every patient. It’s managing bleeding, adhesions, infections, and comorbidities in real time, decisions shaped by years of experience that can’t be reduced to an algorithm.

Will AI and robotics advance surgery? Absolutely. They’ll improve safety, automate specific tasks, reduce variability, and expand access. But full  replacement seems unlikely, especially in Elon’s timeframe. 

Look at what’s actually happening in healthcare right now. AI thats moving the needle: augments and removes administrative burden, accelerates diagnosis, and raises what human clinicians can achieve.

In the long term AI expands capability and reach, but humans remain essential because medicine fundamentally deals with edge cases, uncertainty, and judgment under biological conditions that don’t behave like manufacturing processes.

Pancreatic cancer kills faster than we can treat it. But UCLA may have just cracked the first real blueprint to stop it. And it’s forcing the entire field to rethink what’s possible.

Pancreatic cancer is the one that outruns you. By the time you find it, it has already learned how to hide and spread. As a gastroenterologist, its my biggest fear. I’ve had to tell families their loved ones cant be cured. There’s almost no clues to diagnosis,untill its too late. It builds dense biological armor that keeps even our strongest treatments out.

That’s why this new UCLA data hit differently. Researchers tested an off-the-shelf CAR-NKT cell therapy that wiped out pancreatic tumors in preclinical models. It worked even after metastasis had already occurred.

The therapy bypassed the tumor defenses that usually defeat traditional immunotherapies. It’s manufactured from donor cells instead of patient-specific engineering. And it can be produced for around $5,000 per dose instead of the $300,000-plus we’re used to.

That shift alone changes the math. It turns a niche, elite treatment into something thousands of patients could access from a single donor. And it expands the ceiling on what we thought cell therapy could do for solid tumors.

For me, this breaks the “nothing more we can do” mindset that defines too many pancreatic cancer conversations. I’ve sat with families who deserved better tools than the ones we had. This data suggests those tools may finally be on the horizon.

We’re still early, and human trials will decide the truth. Science hasn’t solved pancreatic cancer quite yet. But it opened a door that’s been locked for decades.

Nursing just got downgraded.

The Department of Education revised its definition of a “professional degree” and nursing didn’t make the cut. That means advanced nursing programs lose access to higher federal loan limits and certain loan-forgiveness pathways.

This lands at the worst possible moment.
We have a nursing shortage. We have burnout at levels the system has never seen. We have hospitals running entire units on travelers because the pipeline is thinning. And now the policy response is to make graduate nursing education harder?

If you shrink the on-ramp, you shrink the workforce. And when the workforce shrinks, burnout accelerates. It becomes a loop.
The system is already fragile. Nurses are already stretched. Patients feel it. Clinicians feel it. And the gap between what policymakers say and what frontline teams live through keeps widening.

Open article: Nursing Excluded as 'Professional' Degree By Department of Education by nurse.org

Nursing Excluded as 'Professional' Degree By Department of Education

A group of high-school kids in Georgia may have just done something the rest of us in healthcare have struggled with for decades. They built a CRISPR-based test that can potentially detect Lyme disease within two days of infection. For a disease that hides in plain sight until it’s too late, that timeline alone would change everything.

 Their data is early, and it’s all proof-of-concept in simulated serum, not real patient samples. But the idea is bold, the mechanism is sound, and the imagination behind it is exactly what healthcare keeps saying it wants but rarely creates the conditions for.

These students didn’t have grant cycles, committee reviews, or a four-year regulatory roadmap. They had access to the tools, a good teacher, a clear problem, and the psychological permission to try something big.

Every clinician knows early Lyme is a diagnostic minefield. Patients bounce around with vague symptoms, get false reassurance, and lose precious time as the disease digs in. If something like this pans out, we could pull whole trajectories back toward health.

What these teens really built wasn’t just a test. They showed what can happen when talent gets paired with modern tools instead of bureaucracy.

If healthcare wants breakthroughs, we should be paying attention to where the breakthroughs are actually happening. In labs without titles. In minds without constraints. In students who didn’t know they were supposed to stay in their lane.

Novo Nordisk just made a quiet but important move in the GLP-1 space.

They introduced a new self pay program for Wegovy and Ozempic. The first two doses are now $199 a month. After the introductory phase, the price shifts to $349 a month instead of the usual $499.

More people will try these medications for the first time. Especially patients whose insurance plans still refuse to cover GLP-1s. It also signals something bigger. Pharma is starting to feel real pressure to create affordable paths outside the traditional insurance channel.

And there’s another angle here. The market is flooded with compounded versions and knockoffs. Novo Nordisk is drawing a line by making FDA approved semaglutide more accessible at the point where most patients enter treatment.

But affordability is only the first step. The harder part is follow through. What happens to long term adherence when patients are self pay ? Who manages dose escalation ?Who tracks side effects? Who handles discontinuation or rebounds? 

I see this every week in practice. Lowering the barrier to start is good. But it creates new questions around continuity, counseling, and long term safety.

If you work in obesity medicine, primary care, GI, endocrinology, digital health, or employer benefits, this is worth paying attention to.

Open article: Novo Nordisk cuts direct-to-consumer prices for Wegovy, Ozempic to $349 a month by www-cnbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org

Novo Nordisk cuts direct-to-consumer prices for Wegovy, Ozempic to $349 a month

The next $9B healthcare revolution isn’t coming from a new drug. It’s coming from your gut.

I spent the week going through Scope Forward's new report on the microbiome market and the signal is unmistakable. This isn’t a fringe niche anymore. It’s becoming one of the fastest-growing categories in healthcare.

A $1.6B market in 2025 growing to almost $9B by 2034. That’s biotech-scale expansion hiding inside an organ most of us barely learned about in training.  

What’s driving the surge:

• FDA-approved therapeutics from Rebiotix Inc (a Ferring Company) (Ferring and Seres Therapeutics (  Vowst and Reybota ) 
• AI platforms like Jona, Iom Bioworks, and Microba building “digital twins” of the gut
• CRISPR-driven engineering from groups like SNIPR Biome - A CRISPR Company 
• Personalized nutrition and wellness platforms like Zoe, Supergut, Pendulum Therapeutics, and Viome - which also has FDA Breakthrough Device designation for early cancer detection, plus partnerships with GSK, Scripps Health, and Mayo Clinic
• Early-life gut health innovation from Tiny Health
• Multi-omic testing platforms from Clinical Microbiomics, CosmosID, Inc., and Microbiome Insights Inc.
• Diagnostics companies pushing the field forward, like PreciseDx and 32 Biosciences "Three Squared"

The common theme is scale. These aren’t small labs anymore. They’re mature platforms with investors, clinical pipelines, regulatory pathways, and rapidly expanding real-world use cases. 

And the clinical implications are massive.The report calls the microbiome a “healthcare operating system” After reading it, that no longer feels like an exaggeration.  

A few patterns stand out:

• GLP-1 response is increasingly predictable by baseline gut signatures
• Post-GLP-1 weight regain tracks with microbial diversity loss
• IBS, IBD, NAFLD, and metabolic disease all show microbiome-linked phenotypes
• Infant and maternal gut health is becoming its own specialty
• Smart sensors, at-home sequencing, and AI interpretation are pulling this into routine care fast

For clinicians ,a new field is forming, and GI is at the center of it. For startups, regulatory clarity plus market pull is rare ,and it’s happening now. For patients, we’re moving toward more personal, precise, preventive care.

Full report is linked in the comments, its a must read for anyone building in the space.

Influencers made millions selling the fantasy of “wild birth.” Now babies are dying.

The Guardian’s investigation into the Free Birth Society is devastating. But it’s also predictable if you understand how the modern health information ecosystem works.

A handful of creators built a movement that rejects prenatal care, midwives, and obstetricians. They wrapped it in spiritual empowerment. They monetized it through expensive courses. And when tragedies happened the blame quietly shifted to the mothers. It looks extreme only until you zoom out.

The same playbook is all over gut health. I see it every week. People come to me after following online influencers that promise transformation. Anti-antibiotic extremism, Herbal detoxes, Colon cleanses, Twenty ingredient supplements, Zero fiber diets,
I hear about another extreme protocol every week.

Influencers operate in an economy where clarity beats accuracy, confidence beats nuance, and fear is the strongest conversion tool on earth. If you can turn a health belief into an identity you’ve built the most profitable funnel in modern wellness.

Real Healthcare operates in a completely different economy. Slow, Regulated, and Data driven. Designed to avoid harm.
And when the public can’t access it quickly or affordably they migrate toward whoever speaks first, loudest, and simplest.

Once someone feels dismissed by a clinician the internet becomes their new medical home. And in that world the Free Birth Society isn’t an outlier. It’s the logical endpoint of a system where emotional resonance outperforms evidence.

There’s a psychological piece too. Humans crave stories that restore agency.Traditional medicine can feel complex and disempowering, especially in todays current system. Influencers sell narratives where you’re the hero who “listens to your body” and rejects the institutions that failed you. Once you’re in that frame even risk looks virtuous.

The Free Birth Society exposed the cost of that system in its purest form. Clinicians need to step into these conversations before the next ideology scales. We can’t counter harmful health narratives by staying silent or speaking only in data. 

Clinicians need to learn how to communicate with the same emotional clarity and human resonance that online influencers use so effectively. If we don’t meet patients at that level of connection someone else will.

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NYC hospitals quietly rolled out new AI tools without notifying nurses. There was no training, no safety protocol, and no disclosure about what the technology would actually do. They didn’t launch a pilot. they just turned it on and hoped no one asked questions.

Now nurses are speaking out, and the details are alarming. One ICU nurse reported vendors attaching devices directly to patients’ skulls without supervision. 

When executives move faster than the clinical reality can absorb, patients become the beta testers. AI isn’t dangerous on its own, but unchecked AI deployment absolutely is. 

When systems introduce technology without the people who actually run care, risk climbs faster than benefit. And no algorithm can compensate for a rollout designed in a boardroom instead of a hospital floor.

We have to stop pretending clinicians are “resistant to innovation.” They are resistant to being handed black-box tools with no transparency and no evidence they make care safer. 

Executives don’t run workflows, and vendors don’t run codes, but nurses do. They see the gap between how the tech is pitched and how it actually behaves in real time. And they’re the ones who carry the consequences when that gap becomes a safety event.

If the frontline didn’t help build it, it’s not ready for the bedside. AI should make care more reliable, more human,and less chaotic.

We don’t need to slow innovation down; we need to anchor it in the people who do the work. Clinician-informed design isn’t optional. And if healthcare gets this wrong, patients will pay for mistakes they never agreed to take on.

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The Battle

Tiffany Ryder

Michael Bass, M.D.

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The Battle

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Michael Bass, M.D.

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Michael Bass, M.D.'s LinkedIn Performance

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