holistic medical doctor
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Transcript of Message 11/18/2025
Hi, this is Dr. Michael Cheikin. This important message is about changes in my practice starting January 1, 2026.
For the entire 45 years of my medical career, I have participated in most insurance plans because it made my care accessible to patients with chronic and complex medical conditions. Unfortunately, at present, health insurance contracts specify what the physician must charge, how long a visit can last, and even the content of the visit. With growing high-deductible plans, I am often required to charge more than if you paid privately, similar to why GoodRx can provide drugs at costs better than many insurance plans.
In addition, processing these bills is causing increased anxiety and frustration for my patients and staff. For these reasons, I have concluded that we can do better working outside of this dysfunctional system.
Starting January 1, my practice will be out-of-network for all insurance plans. We will be offering both an a-la-carte menu for those who only need a few visits, and a Program Plan that will include visits, supplements phone support and other Holistic resources for our complex patients.
The fee for the first visit of 2026, will be $175 in total, incorporating what used to be the Holistic Fee. This total is less that what I have averaged in 2025 but will allow us to formulate a Health Plan for 2026. For those with documented hardship, there will be the options of sliding scale or a grant for supplements that we can work out on an individual basis.
Your Health Plan will (and always should have) include: education, sleep, food, supplements, stress-reduction, exercise, testing and detox strategies that, at the root cause level, can optimize healing and regeneration until the age of 100.
Being able to do this with you has been my dream since before I became a doctor. No one likes change but I believe that this change will provide more time, concentration, and funds for true healing. I look forward to evolving this dream with you for True Health in 2026.
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Transcript of Message 11/9/2025
Hi, this is Dr. Michael Cheikin at the Center for Optimal Health in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania.
This important message is about changes starting January 1, 2026.
For 45 years, I have participated in most insurance plans. This is because it made my care accessible to patients with chronic and complex medical conditions. While ‘health insurance’ never insured health, it was originally intended to pay for care, not dictate care. Unfortunately, at present, health insurance contracts specify what the physician must charge, how long the visit can last, and even the content of the visit. Most plans fraudulently deny coverage because it will save them money and they know the cost of disputing this fraudulent behavior is not worth it.
In most cases, you are paying more for your health insurance than your employer while your choices are limited. This was the original intent of the health insurance industry when health care became a tax-free benefit starting in the 1960’s
In addition, the physician and staff must work with a billing company to process insurance claims, incurring additional cost while causing the doctor and patient to deal with seemingly endless documents and distractions. The priceless resource of time is wasted on these cortisol-raising games, when better spent on healing.
At present, in my opinion, the optimal health policy is the lowest cost one that first, provides catastrophic coverage, and second, allows lab tests free of deductible. The drug, vision and dental plans only save a few dollars on low-cost options if you are willing to jump through their hoop. You want the premium monies to stay in your pocket, not theirs. If you want to know more about the politics and economics of health care, based on my experience for decades as a medical administrator and well as research on medical history, there are and will be more detailed podcasts on these topics.
For these reasons, I have concluded that participating in so-called health insurance plans is causing more harm than good. We can do better working outside of this dysfunctional system. In many cases, total costs can go down for you on an annual basis if you use your funds for health rather than illness.
Starting January 1, 2026, my practice will be out-of-network for all insurance plans. For most of my patients, visit costs will be similar to what they have been over the past years, AND without insurance company control, we will be able to customize the length and cost of each visit to match your needs. I will be providing support for those with real hardship. For all patients, the first visit of 2026, for up to 45 minutes, will be $115 plus the Holistic Fee that will stay at $60. In that visit we can formulate a Health Plan for 2026. This Plan will (and always should have) included: breath, sleep, food plan, exercise, stress-reduction, testing and detox strategies that at the root cause will optimize healing and regeneration until the age of 100, Being able to do this with you has been a dream that will no longer be stifled! I look forward to working with you on this dream for true health in 2026.
Message 11/30/2025
Transcript of Message 11/30/2025
Hi, this is Dr. Michael Cheikin. Happy Holidays. This important message is about changes to my practice beginning January 1, 2026.
At the Center for Optimal Health. we believe that our highest priority is our mental, physical and spiritual health, and if not for us, then certainly for our threatened children. We adults must change if we want to protect our childrens’ brains, bodies and spirits. We must put on our own oxygen mask before we can help the child sitting next to us. If you agree, then you are the right person for the Holistic approach.
For most of my life, I have been extensively and passionately exploring brain sciences, consciousness, yoga and energy medicine. Following the bread crumbs for optimal brain function led me to conclude that the highest priorities for modern brain health are deficiencies and toxicities; and in my Holistic Model, infections and microbiome imbalances are toxins that are living and very smart. This quest for optimal brain health has led to my extensive and continuing work with iodine, niacin, lithium and other trace minerals, dmso, chlorine dioxide, oral and skull health and essential processes such as measurement, nebulization, detoxification, yoga, breathwork, hypnosis, acupuncture, ayurveda, and others. We have a growing success applying these methods to healing some of the deepest chronic conditions, starting with chronic pain and fatigue. and now expanding to conditions such as hormones, colitis, diabetes, anxiety and depression and cancer. This is what I want to do more of with you. Even in the Holistic world, quick-fixes such as stem cells, peptides, biohacking, infusions and other magic bullets such as GLP drugs are the money-makers. Health insurance and illness has become, by design, a dominant economic force and major distraction.
For the entire 45 years of my medical career, I have participated in most insurance plans because it made my care accessible to patients with chronic and complex medical conditions. Unfortunately, health insurance contracts now specify what the physician must charge, how long a visit can last, and even the content of the visit. With rising high-deductible plans, we are often required to charge more than if you paid privately, similar to why GoodRx can provide drugs at costs better than many insurance plans. Being sick is getting progressively more expensive, while healing and how to get off this merry-go-round remains hidden and a represents danger to our economy.
In addition, processing these horrible insurance bills is causing increased anxiety, cost and frustration for my patients and staff. For these reasons, I have concluded that we can do better working outside of this progressively dysfunctional system.
Starting January 1, my practice will be out-of-network for all insurance plans. We will be offering a variety of a-la-carte and 2-3 visit packages for those who have focused needs, and, for our complex patients, a Holistic Program Plan that will include visits, phone support, supplements, prescriptions, lab testing and other valuable Holistic resources .
For existing patients, the fee for the first visit of 2026 will be $175 in total, incorporating what used to be the Holistic Fee. This total is less that what we have averaged in 2025 but will allow us to meet and formulate your individual Holistic Health Plan for 2026. For those with documented hardship, there will be the options of sliding scale or a grant for supplements that we can work out on an individual basis. Even without participating in Medicare, the Federal government will require us to complete a Care Contract, which we will reviewing in your first visit of 2026.
Your Holistic Health Plan will include: education, sleep, food, supplements, stress-reduction, medication reduction, exercise, testing and detox strategies and support, that, at the root cause level, can optimize healing and regeneration until the age of 100.
Being able to do this with you has been my dream since before I became a doctor. No one likes change but I believe that this change will provide more time, concentration, and funds for True Healing and Health. We hope that you will continue to work with us in evolving this dream for True Health in 2026. Thank you for your continued support and best wishes for a Healthy Holiday.
DNP1 Video: Elimination Diets
DNP1 Video: Overview, Toxins, Dairy and Grain ⏱ 11:00
The first of 6 videos reviewing Dr. Cheikin’s Diagnostic Nutirtional Protocol. For the rest of the videos go to /food
Gluten Video ⏱ 5:00
Gluten 5:00
Gluten is not as simple as wheat, rye, barley and spelt. What about “gluten-free” products that have rice, corn, oat, teff, or even sugar?
Thyroid Adjustment for the Idiot
Thyroid Program
We are all idiots, or as I prefer to say it, “We are dogs doing calculus” (not to insult dogs, of course). The amount we don’t know is vaster than the vastness of the material universe, but we delude ourselves by mastering one teeny tiny part. Art, cell phones, delicious foods and our other creations make us proud of our intellect and life more enjoyable. Yet every one of us is intelligent enough to know, and to suppress the knowledge of our smallness in both space and in time.
Minds tend to create edifices to which they assign their identity, an illusion of immortality. Whether that edifice be a tower, a mound of cash, a corporation, or even a prodigy, once assigned it is hard for many to let go of, or change the shape of that edifice. When information comes along that requires a paradigm shift, there is huge upheaval, waste of resources and often human lives.
This is the status of thyroid therapy. There is a lot of wasted human lives because of a simple stuckness of a dominant profession. A paradigm shift was suggested decades ago but it has only been accepted by less than 5% of those who are in this convention field. Unfortunately, patients are not (yet) enabled to self-test and self prescribe, though this is loosening up, and in other countries many medications can be purchased without a prescription. On the other had, Canada has recently gone the other way by dramatically limiting the manufacture and provision of nutritional supplements (I guess the Canadian government is run by big pharma?)
Fortunately, information is power and quality information is quality power. Anyone with half a brain can apply a set of rules to the evaluation of thyroid and adjustment of thyroid therapy. In medicine, these rules are called a “protocol”. More specifically, a protocol is a series of steps that have been laid out in advance by experts with the intent of utilization by non-experts. For example, nurses are enabled to adjust diabetic and blood thinning medications without doctors orders using such protocols. In my decades serving various medical institutions, we saw our protocols work great. They standardize an approach and allow for the best response to each defined scenario well in advance. A protocol can also specify and quickly identify dangerous parameters and when to call in a higher level of support. In summary, protocols can be more efficient in resource and provide quicker and better outcomes.
The protocol in this book and on my website, which I call “Thyroid Algorithm A” is based on three simple premises:
- TSH is a measure of pituitary function, NOT thyroid function. Therefore TSH is NOT utilized to assess the body’s (“peri-pheral”) need for thyroid hormone.
- By measuring just three parameters, Free T4, Free T3 and Reverse T3, each with high, low, or “optimal”, there are 27 possible scenarios.
- If only T4 is adjusted, there are only three possible changes:, up, down or none. If T3 and T4 can be adjusted, there are nine possible changes.
Applying these simple premises allow for a tighter handle on thyroid measurement and adjustment than the standard use of TSH and T4. I developed this algorithm in 2020 when I saw my mother-in-law harmed by improper thyroid adjustment. Though I tried to intervene, the distance from Pennsylvania to Florida plus the resistance of the endocrinologist led to failure. So instead of removing her cancerous thyroid at 88 years old improving her life, it took away her vitality and ultimately independence. I said to myself, “Any idiot can adjust thyroid”, and I set out to prove it by creating this algorithm. It is been in place for over four years and applied to hundreds of thyroid evaluations with over 95% applicability.
As stated in the disclaimer that begins this book, the best way to utilize this algorithm is to use it as a venue to discuss adjustment with your prescriber. If your prescriber is unwilling to work with you, then at the least you will know that you have the potential to feel better. Unfortunately, in some regions, finding a prescribing partner is difficult. But where there’s a will there’s a way and people have overcome larger obstacles than this. Zoom, Uber and the Internet have certainly made it much easier to get this done.
