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

Summer 2021. I was practicing medicine in the ER drowning in lockdowns, mandates, and the special kind of despair that comes from watching a system you believed in eat itself alive.

I'd spent years in the trenches — running CDC's National Diabetes Prevention Program across four states, overseeing clinical research with Hopkins, working on the very drug trials that were shaping policy in real-time, and then treating patients in hallways who were bearing the brunt of a completely failed 'public health response' I'd always believed would save us. 

I felt powerless to fix what was broken.

So I did what any rational person would do. I started posting on LinkedIn after 14 hour night shifts with zero followers, zero strategy, and a whole lot of opinions about everything that was wrong with American healthcare.

(Spoiler: it was a lot.)

What happened next still doesn't make sense to me.

Platform reach of 300K+ weekly. A healthcare communications firm Sims Tillirson & I built from nothing. Press access covering FDA and HHS — which, for a policy nerd who geeks out over price transparency and regulatory reform, is basically the Super Bowl.

I'm not a marketing genius. I didn't have a plan. I just showed up, told the truth in plain English, and refused to shut up about fixing healthcare.

Turns out that's the job.

Translating complex policy into stories real people understand. Building coalitions of credible voices. Setting narratives instead of just responding to them.

Your clinical expertise is the competitive advantage. The system just never told you that.

Nobody is coming to save American healthcare except us. 

LFG.

Tiffany Ryder

At 21, a doctor told me I had PCOS and pre-diabetes and then handed me a Metformin prescription.

“This is just what you’ll have to live with,” she said. So I did. Until I didn’t.

(Turns out eating real food and moving your body is a treatment plan. Who knew?)

But that was the first time a strange thought crossed my mind. 

Maybe the people who say they know how this works… don’t actually know anything about how this works.

Hmm.

Years later — after the NFL, foreign medical school, PA school, the ER, and COVID — I read The Price We Pay by Dr. Marty Makary and suddenly understood things I hadn’t been able to articulate before.

- Why I’d been handed a pill instead of a lifestyle.
- Why my employment contract said I wasn’t allowed to tell patients about the clinic across the street.
- And 1000 other horrific things about the system we call ‘health care’.

(I’m still looking for a word to describe it that doesn’t start with an F-, but haven’t found one yet)

Then a realization crystallized... I could keep saving people one-by-one in the ER, but if I did, I could never fix what was actually breaking them. So I left.

And that’s the real story behind this episode- the full, messy, nonlinear version — the NFL years, the diagnosis that reversed itself, the ER shifts where the incentives finally became impossible to ignore, and the moment I realized something most clinicians eventually confront:

We can hold someone’s hand. We can stabilize them. 

Sometimes we can even save them.

But we can’t repair a system that was never designed for patients to win.

And that raises a much bigger question…Why are patients losing in the first place?

Full episode here: https://lnkd.in/eXFiUsQx

NFL Cheerleader to ER. Independent Media giving DC health policy a voice (and a personality). The government is not my doctor.

People always ask me if CrowdHealth is the real thing. After 2 years of health care outside the Matrix - totally 'uninsured'-  my answer is…

Yup. 

Best decision I ever made: https://lnkd.in/ey-i88DX

What's not to love? 

We asked FDA to say no to Pharma.
I do not mean we asked politely.

I mean we built a regulatory agency whose entire function is to tell the most profitable industry in the world that it cannot do what it wants. 

We staffed it. Funded it. Gave it authority. 
We called it public health. The name is the thing we did.

We did not build anything to protect it when Pharma pushed back.
Pharma pushed back. 

This was not a surprise. Or a betrayal. A company told no by a regulator will attempt to remove the regulator. 

This is not corruption. This is a business model. This is the norm.

Pharma funds media. Provides their operating budget. Pharmaceutical advertising is the financial infrastructure of American health journalism. 

News on FDA is brought to you by the companies the FDA regulates. 
This is disclosed in fine print. The fine print is the point.

When FDA says no, the media covers FDA. The coverage is not about the regulation. The coverage is about the regulator.

A regulation can be debated on merits. A regulator can be destroyed on character. Only one of those is reversible.

Prasad’s job is to tell Pharma no. The media’s job is to make that impossible. They ran sexual harassment allegations. The allegations didn’t exist. The original story ran everywhere. The correction came 19 days later. 

19 days is not a correction. 19 days is a strategy. Prasad is leaving. The strategy worked.

Marty Makary’s job is to tell Pharma no. The media is coming for Marty Makary. The playbook does not change. The strategy works.

We watch this happen. We call it bias. We describe it in great detail to people who already understand. 

Pharma is not threatened by people who understand what Pharma is doing. Understanding the mechanism is not the same as breaking it. 

Two things break the mechanism. The mechanism is not broken.

Leadership cover breaks it. The entire admin standing behind the regulator when the regulator says no. 

Not a statement. Not a spokesperson. A wall. 

FDA leaders who will not be abandoned can hold the line. FDA leaders who are not sure must manage exposure instead. They must do as much good as they can without being shown the door. This is a rational response. 

Public outcry works if it's loud enough to be unavoidable. Unavoidable means abandoning the regulator costs more than protecting industry. Unavoidable means silence is no longer politically safe.

Neither eliminates attacks. Attacks don’t need to be eliminated. Attacks need to be survivable; public outcry makes them so.

You have a choice.

You can know, & know that you know it, & watch what happens next. 

The show is well-produced. Outrage cycles are timed. The corrections run quietly 19 days later, if you’re lucky. 

There is a version where you live a comfortable life and FDA never regulates anything that matters & you never have to do anything.

Or you can get loud enough that protecting Pharma costs more than it's worth.

Those are the only two options. Pick one.

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

I’m a board-certified gastroenterologist and the Founding Medical Director at Oshi Health, where I’ve had the privilege of helping shape and expand a virtual-first GI care model now serving patients in all 50 states. Working alongside an incredible team, I’ve contributed to building scalable clinical pathways for IBS, IBD, and other gut conditions—anchored in team-based care, empathy, and measurable outcomes.

With 28,000 + followers, I’m among the most followed gastroenterologists on LinkedIn, where I regularly share insights on topics including:

• IBS & the gut-brain connection — emotional triggers, stress, and personalized care
• Digital health innovation — virtual-first models, AI in GI, and wearable integration
• Colorectal cancer screening — rethinking pathways and improving early detection
• Reducing unnecessary testing — CTs, labs, and low-yield procedures in IBS
• Value-based gastroenterology — lower cost, better outcomes, patient experience
• Health plan integration — improving patient access to covered virtual GI care
• Microbiome & nutrition science — evidence-based takes on fiber, probiotics, and gut myths
• Healthcare system reform — tackling disparities, burnout, and reimbursement models
• Behavioral science in GI — the role of habit loops, psychology, and coaching in digestive health
• Virtual care leadership — insights from helping scale a 50-state GI operation

As a LinkedIn Top Voice, I collaborate across digital health, clinical care, and health plans to drive forward-thinking solutions in gastroenterology—without waste, and with humanity.

Let’s connect if you’re working at the intersection of GI, tech-enabled care, or value-based delivery models.

Michael Bass, M.D.

Most of us have taken antibiotics and moved on. This new Sweedish study says your gut hasn't.

A new Nature Medicine paper linked 8 years of prescription data to stool metagenomes from nearly 15,000 adults in Sweden.

The headline finding: a single course of clindamycin, fluoroquinolones, or flucloxacillin was still associated with changes in gut bacteria 4 to 8 years later. Not months. Years.

Clindamycin use within a year of sampling was tied to 47 fewer detected species on average. That's a massive hit to an ecosystem most patients assume bounces right back.

The species that increased after antibiotics included bacteria previously linked to higher BMI, elevated triglycerides, and type 2 diabetes risk. The ones that decreased were tied to lower inflammation and better metabolic health.

This matters because the gut microbiome isn't a bystander in human health. It regulates metabolism, immune function, and inflammation. When you wipe out key species with a broad-spectrum antibiotic, you're not just treating an infection. You're reshaping an organ system.

And the recovery isn't automatic. The fastest rebound happened in the first two years. After that, diversity plateaued well below baseline. Some species may never fully return.

We prescribe a 10-day course for a dental abscess and tell the patient they're done. But the disruption we triggered may still be measurable half a decade later.

If you've had a patient who "just hasn't been the same" since antibiotics a few years ago, this paper gives you a biological reason to take that seriously.
We can't undo the antibiotics we've already prescribed. But we can stop pretending the consequences end when the pill bottle runs out.

undefined undefined

gastroenterology-specialists-of-delaware-llc

The Gut doesn't Forget 

LinkedIn Top Voice | Gastroenterologist I Global Medical Director @ ViomeDx

Dr Erika Tajra

The most dangerous phrase in cancer screening right now might be “no cancer signal detected.”

Multi-cancer blood tests are having a moment. A single blood draw that claims to detect 50+ cancers sounds revolutionary. And maybe someday it will be. But the evidence is still catching up to the excitement.

There are now roughly 40 multi-cancer early detection tests in development or already on the market. Yet very few have been tested in randomized trials. And the first large trial results? They didn’t show a clear reduction in late-stage cancers. Which is the whole point. Finding cancer only matters if you’re finding it early enough to change outcomes.

Why is this so hard? Because early cancers are biologically quiet. Most current tests search for fragments of tumor DNA circulating in the bloodstream. The problem is that very small tumors often shed almost no DNA at all. The signal can be incredibly faint. You’re essentially trying to hear a whisper in a stadium.

That’s why researchers are exploring another layer of biology: RNA. 

RNA reflects what cells are actively doing, not just what mutations exist. Signals can appear earlier, even when tumor DNA is scarce. It can capture the body’s response to cancer, not just the tumor itself. And it provides insight into active biological pathways rather than static genetic changes.

None of this means DNA-based tests are wrong. But it highlights something important: detecting cancer early may require listening to more than one biological signal. DNA is probably part of the answer. It’s not the whole story.

Patients deserve innovation. But they also deserve evidence that it actually improves outcomes. Because “no cancer signal detected” only means something if the test was capable of detecting the signal in the first place.

The AI prescribing debate feels very different after you’ve cleared 40 refill requests in your inbox at the end of a clinic day.

Most people think prescribing is the clinical decision. Clinicians know the reality is everything wrapped around it. Prior auths, quantity limits, step therapy rules, plans that only cover 90 pills, missing labs, drug interaction checks, and the quiet liability of deciding what can safely go through and what needs a visit.

That’s why a recent The Washington Post  opinion criticizing Utah’s AI refill pilot with Doctronic caught my attention. Joseph Sakran , Johns Hopkins trauma surgeon and a medical researcher, argues that autonomous AI prescribing is moving forward on dangerously thin evidence.

His case is straightforward. The safety data rests largely on a single preprint on medRxiv that hasn’t been peer reviewed. The study authors hold equity in the company. The underlying data hasn’t been publicly shared.
They also point out that the widely cited 99.2% accuracy figure comes from urgent care encounters, not chronic medication renewals, which is what the Utah pilot is actually doing. Different context, different risk profile.

And they raise a fair concern about scale. Even a small error rate applied across thousands of prescriptions could affect vulnerable groups. Elderly patients, people on complex medication regimens, patients whose conditions have quietly changed since their last visit.

Those are legitimate concerns. But the authors also acknowledge something that gets lost in the headline debate. Medication renewals for stable chronic conditions are among the lowest-risk prescribing tasks in medicine.

If AI could safely handle routine renewals, it could free physicians to focus on the stuff that actually requires a doctor.

That tension is where the real conversation should be. Because the system clinicians are currently working in is already broken. 

Practices average nearly 40 prior authorizations per physician per week. Physicians and staff spend more than 13 hours weekly on them. Nearly 90% say prior auth contributes to burnout.

So I find myself in the middle on this one. I don’t want AI replacing clinical judgment. But I’m very open to AI reducing the administrative friction wrapped around routine prescribing. Stable medication renewals with guardrails and escalation paths? That’s not AI practicing medicine. That’s AI doing paperwork.

Those are two very different things. And until we can talk about them separately, this debate is going to keep going in circles.

Byron Crowe

graphical user interface, text, application

Everyone says AI will replace doctors. But the first thing physicians are actually using AI for? Reading the medical literature.

A new AMA survey shows more than 80% of physicians now use AI professionally. And the most common use isn’t diagnosis. It’s summarizing medical research and standards of care. That tells you something important about where medicine actually is right now.

The biggest bottleneck in healthcare isn’t intelligence. It’s bandwidth. Thousands of new papers publish every week. Guidelines constantly evolve. Biology keeps getting more complex. No physician can realistically read everything. 

So knowledge diffuses slowly through the system. Conferences, guidelines, word of mouth. Sometimes it takes years for a new insight to reach everyday clinical practice. I’ve seen it firsthand. A study changes how we should think about a condition, and five years later half the clinicians managing it haven’t read it yet.

AI changes that dynamic. Instead of reading 20 papers, a physician can read a two-minute synthesis. Instead of discovering a new mechanism years later at a conference, it can surface in clinical workflow the same week. That doesn’t replace physicians. It amplifies them.

Which is why most real-world physician AI use today looks nothing like the headlines,despite what the Silicon Valley tech- bros might be tweeting. 

It’s summarizing research, generating chart summaries, creating discharge instructions, reducing documentation burden. Not autonomous diagnosis. Not robot doctors.

Caitlin Owens highlighted this in a recent Axios Healthcare newsletter. AI’s earliest clinical adoption is largely about helping physicians manage information and administrative load, not replacing clinical judgment. That distinction matters more than most people realize.

Medicine isn’t moving toward autonomous doctors. It’s moving toward augmented cognition. Doctors still make the decisions. But AI helps them see patterns faster in an ocean of information that no human brain can process alone. And as biology gets more complex, that ability won’t just be nice to have. It’ll be essential.

No alternative text description for this image

Novo Nordisk  just agreed to let hims & hers  distribute Wegovy and Ozempic through its platform and dropped the lawsuit it filed last month over compounded semaglutide. This isn’t a GLP-1 headline. It’s a preview of where telehealth is going next.

The first era of telehealth was about convenience. Fast visits, easy prescribing, consumer-friendly access. The next era will be judged on something much harder: can telehealth become a trusted distribution and care layer for complex chronic disease?

For years, telehealth has been underestimated as a lightweight front-end. Good for access, good for demand capture, good for meeting patients where they are. But this deal signals something bigger. Large pharma now sees digital care platforms as legitimate channels for branded therapy distribution. Not lead generators. 

Because once telehealth becomes a true distribution channel, the business model gets serious fast. It’s no longer about customer acquisition and conversion. It’s about clinical credibility, regulatory discipline, patient safety, adherence, supply continuity, and what happens after the prescription is written. 

Especially in obesity care, where anyone can build demand but very few can build durable care models. The companies writing scripts the fastest aren’t necessarily the ones that will survive this next phase.

There’s a second signal buried in this story too. Just days after U.S. regulators warned telehealth firms over misleading compounded GLP-1 advertising, one of the most visible players struck a deal around approved branded drugs instead. 

Telehealth is no longer disrupting healthcare from the outside. It’s being absorbed into the system itself. That creates more legitimacy and more accountability in the same move.

taplio

The Battle

Tiffany Ryder

Michael Bass, M.D.

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreTiffany Ryder's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreMichael Bass, M.D.'s LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Tiffany Ryder

Michael Bass, M.D.

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

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);}Tiffany Ryder's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreMichael Bass, M.D.'s LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreTiffany Ryder's LinkedIn Performance