News You Can Use – June 2025

When Your Fitness Tracker Lies

This month’s episode of “News You Can Use” on Healthcare NOW Radio features news from the month of June 2025.

The show that gives you a quick insight into the latest news, twists, turns, and debacles going on in healthcare with my friend and co-host Craig Joseph, MD (@CraigJoseph) Chief Medical Officer at Nordic Consulting Partners and myself, where every diagnosis comes with a side of humor. We hope you stay curious, stay engaged, and keep seeking the truth in healthcare in a world that thrives on information.

Buckle up as we dive into the ER of excitement, the ICU of irrationality, and the waiting room of wacky wisdom in this months show that features a review of:

• Tracking everyone with CGM
• Another exit from healthcare
• The presumed death of primary care
• ACIPs new focus on thimerosal
• AI Review moratorium in the Reconciliation Bill

This week, we tackle everything from AI regulation flip-flops to the revolutionary idea of tracking everyone’s glucose levels like we’re all diabetic lab rats. The cherry on top? A formal obituary for primary care that’s so accurate it hurts. We serve up our usual mix of medical wisdom and existential dread with a side of jokes.

Do you track your activity? Maybe you have had the same experience as I did with the wild inaccuracies of my heart rate monitoring with a ring where my fancy ring claimed my resting pulse was 120 while the accurate strap showed a civilized 70. Nothing says “cutting-edge healthcare technology” like a 50-beat difference that could send you into cardiac panic or Olympic training confidence, depending on which device you trust.

Meanwhile, the government wants to slap continuous glucose monitors on everyone because apparently, we all need more lessons from wearable tech on our health and well-being. Sure, CGMs are miraculous for diabetics, but for the rest of us? It’s basically expensive guilt-tripping about that cookie you ate, followed by 8-hour data syncing anxiety and some frustrating acrobatics to avoid catching the sensor when you wash.

Concierge Medicine: Because Regular Healthcare is So Last Century

Perhaps most depressing was our discussion of primary care’s death certificate, which lists nurse practitioners and AI robots as the survivors (savage, but accurate). The only CPR available for primary care comes in the form of concierge medicine, where you pay extra to experience what healthcare used to be like when doctors actually had time to talk to humans. It’s a delicious irony that in a country obsessed with “disrupting” healthcare, we’ve successfully disrupted it right back to a two-tiered system where quality care requires a monthly subscription fee.

From Best Buy to Worst Buy

Between Best Buy’s healthcare exit (RIP to the dream of the Geek Health Squad), reopening 30-year-old vaccine preservative debates, and the federal government’s AI regulation ping-pong match, it’s clear that healthcare remains America’s most expensive and entertaining reality show. At least we can find some humor in it all, all the while Rome burns.

We hope you enjoy our take on the latest news and developments in healthcare and want to help you keep untangling the web of information, dodging the sensational pitfalls, and emerging victorious, albeit a little dizzy, on the other side. In the end, the stories we uncover, and the discussions we ignite, all shape the narrative of our shared future. We want to hear from you especially if you have topics covered or questions you’d like answered. You can reach out directly via the contact form on my website, or send a message on LinkedIn to Craig or me.

Until next month keep solving healthcare’s mysteries before they become your emergencies.

This article was originally published on the Dr. Nick – The Incrementalist blog and is republished here with permission.

News You Can Use gives you a quick insight into the latest news, twists, turns and debacles going on in healthcare with Dr. Nick and Dr. Craig and where every diagnosis comes with a side of side-splitting humor. Your hosts are Dr Nick a long-time host, innovator and healthcare wizard who can prescribe a digital dose of innovation to cure even the most ailing operational inefficiencies. And Dr. Craig Joseph is the healthcare guru who can diagnose both patient and software glitches with equal precision, making sure hospitals run smoother than a well-oiled robot doc.

So buckle up, because we’re diving into the ER of excitement, the ICU of irrationality, and the waiting room of wacky wisdom.

Stay curious, stay engaged, and keep seeking the truth in a world that thrives on information. Because in the end, the stories we uncover, and the discussions we ignite, they all shape the narrative of our shared future.

And keep laughing at the absurdity, keep rolling your eyes at the headlines, and keep spreading the news like your favorite gossip. Who knows, maybe someday you’ll be the breaking news story we’re all talking about!

Weekdays at 4:00 am, 12:00 pm, and 8:00 pm ET.

Follow the Social Hashtag at #HealthNewsYouCanUse