Season 2 Premiere: The Cost of Being Right — Dr. Richard Horowitz on Lyme, Medical Boards, and 41 Years of Listening to Patients

Season 2 opens with a conversation Erik and Davin have wanted to have for a long time.Dr. Richard Horowitz is a board-certified internist, the creator of the 16-point MSIDS model, and the New York Times bestselling author of Why Can't I Get Better? — the book patients call "the Lyme Bible." Over 41 years he treated more than 13,000 patients with chronic Lyme and tick-borne disease. In November 2025 he closed his clinical practice, and more than twenty advocacy organizations jointly honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award.But this isn't a victory lap. It's the story of what it actually cost.Early in his career, Horowitz did what a well-meaning doctor does: he brought the insurance companies in to look at what he was finding. They told him he'd "spent $70,000 on a disease that doesn't exist." The medical boards investigated him. The panels threw him out. He lost 2,000 patients in one stroke and remortgaged his house to keep the doors open. His wife told him she'd understand if he wanted to stop.He didn't stop. In this episode he explains why — and the answer turns out to be less about stubbornness than about a two-hour-a-day meditation practice he started in medical school, precisely because he knew he'd need it.In this episodeBringing the HMOs in to validate his findings — and what happened insteadLosing 2,000 patients, remortgaging the house, and deciding whether to keep goingWhy he's never been successfully sued in 41 years, and what his documentation had to do with itMeditating two hours a day through medical school — and a Jewish physician's path into a Tibetan Buddhist practiceHow the MSIDS model was discovered by listening to patients, one unexplained finding at a timeDapsone combination therapy, now backed by eleven peer-reviewed papersThe Alzheimer's case: reversing p-tau 217, the most sensitive biomarker, in a live patient with chronic LymeWhy Ending Chronic Illness argues all 16 MSIDS factors apply well beyond Lyme — including cancerWhat he'd tell a physician who is certain they're seeing something their specialty says isn't thereAbout Dr. Richard HorowitzFounding member and past president-elect of ILADS. Served on the HHS Tick-Borne Disease Working Group and co-chaired its co-infection subcommittee, which delivered recommendations to Congress. Founder of the MSIDS Foundation. Author of Why Can't I Get Better?, How Can I Get Better?, and Ending Chronic Illness (Simon & Schuster, October 2026).Linkscangetbetter.com — books and consultingMSIDS FoundationMedical Detective — his Substack