Podcast #23: Breaking Free: Dr. Chaminie Wheeler on Fighting for Physician Independence

Justin Nabity
This is the DocNation podcast. We are a movement founded by doctors for doctors dedicated to empowering medical professionals to reclaim control over health care decisions and advocating for their fair share of the industry’s resources. Please note the views expressed are those of DocNation and not necessarily those of our Guest or Reference Health centers.

Reid Lancaster
I want to start this podcast off by saying, so I’m going to just talk a little bit about Neil for a second, and then, Justin, I’ll let you go, but let’s start. I’d like to start with saying, hi, I’m Reid Lancaster, I’m a founder of DocNation. Justin’s a founder at DocNation as well.

And so is Neil. We have another founding partner, Doctor Anthony Giuffrida. He wasn’t able to make it today, but I just wanted to start out a little bit different today and say, hey, Neil. Neil is in the trenches. And Neil, I just wanted to say I was going to say this offline, but man, podcasts are supposed to be flowy and real and, you know, not scripted, and we’re not scripted.

And so I just want to say, man, thanks for your support. I’ve known you for a long time now, but thanks for your support. And DocNation, you’re a very important founding member. And just tell us where you’re at. And I think last week you were. Were you by a train station or something?

Neil Dougherty
I was.

Reid Lancaster
And why are you traveling so much? What do you do? Why are you traveling so much? And what got you interested in supporting physicians?

Neil Dougherty
So this is, thank you for asking the question. I’m happy to be here…

Reid Lancaster
Dr. Wheeler, sorry, we start off typically by doing that with you, but I just wanted to keep it real. I’m just impressed by my partner. So I just wanted a couple of minutes for Neil, if you don’t mind.

Dr. Chaminie Wheeler
Love it.

Neil Dougherty
To start off here. I’m at Spine Summit here in Tampa. Right. This is an amazing meeting. It’s a huge meeting for spine surgery. There’s the deformity surgery. But there is a meeting that I just walked out of. It’s a big lecture hall. Tons of physicians in there. I was talking about the future of spine surgery innovation.

That’s what gets me going, right? The new toys and new ways and solutions to help people. In that conversation, they were talking about physician collaboration. They also went on to mention that doctors are not each other’s enemies, right? Between specialties. Justin, you would love it because Dr. Lenke said, sometimes hospitals are enemies, sometimes insurance companies are enemies.

But doctors, we need to stay together. There was like a DocNation advertisement a little bit there. And so I was like, this is exactly where I’m supposed to be. You know, you have those moments where you’re like, this is where I’m supposed to be in this lecture hall. And then when he was done, they started talking about some other spine things.

And so, DocNation is where I’m supposed to be talking about this exact message. So I’m glad to be here with you, Doctor Wheeler.

Dr. Chaminie Wheeler
Awesome.

Reid Lancaster
Thanks, Neil. Man, thanks for your commitment. We wouldn’t be here without you. We’re grateful for you. All right, Justin, without further ado, go ahead with your introduction of our guest, Doctor Wheeler.

Justin Nabity
Absolutely. Today we’re talking with Doctor Chaminie Wheeler, a passionate advocate for independent physicians and true physician leadership. She’s leading the charge to restore trust in medicine by strengthening the doctor-patient relationship free from the administrative interference that is so common. Doctor Wheeler has been instrumental in organizing independent doctors in Pennsylvania and Lehigh Valley, giving them a stronger voice in patient care.

Doctor Wheeler, what inspired you to take such an active role in the independent physician movement?

Dr. Chaminie Wheeler
Absolutely. I love the background right there that doctors do need to stick together. What inspired me? So I went to medical school, I went to residency, worked in corporate health care really my whole life. In large health systems, you get a census of the number of patients you’re supposed to see that day, and you do your best.

And what I realized is that the longer I worked, the more autonomy I was losing every single day to use the knowledge that I went to school for. And how was I losing that autonomy? It was really being lost by regulations and different criteria that were placed on the doctor-patient relationship by individuals who didn’t go to medical school.

Justin Nabity
But aren’t regulations good? Aren’t they what we need to have for protection? Why is that not better for patients and you?

Dr. Chaminie Wheeler
I think some regulations are good. But overall, every health care decision needs to be made within the bounds of the doctor-patient relationship. It should be free of all other things. So one of the things—why do you have to do step one, two, three? If the doctor believes you should do step four, why can’t we do step four and get that patient better?

If the patient wants to do step four and the patient is willing to pay for step four, why do we need to do steps one, two, and three? Because that’s the regulation.

Justin Nabity
And from your perspective, what is the reason? What’s the justification for running you through all those extra hoops?

Dr. Chaminie Wheeler
So in my…

Reid Lancaster
Yeah, define what regulation means. Like that we’re regulated, we can’t go to step four but we have to go one, two, three. Why is that? What is the regulation?

Dr. Chaminie Wheeler
One could be even a hospital. A hospital might make a protocol that says, if a patient comes into the E.R. with shortness of breath, you order this chest X-ray, and that X-ray needs to be ordered first. Even though, in your judgment, the patient has been on a long flight, and you think it’s going to be a pulmonary embolism.

Time is critical for that evaluation, treatment, and all of that. But the hospital protocol says we need to do a chest X-ray first. We need to do this. We need to wait for a D-dimer to come back before we can order that CT that could actually be better for the patient.

In some cases, we should go through all of those, but not in all cases. So one regulation could be a hospital-driven protocol. It may be there as a safeguard, but I believe there are a lot more incentives and financial gains to do more testing than to do exactly what is needed.

nother one could be what the insurance requires. The insurance regulation states that for shortness of breath, which is the diagnostic code, you need to go through steps one, two, and three. And therefore, this is the way you need to do it. So it’s really not best patient care, and it interferes with the entire flow of what’s happening in the ER.

Because you might have been able to triage and get that patient better and out, making that bed available to another patient much faster. If you were free to make the decision and had the autonomy to do so, you would take responsibility for your actions. We have that. So there really should not be that hindrance.

Reid Lancaster
So, Doctor Wheeler, if administration and the insurance companies are forcing you to practice medicine in a way that you don’t see is best fit, and you are out of those three parties, the doctor, administration, and the insurance company, you are the person with the knowledge, the person executing the plan. Why aren’t you making that decision? Why would they make you do those things?

Dr. Chaminie Wheeler
Because we sign an employee contract that says, I am going to follow this. This is what I will do. So that is where I realize to have to be the best advocate, advocate, and to have true physician leadership that can transform health care is really is to be independent, so that I am not worried about where my paycheck comes from, paycheck comes from, you know, what job I do for my patient.

And I. And so I am an independent physician, but I’m actually more purist in that way because I’m a direct primary care. So I even step outside of the bounds of that insurance regulation in addition to the administration. So in both things. So I have the autonomy to make the decisions that I that is best. And and it’s beautiful.

I get to actually, even my patient this morning, we talked about how in medical school we have learned that, you know, 17% to 75% of what’s going on with the patient is really taking that history and figuring it out. Then there’s the physical exam, and labs and testing really should only be about 5 to 10% of the picture.

And why don’t we do that? Because seven minutes is just not enough to take a good history. So we refer to another person, or we order a bunch of tests that didn’t necessarily even need to be done. And that skyrockets healthcare. I think in 2023, there was, I think the U.S. healthcare cost was 4. … I think 7 trillion.

I want to say, and of that and so in my whole thing, it’s about the doctor-patient relationship. The more distance we put between the doctor and the patient, the more profit that it generates, because you limit the time between the doctor and the patient to be able to, you know, have that.

So you’re more likely to write a script, and it incentivizes almost in a way, illness is easier to… somebody comes in, the blood pressure is high. It’s much easier to put them on a beta blocker and send them on their way. It takes 30 seconds to write that, but it would take me 30 minutes not to write that script, because I need to talk to him about a lot more and take the liability to have them come back to get that blood pressure rechecked and make sure that it is going in the direction it needs.

And insurance billing code may just not cover that next visit or that next visit to get that person better. So really, our system is incentivized to keep prescribing that pill, maybe add another one to cover the side effects of one.

Reid Lancaster
I’m hearing that insurance companies are incentivizing illness.

Dr. Chaminie Wheeler
Yes.

Reid Lancaster
That that’s a powerful statement. But that’s what I’m hearing. And that’s the way I see it as well.

Justin Nabity
Yeah. Yes. It’s a common theme. Neil, you were going to say something a moment ago.

Neil Dougherty
Yeah, Reid, you hear that? I hear that too. I also hear that, as a patient or a consumer of healthcare, I want to find a doctor that doesn’t have to answer to anyone.

Reid Lancaster
You know, I love that, Neil, I love that. Here’s why. We don’t just need to put it all on the doctors, because doctors are not doing a good job of taking the power back. That’s why DocNation exists. We really shouldn’t even exist. If doctors would just get together and create a collective bargaining group, that’s really all we need.

We don’t even need to start a union. We just need a collective bargaining group that comes together and says, okay, we don’t like this, we’re going to fight, and we don’t even have to fight where, the patient, you know, we don’t have to—I hate to say this word because people get so scared—but we don’t have to strike.

We don’t have to go to that level. We just need to come together and be able to make decisions together and show some sort of power to let the insurance companies know, okay? It’s just not as easy as us calling the shots every step of the way. But Neil, you said something I think is really important.

Dr. Chaminie Wheeler
We do have the power. I just… like, we do have the power because I think about how money drives everything, right? And the way that I see it is that every health care dollar in our system is paid for by our patients, and it’s generated by a physician or a physician service. So we as doctors, really, we just need to come together and recognize the autonomy we do have.

And really, healthcare medicine cannot exist without us. And we went to medical school to take care of our patients. And it cannot exist without patients. So when we have both of those two things on both sides, we just have to recognize that and get behind it and go all in and say, this is it.

Reid Lancaster
I think there are physicians out there who are going to listen to this podcast and say, that sounds amazing. Like, I would love to be in Doctor Wheeler’s shoes right now. What are some of the pitfalls and challenges of being solo or being in private practice? What were some of the pitfalls or challenges that you faced that people are all thinking, can I even make money doing that?

So if I can ask, you know, do you know, if I can ask a kind of a personal question—is, are the financials okay?

Dr. Chaminie Wheeler
100% they are. And so we have—our office has only been open for a year and a half. And within that year and a half, we have around 450 members. It’s my husband and I. So there is a need in society for, our patients want a doctor that will take the time to listen to them and actually take a history, not just write a prescription.

I feel like the role of a physician, especially in the system, has been degraded to one who can prescribe more than anything else. And so the finances are good. Our last two meet and greets we had, we had 20 people. We have done zero advertising.

It’s all been word of mouth. We don’t advertise. So, and I tell other doctors, I said, all you have to do is just do a good job with the patient in front of you. It’s a need. I don’t consider healthcare as a right or a privilege.

It’s a need in society that needs to be met. And it should not be met for obscene profit. So our finances are good. And that’s honestly why I wrote a resolution here in Pennsylvania in 2023 to create an independent practicing physicians section within the Pennsylvania Medical Society. It was a hard-fought battle, but we were able to create that because in Pennsylvania, about 78% of our physicians are employed.

And, you know, 22% are independent. And that number is continuing to change as networks continue to engulf our independent doctors.

Justin Nabity
Yeah.

Dr. Chaminie Wheeler
So our section, this is January 1st of 2025, is officially a section where I’m actually the board trustee for the independent section within the medical society. And we are going strong.

We just had a Zoom meeting. We meet every month. Our meetings are well attended, and we have guest speakers that really think outside the box, innovative individuals that help grow. And so it is hard. It is hard, but it is so worth it because the reward is great. And I do—I mean, I’m a pediatrician, so I do tend to live in the land of unicorns and rainbows, but I really believe the independent movement actually is going to be the—it’s going to be the solution to health care, doctors taking back autonomy. And so, we have a lot of good things in play.

I—when my husband and I just hosted a gathering earlier in the month, in February, we had 47 doctors who drove from all over the state who came. We talked and we united. We have a group in the Lehigh Valley that we created. There’s about 70—some are physicians, some are non-physicians like chiropractors that are on it.

But we have a group of about 70 with all kinds of specialties with our own. That is just our whole goal. So we have two large health networks in the Lehigh Valley, Saint Luke and Lehigh Valley Hospital. So our patients and we don’t have the deep pockets to be able to put a billboard on every corner.

So we want to give our patients choices, though. So we came together, and our goal is that our patients can have a choice—where if they want to go to a Saint Luke doctor, they can; Lehigh Valley doctor, they can. Oh, and there’s another website of independent doctors. Maybe I’ll go to one of them, you know. It really is free market, increasing choice, price transparency.

We got this.

You know.

Justin Nabity
I love how fresh this is. You are.

Reid Lancaster
I know, this is amazing.

Justin Nabity
Year and a half, you said, and you know, for people that are afraid or think they can’t do it, you’re living proof that it is possible. I’m so proud of you, Doctor Wheeler. What you’ve done—I was digging around a little bit, doing some research, and I got to see you stand up for yourself and for your practice and for your patients and so many people.

When you were interviewed by the news and took a stand for what you believe, which is patient choice and physician choice—like, that’s what’s so awesome about DocNation is that we get to bring together so many leaders that are doing big things. It’s hard sometimes, you know, you’re so busy with your head down that you don’t really know what’s going on around you.

And here we are. You are changing the game and you’re taking on the Goliath here that exists, and it’s working.

Dr. Chaminie Wheeler
It is. It’s working because it’s what’s good. It is—it’s good. Like for me, when you said on the news, it was—it was such a hard time. I’m a pediatrician. I’ve been an advocate for, you know, vaccines my whole life. I’ve taken—I mean, I’ve done spinal taps with, you know, kids with vaccine-preventable diseases and kids who were vaccinated with meningitis, you know, so I’ve seen both sides.

I’ve seen the—working in pediatric ER. And when health care decisions were being made and just really forced upon people—for my, you know, my colleagues and my—the nurses and everybody was just not saying anything. It was so hard for me. I was like, you know what? We need to take a step back.

I mean, during RSV season, we always wore masks and gowned and gloved and went in to take care of our little babies. Right? That’s what we did. Before we left the room, we took everything off and put it in a bin. And now I’m told that I can walk around the hospital wearing the same thing and it’s okay to go from a patient room to a patient room—something I’ve never done.

And it’s supposed to be okay. And I’m not supposed to ask, is that okay? And why does that make sense? I am literally not supposed to say that. And so I’m like, look, I know this. Everything is new, and I honestly don’t know whether everything is the right decision or not. But I know we cannot be forcing things on people.

Justin Nabity
Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Chaminie Wheeler
You know.

Justin Nabity
So amazing.

Dr. Chaminie Wheeler
It is. It’s good. It’s—we took a, you know, and our—it’s, it’s, it’s a—it’s a great journey. I mean, there are independent doctors that are in all different specialties. We actually have been able to advocate in the state of Pennsylvania to decrease the strength of the restrictive covenant restrictions in Pennsylvania in healthcare. We got legislation—our governor signed last summer.

So that was, you know, some—it’s not exactly what we wanted, but it’s better than what we had. You know, and we chose direct primary care because it really is concierge medicine, but it’s not concierge prices and truly does work. And we—I really do think the direct primary care movement, where we can expand HSA to increase choice for families and all of those—will just really take off and transform health care to really be back, to restore that covenant of trust in medicine that we really need.

Reid Lancaster
I think my favorite thing that you’ve said so far is that it’s working because it’s good. And I translate that to say it’s working because it’s the right thing to do, it’s the right way to do medicine. And that’s so refreshing to hear. But I also hear you saying this direction, this focus, and my advocacy is not easy.

And I gotta be honest, DocNation and our focus is not easy. You know, it’s a challenge. We’re fighting. We’re trying to get people together. We’re going against the administration and regulation and legal stuff. And so, that’s—like, we have a sister in arms here. And I’m just encouraged today—you’re going through all these battles, yet you have a nice smile on your face and your focus because you know that what you’re doing is the right thing to be doing, and it’s working, and it’s the good thing to be doing.

So I just want to say thank you so much for doing everything you’re doing, and DocNation is here to support you in any way that you can see fit.

Dr. Chaminie Wheeler
I would love it. I mean, if—whatever we can do to collaborate and help. And really, it’s not about just independent—like, I don’t know if you saw on our website, but I firmly believe that, you know, independent doctors are the best choice for patient advocacy because you can actually say what you’re saying in a hospital setting.

And not only that, we’re the best advocates for our employed colleagues because we can advocate where they can’t, because of their contracts. So we are here for employed colleagues and for our patients and for each other. So you’re right. We have got to be in the same sandbox and get along and say, let’s move forward. You know?

Neil Dougherty
I would I would want like the person that’s on my team to be able to say the truth and do the right thing. I would want my doctor to be able to tell me the truth and say the right thing and say the right thing, right. Do the right thing right now. I love what you’re saying, and I’m inspired by your work.

I’m a fan now, so, Yeah. Thank you,

Dr. Chaminie Wheeler
Thank you! And I would love it if you guys ever, you know, wanted to do this in Pennsylvania. Part of our independent physicians section group. I mean, we have it’s it’s it’s really energizing. It’s the only the reason it’s not moving faster is because we are independent. We have to take care of the business of medicine in addition to our patients. Just not enough time.

Reid Lancaster
That’s right.

Dr. Chaminie Wheeler
Otherwise it would be moving faster.

Reid Lancaster
We totally… go ahead, Justin.

Justin Nabity
There’s at least one thing that we need to do after this. And that is we helped a dermatologist start his practice in Pennsylvania, and he is doing really well. We need to get him connected with you. So maybe he’s already connected with you. I don’t know, we’ll find out afterward. Like, let’s make sure that we do that.

Reid Lancaster
Doctor Wheeler, one of the things we do is we help manage private practices and start private practices.

Dr. Chaminie Wheeler
Okay.

Reid Lancaster
Because we see that that is a way to freedom. And when I say freedom. I truly mean freedom. Physicians are not free. They get they they go to school. They work so hard they become elite all the all to be shackled.

Their decisions, their decision making, their knowledge, their experience is not flourishing because they’re shackled by administration and the insurance companies. And, so we help start practices. But that is is this takes a long time. It takes a long time. And so that’s why we started the advocacy side. To do more, more. You know.

Dr. Chaminie Wheeler
That sounds wonderful because we started our DPC and I can tell you just in 2025, I have had five physicians reach out to me about how they can leave. And, you know, I just share our story and, you know, I’m willing to, but like, no, some would be great resources because they are they want to leave. They want to, you know, not be shackled. They want to make those decisions.

Reid Lancaster
We we’ve been helping doctors leave for 15 years.

Dr. Chaminie Wheeler
That’s wonderful.

Reid Lancaster
So so do this will you reach back out to those five people and just send them over to us, and we will help walk them through the process.

Dr. Chaminie Wheeler
Okay.

Reid Lancaster
Wow I really feel like we have a sister in arms at some point. I want to meet your husband. Tell him thank you for all the work he’s doing because we know it’s a team effort. And we’ll be in touch.

Dr. Chaminie Wheeler
Thank you.

Reid Lancaster
Thank you so much.

Justin Nabity
Thanks Dr. Wheeler.

Dr. Chaminie Wheeler
Awesome. This was fun.

Reid Lancaster
This is fun. You’re awesome.

Justin Nabity
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