Not only do I not take health insurance in my orthopedic practice, I also don’t carry traditional health insurance for myself or my family.
That statement alone is enough to make most physicians uncomfortable. We’ve been trained inside a system where health insurance is treated as a sacred, untouchable pillar of modern medicine. Questioning it feels almost irresponsible. But after years of practicing orthopedics and watching how this product functions from both sides of the exam table, I’ve come to a different conclusion.
In my opinion, traditional health insurance is a very bad product.
It’s a bad product to take as a physician, and it’s a bad product to use as a patient.
Our next coach, strategist, or professional guide may already be here. Explore our directory to read about expert coaches and connect with the people who can help you grow.
On the physician side, insurance drains money, time, and autonomy. You spend years training to diagnose and treat musculoskeletal conditions, only to find that your clinical judgment is secondary to an algorithm at a large carrier like UnitedHealthcare or Blue Cross Blue Shield. You recommend an MRI. It gets denied. You suggest a procedure. It requires “peer-to-peer” review with someone who hasn’t seen the patient. You perform the work. Payment is delayed, reduced, or clawed back months later.
It is a constant administrative tax on your expertise.
On the patient side, it’s no better. Premiums climb every year. Deductibles get higher. Networks get narrower. Families pay thousands of dollars per month just to maintain the privilege of paying thousands more before coverage even kicks in.
That’s not insurance in the traditional sense. That’s prepaid rationing.
A curated resource which promises to bring a lineup of experts that speak about how to invest, where to invest, and how to minimize loss.
Insurance, by definition, is supposed to protect against rare, catastrophic events. Homeowners insurance doesn’t cover your lightbulbs. Car insurance doesn’t pay for your oil changes. But health insurance has been distorted into something that tries to cover everything from routine labs to major trauma, and in doing so, it has become bloated, inefficient, and wildly expensive.
So yes, I don’t take it in my practice.
And no, I don’t carry it personally.
Whenever I say that, the same question comes up:
“What if something happens to your family?”
It’s a fair question. But it assumes that the only responsible answer is traditional insurance. That simply isn’t true.
Instead, I use a healthshare.
We help transform your expertise into impactful, income-generating courses. Whether you’re speaker or just starting out, we guide you through structuring content to engaging an audience. Join us in redefining what education looks like and discover how you can inspire, educate, and thrive online.
For those unfamiliar, healthshares are member-based cost-sharing organizations. They are not insurance. They don’t operate under the same regulatory structure. But for generally healthy individuals and families, they can function as a much more efficient catastrophic coverage model.
You pay a monthly share amount that is typically far lower than a comparable insurance premium. If a large medical event occurs, the community shares in the cost according to agreed-upon guidelines. It restores the original concept of risk pooling without the administrative bloat and profit-driven denials that define much of modern insurance.
Is it perfect? Of course not. No financial product is.
But here’s the key distinction: with a healthshare, expectations are clear. It is built for unexpected, major events, not for micromanaging every physician visit. For routine care, we pay cash. And in a cash-based medical ecosystem, prices are often dramatically lower than people realize.
As someone who runs a direct-pay orthopedic practice, I see this every day. When you remove third-party billing, the cost of imaging, injections, and procedures often drops substantially. Transparency increases. Friction decreases. Decision-making becomes simpler.
Bring the idea. We’ll help build the show. From planning and production to polish and launch, we turn expertise into content that looks professional, feels intentional, & gives your audience a reason to return.
The irony is that many patients assume going “without insurance” is reckless. Yet they are already functionally self-insured up to their $8,000 or $10,000 deductible. They are paying enormous premiums for coverage that only activates after a major financial hit.
Meanwhile, the only people I consistently meet who genuinely love their insurance are those with old legacy union plans, the kind negotiated decades ago with robust benefits and low out-of-pocket costs. Those plans can be quite good, largely because of strong collective bargaining. But they are increasingly rare, and they are not representative of what most small business owners, independent contractors, or private practice physicians are offered today.
For the average healthy family, traditional health insurance often functions as a wealth transfer mechanism, steady monthly outflow with uncertain return.
None of this is to say that insurance should not exist. Catastrophic risk protection is essential. Trauma, cancer, NICU stays, these are financially devastating without pooling mechanisms. But the current structure tries to be everything at once: prepaid primary care plan, bureaucratic gatekeeper, utilization manager, and financial intermediary. In doing so, it has become extraordinarily expensive and adversarial.
By stepping outside of it, both in my practice and personally, I’ve found something unexpected: simplicity.
If you’re tired of being bossed around by health insurance companies and hospital systems, but still want to practice medicine, this is the course for you! Use code “SoMeDocs” for 10% off, just for being a loyal reader!
Patients know what things cost. I know what I’m being paid. My family’s monthly healthcare expenses are predictable and substantially lower. And if a major event occurs, we have a community-based mechanism to handle it.
This model is not for everyone. If you have significant chronic conditions, high predictable utilization, or need guaranteed coverage for specific services, traditional insurance may make more sense. But for generally healthy individuals who are comfortable thinking differently, there are alternatives.
We’ve been told for decades that health insurance is synonymous with healthcare.
It isn’t.
Healthcare is what happens between a patient and a physician. Insurance is just a financial product layered on top of it.
And like any financial product, it’s worth asking whether it’s actually serving you, or simply draining you from both sides.
We’ve been told for decades that health insurance is synonymous with healthcare. It isn’t.
