Building the Noise Podcast

You can eat well, exercise, and do everything right and still get breast cancer. So how do you understand your risk and speak up when your concerns aren’t being heard? Clare Dougherty, CEO of the Brem Foundation to Defeat Breast Cancer, joins Matt Toresco on Building the Noise to discuss breast cancer risk, early detection, and patient self-advocacy. Clare shares why negative genetic testing wasn’t the whole picture in her own risk assessment. She also explores confusing screening guidance, th

She needed answers. Instead, she was told to wait until she got worse. For about two years, Tiffany Westrich-Robertson lived as a “mystery patient,” experiencing worsening symptoms without a clear diagnosis. At one point, she was sleeping about 16 hours a day. Before she even knew what was wrong, she made a promise: she would dedicate her life to helping others avoid the same experience. In this episode of Building the Noise, Tiffany joins Matt Toresco to share how that promise led her to fou...

Years after a DUI crash that killed two people, Martin Lockett received a message from a victim’s daughter that he never expected. She had seen the work he was doing and thanked him for keeping a promise he made at sentencing. On Building the Noise, Martin joins Matt Toresco to talk about the crash, the lives of the people who died, and his path through addiction recovery and incarceration. He shares how he became a substance abuse counselor and why he now brings mental health and substance use

What if health insurers deny care because they know most patients will never appeal? In this episode of Building the Noise, Matt Toresco speaks with Marcus J. Hopkins, founder and executive director of the Appalachian Learning Initiative, about the forces preventing Americans from accessing the care they need. Marcus explains how insurance denials, complicated appeal processes, limited health literacy, poverty, geography, and incomplete data can leave patients behind. He also examines the con...

Her treatment worked. Sally Nix was in remission and walking three miles a day until her health insurance company stopped paying. In this episode of Building the Noise, Matt Toresco speaks with patient-rights advocate Sally Nix about the human cost of health insurance denials, prior authorization, and retroactive payment reversals. After five brain surgeries, five spinal surgeries, multiple sclerosis, autoimmune disease, and severe trigeminal neuralgia, Sally found meaningful relief through IV

For four years, doctors told Bridget Dandaraw-Seritt that she was fine. When someone finally listened, they discovered a surgical screw embedded in her cerebellum and another working its way in. In this episode of Building the Noise, Bridget joins Matt Toresco for a powerful conversation about medical dismissal, chronic illness, patient advocacy, prescription drug access, and the importance of trusting your own body. Living with rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, Sjögren’s syndrome, a rare form of E