Nurse Rosa's INsights

What happens when the companies that profit from denying care also decide what care you get? Nurse Rosa sits down with Hannah Garden-Monheit and Emma Freer, senior fellows at the American Economic Liberties Project and leaders of the Break Up Big Medicine Coalition, to talk about their report on prior authorization.

Hannah shares the personal story behind her work: her father's cancer, his amputation, and the prior auth denials that followed. Emma explains the moral injury clinicians feel when paperwork pulls them away from the bedside. Together they walk through the numbers, the policy fixes, and what nurses, clinicians, and patients can do right now about a system that too often works against the people it's supposed to serve.

Timestamps

0:00 Welcome and guest introductions
1:12 Hannah's personal story: her father's cancer, amputation, and United Healthcare's prior auth denials
2:26 The Kafkaesque bureaucracy: "This is unreasonable, but I don't know how to fix it"
3:17 The inherent conflict of interest: insurers save money by denying care
3:37 Nurse Rosa on preventable disability and the economic cost of denied care
3:48 Emma on moral injury among healthcare professionals pulled away from the bedside
5:16 Heartbreaking stories: a cancer patient missing chemo infusions, migraine medication abruptly denied
5:18 Collecting patient stories at earful.us/c/prior-auth
6:19 The $32 billion annual paperwork cost, and why insurance-funded studies ignore it
8:14 What the American Economic Liberties Project does across all industries
9:30 Prior authorization as one symptom of a deeper disease in healthcare
10:00 Nurse Rosa on the moral injury of knowing treatment exists but being blocked from delivering it
10:49 Prior auth paperwork consumes the equivalent of 99,290 full-time physicians, more than the entire clinician shortage
12:29 What you can do: call your representatives, share your story, advocate for reform
14:05 Nurse Rosa on the reality of advocacy: it's on your own time and your own dime
15:31 The Break Up Big Medicine Coalition: 27 member organizations and growing (join at breakupbigmedicine.com)
16:26 The bipartisan Break Up Big Medicine Act (Sens. Warren and Hawley) and what it would do
17:09 Does this work extend to food and agriculture? Similar monopolist playbooks across industries
19:21 The $1 billion question: Emma's answer is to ban prior authorization and free patients and clinicians
20:48 Hannah's answer: invest in antitrust and consumer protection enforcement of existing laws
22:55 Don't miss the report: Emma recommends Hannah's personal foreword, and Hannah leaves us with a killer stat
24:04 Medicare Advantage vs. Traditional Medicare: 50 million vs. 600,000 prior auth determinations, and Medicare Advantage costs 22% more per patient
25:48 How to share your story at earful.us/c/prior-auth (open indefinitely, and you control your privacy)
26:42 How to reach Hannah and Emma: breakupbigmedicine.com
27:23 Closing, like and subscribe, and find Nurse Rosa at "Nurse Rosa Speaks" on all platforms

Links:

Break Up Big Medicine Coalition: breakupbigmedicine.com
Share your prior authorization story: earful.us/c/prior-auth
Follow Nurse Rosa on LinkedIn and all social media: @NurseRosaSpeaks

This episode is sponsored by PointClickCare.

What if two doctors could treat ten patients with the exact same outcome, one spending $100,000 and the other spending a million, and get paid the exact same amount? Dr. Hamad Husainy says that's the broken math at the heart of American healthcare.

About the guest: Dr. Hamad Husainy, Chief Medical Officer at PointClickCare and a practicing emergency medicine physician with more than 15 years on the front lines. Dr. Husainy shares how his career moved from EMS and staffing to the payer side of healthcare, and now to leading PointClickCare's acute and payer strategy.

The conversation covers what draws clinicians toward "macro" problem-solving, why care transitions are one of the biggest sources of risk and error in the system, and how technology and human commitment together (not either alone) can close the gaps patients fall through. Dr. Husainy also answers Nurse Rosa's signature billion-dollar question: how he'd spend a $1 billion grant to align quality and cost across healthcare.

Timestamps:

0:00 — Intro to Nurse Rosa's Insights podcast

0:31 — Meet Dr. Hamid Husseini, CMO of PointClickCare

1:30 — Hamid's background and path into healthcare

1:36 — Family of doctors, EMS roots, and finding his "macro" passion

3:59 — Balancing an executive role with still practicing as an ER doctor

4:43 — Why the macro work is really about the people it impacts

7:35 — What Hamid is working on at PointClickCare (closing care transition gaps)

10:04 — The Billion-Dollar Question: aligning quality and cost

12:10 — Value-based care vs. fee-for-service incentive mismatches

14:49 — Lessons from EMS: aligning incentives to actually help patients

16:52 — Final thoughts: it will take people and technology to fix healthcare

17:44 — Connect with Dr. Husseini on LinkedIn

18:02 — Follow Nurse Rosa Speaks + episode wrap-up

Connect:

Dr. Hamid Husainy: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hamad-husainy-do-facep-44053620/

Learn more: PointClickCare

www.pointclickcare.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PointClickCare

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeatpointclickcare/

X: https://x.com/PointClickCare

LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/company/pointclickcare

Like, subscribe, and comment with who should answer the next Billion-Dollar Question!

Connect with ⁠Rosa Hart⁠

Get or Gift a copy of her book: “Speak Up, Start Now” on ⁠Audible or Kindle⁠

Follow @NurseRosaSpeaks

on your favorite social media platform

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Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and all major podcast platforms.

What if the most valuable healthcare expert in the room is the patient?

Host Rosa Hart sits down with Grace Vinton, PR pro, patient advocate, and host of HITea With Grace, to talk about what happens when patients stop being treated as passive recipients of care and start being recognized as informaticists in their own right.

Grace shares the near-death experience that sparked her advocacy, the story behind coining the term "patient informaticist," and why paying patients and caregivers for their time and expertise is overdue. She also lays out her billion-dollar vision for a healthcare consumer community investment fund built around real stories, real people, and real priorities.

In this episode:

Coining the term "patient informaticist"

How technology made patients "CEOs of their care experience"

Fair market pay for patient and caregiver expertise

The billion-dollar question: investing in a healthcare consumer community

Timestamps:

0:00 – Introduction & welcome to guest Grace

2:03 – Grace's near-death health journey and how it sparked her passion for patient advocacy

4:51 – Coining the term "patient informaticist"

7:27 – Early resistance to patient expertise, and how technology made patients "CEOs of their care experience"

9:37 – Patient engagement vs. patient informatics: participation vs. co-creation

12:29 – Real examples of patient insight changing products, research & protocols (pharma chief patient officers, #PatientsUseAI, genomics research)

17:20 – Fair market calculators and paying patients/caregivers for their time and expertise

19:22 – The four parts of a person (self, relationships, systems, science) often ignored in healthcare research

21:05 – Social determinants of health & financial barriers in stroke research

24:36 – Advice for bedside nurses wanting a seat at the health IT table

26:17 – Spotlight on Jean Ross and Primary Record

28:04 – The long game of networking and relationship-building

31:26 – The billion-dollar question: how Grace would invest $1B in healthcare

34:40 – Where to find Grace (HITea With Grace podcast, HIT Like a Girl podcast, LinkedIn, Instagram)

36:48 – Closing & call to action

Nurse Rosa's INsights is a nurse-led healthcare leadership and innovation podcast.

Follow Grace: HITea With Grace | HIT Like a Girl

Follow Rosa: nurserosaspeaks.com | @NurseRosaSpeaks

and on LinkedIN

Hear from orthopedic hand surgeon, best-selling author, and social media educator Dr. Erin Nance to unpack misdiagnosis, medical mysteries, and the app she built to close the gap between patients and doctors: Takeaway MD.

From a viral glomus tumor story to the diagnostic blind spots around Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and MCAS, this episode is a masterclass in why "rare" doesn't always mean rare, it often just means rarely diagnosed.

Dr. Nance also opens up about medical gaslighting, fake accounts impersonating her online, and her billion-dollar vision for peer-to-peer patient support through Takeaway Connect.

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@littlemissdiagnosed

Instagram: @doctorerinnance

Book: Little Miss Diagnosed

Website: takeawaymd.com (for the Takeaway Connect membership wait list)

Nurse Rosa's INsights is a nurse-led healthcare leadership and innovation podcast hosted by Rosa Hart, RN.

We explore nursing leadership, healthcare policy, primary care challenges, AI in healthcare, clinical practice transformation, and bold solutions from clinicians, founders, and thought leaders.

Subscribe for weekly episodes featuring evidence-based insights, expert interviews, and actionable strategies designed for nurses, healthcare professionals, system leaders, and advocates.

What does a critical care nurse have to offer the space industry? A lot more than you might think.

In this episode of Nurse Rosa's INsights, Rosa Hart sits down with Christine Rincon, a critical care nurse and space medicine expert, to explore a career frontier most nurses don't even know exists. Christine shares her journey from the ICU to space health, and makes the case that nurses already belong in aerospace medicine; in fact, some are already there.

Together they dig into how microgravity changes the human body, from blood volume to muscle mass, and why those profound physiological shifts create a real need for nursing expertise on future missions.

Christine also draws a fascinating parallel between rural healthcare and space environments; both demand creative, resource-limited problem solving, and both stand to benefit from the same telehealth innovations.

The conversation gets candid about the state of commercial spaceflight, including outdated medical infrastructure and the regulatory gaps that come with a fast-moving industry. And for nurses wondering how to get involved right now, Christine offers concrete starting points, from conferences to industry connections to resources you can explore today.

Whether you're dreaming of space or just looking for proof that nursing skills translate far beyond the bedside, this episode will expand your sense of what's possible.

In this episode:

Why nurses already exist in space medicine roles, and why so few people know it

Christine's path from ICU nursing to space health

The future of burn care and medical innovation in space

How microgravity affects blood, muscles, and the body during reentry

Rural health as an analog for space environments

Telehealth solutions that serve both astronauts and underserved communities

Regulatory challenges facing commercial space flight

What space TV shows get right (and wrong) about medicine

How space industry thinking could help fix terrestrial healthcare

Practical steps for nurses who want to explore aerospace careers

Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Christine Rincon and her space medicine work
01:57 Nurses in space medicine roles and awareness
03:04 Future burn care and space medicine innovations
04:01 Christine's journey from ICU to space health
09:01 Rural health as an analog for space environments
10:51 Space medicine conferences and industry connections
17:02 Patient care in space: astronauts and habitat management
19:57 Physiological effects of microgravity and reentry
24:59 Realism in space TV shows and implications for medicine
26:56 Outdated medical infrastructure in commercial space flight
38:04 How nurses can explore aerospace careers today
43:03 Using space industry insights to fix terrestrial healthcare
49:56 Biggest healthcare challenges and innovative solutions
54:57 Resources for nurses interested in space medicine

Resources mentioned:
NASA's Five Hazards of Space Flight
NASA Standard 3001
Space Nurse Podcast
Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs

Connect with Christine Rincon

Nurse Rosa's INsights is a nurse-led healthcare leadership and innovation podcast hosted by Rosa Hart, RN.

We explore nursing leadership, healthcare policy, primary care challenges, AI in healthcare, clinical practice transformation, and bold solutions from clinicians, founders, and thought leaders.

Subscribe for weekly episodes featuring evidence-based insights, expert interviews, and actionable strategies designed for nurses, healthcare professionals, system leaders, and advocates.

Topics include:
• Primary care system reform
• AI in nursing & health tech
• Clinical innovation & patient outcomes
• Workforce sustainability & nursing leadership
• Healthcare communication & advocacy

Listen on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts & all major platforms.