Courtesy of Ben Hagopian.
- I've been a doctor for more than a decade and have a family of four.
- I've traded traditional health insurance for direct primary care and a medical cost-sharing group.
- For the first time, I feel like I'm truly in control of our healthcare.
I've spent more than a decade navigating the labyrinth of American healthcare. I've worn the white coat, spent sleepless nights on call, signed the charts, and cared for thousands of patients.
A few years ago, I realized I couldn't keep participating in a system that felt like it was designed to fail the very people it was meant to serve.
Today, my family and I are uninsured in the traditional sense — and I'm confident that it's the best financial and medical decision I've ever made.
I hit my breaking point
For years, I worked in a traditional, insurance-based primary care practice. My days were a blur of 15-minute appointments, dictated not by medical necessity, but by billing codes and insurance reimbursements. I felt completely beholden to the behemoth of corporate medicine. Patients were waiting months to see me and were almost always shortchanged on the time I was able to spend with them.
I felt like the insurance companies were the invisible third party in every exam room, deciding which tests I could order and which medications my patients deserved. I wasn't just a doctor anymore; I was a data-entry clerk for multibillion-dollar payers. The result was a total, soul-crushing burnout that followed me home every night.
On the other side of it, some of my patients were forgoing necessary care because the costs presented to them were simply too high. Did it make sense to spend $300 to check a thyroid test to ensure the $10 per month medication I prescribed was working as it was supposed to? Many patients, rightfully so, decided to spend their money elsewhere.
I knew I had to get out — not just for my own sanity, but to actually provide the type of care I believed in.
Direct primary care offered something different
I eventually traded the treadmill for Direct Primary Care (DPC). In this model, my patients (or their employers or an insurance company) pay a flat monthly membership fee directly to me (around $100 per month). This type of care is affordable— my current patient panel includes attorneys, electricians, teachers, and retirees. There are no co-pays, no deductibles, and most importantly, no insurance companies breathing down my neck.
The difference was night and day. Without the administrative bloat of insurance billing, I finally became the doctor I trained to be:
- Time: I went from seeing 20 patients a day to seeing six or eight.
- Access: My patients can text me directly. We have hour-long conversations instead of 10-minute sprints.
- Cost: By cutting out the intermediary, I'm able to offer wholesale pricing on labs and imaging that are often 90% cheaper than hospital rates. That $300 thyroid test from my previous job? I now offer that for $8.
I took my own family off the grid
Once I saw how much better medicine functioned without traditional insurance interference, I took the ultimate leap. I took my wife and children, now 9 and 6, off our health insurance plan.
Instead, we joined a medical cost-sharing community. It isn't insurance; it's a community of members who share each other's large, unexpected medical expenses. When I combined a DPC membership for our routine care with a health share for the big stuff, I realized I had found a better way to protect my family — and was paying far, far less for it.
The math backs up my decision
To understand why we left, look at the cost of childbirth. When our first child was born under a supposedly high-end traditional insurance plan, we still walked away owing about $10,000 after paying our insurance premiums. We were paying twice: once for the premium and again for the actual care.
My wife spent hours of her precious maternity leave arguing with insurance companies about the services we received in the hospital. When our infant son was hospitalized a few months later, she was back on the phone again, having to advocate for his coverage during the time of a family crisis. We spent years paying off the cost of the birth and his illness.
With our second child, we looked at the numbers through the lens of a cost-share program. On a plan like ours, the Initial Unshareable Amount (IUA) — the part we pay before the community kicks in — was only $1,500.
Beyond that $1,500, the community shared the rest. We didn't have to spend my wife's recovery time fighting with a claims adjuster or waiting for pre-authorizations. We knew exactly what our responsibility was, and more importantly, we knew our family was covered by a community, not a corporation.
I feel like I took back control
As a physician, I've seen the insurance trap from both sides. We've been conditioned to believe that without a blue or green plastic card in our wallets, we are unsafe.
The reality is that for some, traditional insurance has become a barrier to care rather than a bridge. By opting out and pairing Direct Primary Care with a health share, I've reclaimed my time as a doctor and my peace of mind as a father. I'm no longer waiting for an insurance company to tell me how to care for my kids or my patients. As a doctor and as a father, for the first time in my career, I feel truly secure.