The Saving Dose Wed, 27 May 2026 08:05:11 -0400 https://www.buzzsprout.com/2618814 en-us © 2026 The Saving Dose yes 8adce16c-9420-50a7-b3b2-fb262935b326 John Hsu, Kendra Allen, William Pedranti episodic false The podcast for those building the future of healthcare. A clinician, a healthcare attorney, and a behavioral health executive on what's actually working in addiction, adherence, and the capital reshaping both.


75% of patients do not take medications as prescribed. 125,000 Americans die from it every year. $528 billion in preventable costs trace directly to a gap the healthcare system has known about for decades and never closed: what happens after the prescription is written.

The Saving Dose is a podcast about that gap, the space between the clinic visit and the outcome, between the evidence-based treatment and the patient who never receives it, between the innovation that works and the reimbursement system that decides whether anyone can afford to deliver it.

Hosted by Kendra Allen, Dr. John Hsu, and William Pedranti, the show brings together a behavioral health revenue strategist, an addiction medicine physician, and a biotech entrepreneur to go inside the clinical, operational, and commercial realities of addiction recovery, medication adherence, opioid use disorder (OUD), and behavioral health. Three different vantage points on the same broken system. Honest about what fails, specific about why, and direct about what a real fix requires.

Topics include: MOUD and MAT clinic operations, medication-assisted treatment adherence, behavioral health reimbursement, opioid use disorder treatment, payer contracting, DEA compliance, FFS-to-value-based care transitions, and the patient adherence gap in controlled substance prescribing.

The Saving Dose is for investors evaluating the addiction recovery and behavioral health infrastructure market. For clinic operators and executives running opioid treatment programs, MOUD practices, and behavioral health facilities. For clinicians in addiction medicine and pain management. For payers and administrators navigating the cost and risk of behavioral health coverage.

New episodes every two weeks. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and wherever you listen.


]]> Buzzsprout (https://www.buzzsprout.com) John Hsu, Kendra Allen, William Pedranti https://storage.buzzsprout.com/8y839zbb0upy1mw697d2g2q4dtop?.jpg The Saving Dose Why Doctors Are Afraid to Prescribe Pain Medication | The Saving Dose Ep. 02 Why Doctors Are Afraid to Prescribe Pain Medication | The Saving Dose Ep. 02 In the second episode of The Saving Dose, John Hsu MD and William Pedranti go deep into the most dangerous misconceptions driving the opioid epidemic, why physicians are afraid to prescribe, what the difference between dependency and addiction actually means clinically, and why America is in its fourth decade of a crisis that has a known solution most patients never receive.

This episode covers the clinical realities most pain physicians will not say publicly, the myths inside the healthcare system that are directly causing patient harm, and what it would actually take to close the gap between the treatments that exist and the patients who need them.

In this episode:

Why over 90% of pain physicians John knows personally are afraid to prescribe opioids, and what that fear is doing to patients in legitimate pain.

The difference between opioid dependency and opioid use disorder, why the healthcare system keeps confusing the two, and why that confusion is costing lives.

What happened in pain medicine clinics after the 2016 CDC guidelines, the term that emerged in physician circles, and what it tells us about the consequences of policy without infrastructure.

Why a cancer patient on opioids for years is not an addict, and what happens when their medication is stopped without a proper taper.

The multimodal pain therapy approach John was using in 1999 that colleagues thought was acupuncture from China, and why Medicare took 30 years to catch up.

What happens when an OUD patient goes into surgery and their anesthesiologist does not know how to manage their medications, and why this scenario is more common than anyone admits.

88% of opioid overdoses today are from illicit fentanyl, not prescription medications, and what that means for how we are treating the wrong problem.

48 million Americans living with addiction, 5,000 board-certified addiction medicine physicians, and what that ratio says about why we are still in the fourth decade of this epidemic.

Why the medications that reduce overdose risk by more than 50% exist, and why only 25% of the people who need them are receiving them consistently.

About the Hosts

John Hsu, MD is the Founder and CEO of iPill and a practicing anesthesiologist with 25 years in pain management and addiction medicine. He has taken multiple products through FDA approval and commercial launch. Connect with John: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-hsu-md-300a8b2a/

William Pedranti is the COO of iPill, a Georgetown Law graduate, and co-founder of PENG Life Science Ventures. He has taken a biotech company from founding through FDA approval, commercial launch, and exit. Connect with William: https://www.linkedin.com/in/williampedranti/

Kendra Allen is the CRO of iPill with 20 years in behavioral health revenue strategy, payer contracting, and regulatory navigation. She founded and exited a national healthcare consulting firm. Connect with Kendra: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kendra-allen-cro/

Website: thesavingdose.com

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Consult a qualified healthcare professional before making any treatment decisions.

#OpioidCrisis #AddictionRecovery #OpioidUseDisorder #MedicationAdherence #PainManagement #MOUD #BehavioralHealth #AddictionMedicine #SubstanceUseDisorder #HealthcarePodcast #TheSavingDose #RecoveryPodcast #OpioidTreatment #ChronicPain #PublicHealth #DrugPolicy #FentanylCrisis #OpioidEpidemic

]]> In the second episode of The Saving Dose, John Hsu MD and William Pedranti go deep into the most dangerous misconceptions driving the opioid epidemic, why physicians are afraid to prescribe, what the difference between dependency and addiction actually means clinically, and why America is in its fourth decade of a crisis that has a known solution most patients never receive.

This episode covers the clinical realities most pain physicians will not say publicly, the myths inside the healthcare system that are directly causing patient harm, and what it would actually take to close the gap between the treatments that exist and the patients who need them.

In this episode:

Why over 90% of pain physicians John knows personally are afraid to prescribe opioids, and what that fear is doing to patients in legitimate pain.

The difference between opioid dependency and opioid use disorder, why the healthcare system keeps confusing the two, and why that confusion is costing lives.

What happened in pain medicine clinics after the 2016 CDC guidelines, the term that emerged in physician circles, and what it tells us about the consequences of policy without infrastructure.

Why a cancer patient on opioids for years is not an addict, and what happens when their medication is stopped without a proper taper.

The multimodal pain therapy approach John was using in 1999 that colleagues thought was acupuncture from China, and why Medicare took 30 years to catch up.

What happens when an OUD patient goes into surgery and their anesthesiologist does not know how to manage their medications, and why this scenario is more common than anyone admits.

88% of opioid overdoses today are from illicit fentanyl, not prescription medications, and what that means for how we are treating the wrong problem.

48 million Americans living with addiction, 5,000 board-certified addiction medicine physicians, and what that ratio says about why we are still in the fourth decade of this epidemic.

Why the medications that reduce overdose risk by more than 50% exist, and why only 25% of the people who need them are receiving them consistently.

About the Hosts

John Hsu, MD is the Founder and CEO of iPill and a practicing anesthesiologist with 25 years in pain management and addiction medicine. He has taken multiple products through FDA approval and commercial launch. Connect with John: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-hsu-md-300a8b2a/

William Pedranti is the COO of iPill, a Georgetown Law graduate, and co-founder of PENG Life Science Ventures. He has taken a biotech company from founding through FDA approval, commercial launch, and exit. Connect with William: https://www.linkedin.com/in/williampedranti/

Kendra Allen is the CRO of iPill with 20 years in behavioral health revenue strategy, payer contracting, and regulatory navigation. She founded and exited a national healthcare consulting firm. Connect with Kendra: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kendra-allen-cro/

Website: thesavingdose.com

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Consult a qualified healthcare professional before making any treatment decisions.

#OpioidCrisis #AddictionRecovery #OpioidUseDisorder #MedicationAdherence #PainManagement #MOUD #BehavioralHealth #AddictionMedicine #SubstanceUseDisorder #HealthcarePodcast #TheSavingDose #RecoveryPodcast #OpioidTreatment #ChronicPain #PublicHealth #DrugPolicy #FentanylCrisis #OpioidEpidemic

]]> John Hsu, Kendra Allen, William Pedranti Buzzsprout-19247033 Wed, 27 May 2026 05:00:00 -0700 2110 1 2 full false Why Addiction Treatment Is Failing America | The Saving Dose Ep. 01 Why Addiction Treatment Is Failing America | The Saving Dose Ep. 01 In the first episode of The Saving Dose, three addiction medicine and behavioral health executives discuss why opioid use disorder treatment is failing patients, what the medication adherence gap actually looks like from inside the clinic, and what it will take to fix it. Topics include MOUD access, buprenorphine barriers, pain management misconceptions, behavioral health revenue challenges, and the infrastructure gap driving medication non-adherence across America.

This episode covers who they are, what brought them to this space, and why they believe the addiction treatment system is failing not because the science is missing, but because the infrastructure to deliver it consistently has never been built.

In this episode:

Why John Hsu MD walked away from a traditional anesthesiology career to build a medication security company, and the moment in his own clinic that made it impossible not to.

What William Pedranti learned after 20 years building biotech companies about the gap between clinical evidence and real-world patient outcomes, and why addiction treatment has the widest gap he has ever seen.

What Kendra Allen saw working on the frontlines of behavioral health, and why patients in active recovery were losing access to treatment not because they stopped trying, but because the system stopped making it possible.

The parking lot: what John's patients were doing before their appointments, and what it told him about the failure of in-home medication management.

The access problem in a single number: over 50% of patients can be saved by taking their medications consistently. Only 25% of them can access those medications.

Why every person William tells about iPill responds the same way, and what that says about how close this crisis is to every family in America.

What recovery actually requires: medication, consistency, and a system that does not make patients fight for both every single day.

About the Hosts

John Hsu, MD is the Founder and CEO of iPill and a practicing anesthesiologist with 25 years in pain management and addiction medicine. He has taken multiple products through FDA approval and commercial launch. Connect with John: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-hsu-md-300a8b2a/

William Pedranti is the COO of iPill, a Georgetown Law graduate, and co-founder of PENG Life Science Ventures. He has taken a biotech company from founding through FDA approval, commercial launch, and exit. Connect with William: https://www.linkedin.com/in/williampedranti/

Kendra Allen is the CRO of iPill with 20 years in behavioral health revenue strategy, payer contracting, and regulatory navigation. She founded and exited a national healthcare consulting firm. Connect with Kendra: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kendra-allen-cro/

Website: thesavingdose.com

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Consult a qualified healthcare professional before making any treatment decisions.

#OpioidCrisis #AddictionRecovery #OpioidUseDisorder #MedicationAdherence #MOUD #BehavioralHealth #AddictionMedicine #PainManagement #SubstanceUseDisorder #HealthcarePodcast #TheSavingDose #MentalHealth #RecoveryPodcast #OpioidTreatment #PublicHealth

]]> In the first episode of The Saving Dose, three addiction medicine and behavioral health executives discuss why opioid use disorder treatment is failing patients, what the medication adherence gap actually looks like from inside the clinic, and what it will take to fix it. Topics include MOUD access, buprenorphine barriers, pain management misconceptions, behavioral health revenue challenges, and the infrastructure gap driving medication non-adherence across America.

This episode covers who they are, what brought them to this space, and why they believe the addiction treatment system is failing not because the science is missing, but because the infrastructure to deliver it consistently has never been built.

In this episode:

Why John Hsu MD walked away from a traditional anesthesiology career to build a medication security company, and the moment in his own clinic that made it impossible not to.

What William Pedranti learned after 20 years building biotech companies about the gap between clinical evidence and real-world patient outcomes, and why addiction treatment has the widest gap he has ever seen.

What Kendra Allen saw working on the frontlines of behavioral health, and why patients in active recovery were losing access to treatment not because they stopped trying, but because the system stopped making it possible.

The parking lot: what John's patients were doing before their appointments, and what it told him about the failure of in-home medication management.

The access problem in a single number: over 50% of patients can be saved by taking their medications consistently. Only 25% of them can access those medications.

Why every person William tells about iPill responds the same way, and what that says about how close this crisis is to every family in America.

What recovery actually requires: medication, consistency, and a system that does not make patients fight for both every single day.

About the Hosts

John Hsu, MD is the Founder and CEO of iPill and a practicing anesthesiologist with 25 years in pain management and addiction medicine. He has taken multiple products through FDA approval and commercial launch. Connect with John: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-hsu-md-300a8b2a/

William Pedranti is the COO of iPill, a Georgetown Law graduate, and co-founder of PENG Life Science Ventures. He has taken a biotech company from founding through FDA approval, commercial launch, and exit. Connect with William: https://www.linkedin.com/in/williampedranti/

Kendra Allen is the CRO of iPill with 20 years in behavioral health revenue strategy, payer contracting, and regulatory navigation. She founded and exited a national healthcare consulting firm. Connect with Kendra: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kendra-allen-cro/

Website: thesavingdose.com

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Consult a qualified healthcare professional before making any treatment decisions.

#OpioidCrisis #AddictionRecovery #OpioidUseDisorder #MedicationAdherence #MOUD #BehavioralHealth #AddictionMedicine #PainManagement #SubstanceUseDisorder #HealthcarePodcast #TheSavingDose #MentalHealth #RecoveryPodcast #OpioidTreatment #PublicHealth

]]> https://thesavingdose.com/ iPill Buzzsprout-19208184 Wed, 20 May 2026 22:00:00 -0700 1917 OpioidCrisis, Addiction Recovery, Behavioral Health, HealthcarePodcast, 1 1 full false