Hi, this is Dr. Michael Cheikin. This important audio message is being prepared for my current and future patients regarding important changes starting January 1, 2026.

For the entire 45 years of my medical career, I have participated in most insurance plans. This included recent times when Aetna, United Health Care and others fraudulently downgraded my codes and paid as little as $40 for visits that lasted up to an hour. Others such as Highmark and Horizon are fraudulently denying lab coverage, putting patients in very difficult positions and causing reluctance to be tested.

I enduring this abuse, knowing that my patients were also being abused by their Insurance Carriers and indirectly by their Employers. Up till now, by participating in these insurance plans, I have been able to care for those with chronic and disabling conditions who otherwise would have found the costs of Holistic Medicine prohibitive.

It used to be that health insurances paid physicians reasonably. We are one of the only service professions that have traditionally not been paid based on time. This includes, to some extent, nurses and teachers. However the growing 

Insurance companies have essential become a discount club, such as BJ’s, Sams Club and Costco. Without a membership card, patients are billed at full charge, which can be 10’s of thousands for an ER visit and hundreds for a doctor visit. These Charges are based on a very old way of billing that has not been relevant for at least 30 years. Health Insurance Companies have been taken over by Wall Street, eeking out every possible dollar for their stock holders, rendering your Premiums insufficient to provide the quality of care we were used to. Doctors no longer are able to pay their malpractice (thats part of why there’s a shortage in PA), and why getting your pharmaceuticals through GoodRx can be more cost effective than the insurance you’re paying hundreds of dollars for each month.

They have measured the percentage of time doctors spend with their patients based on environment such as office visit, ER visit, hospital visit etc. as a per(with some includWhile my patients have to deal with the intentional confusion of deductibles, copays, exclusions

It will always be less expensive for you, both in real dollars, and in time, energy and Quality of Life by preventing and reversing illness, rather than getting on the merry-go-round of chronic illness-drugs-doctors-hospitals, and even more illness. The stock market and TV networks are dependent upon making our population sick. Other countries are also investing in making and keeping us sick, such as with the recent Ozempic craze.

However, accepting these plans has had a serious downside.