Reclaiming the Relationship: Why Patients and Physicians Must Sit at the Same Table Again

By: Dr. Trevor Huber

Coming off an energizing weekend at TexMed25 in San Antonio, there’s one theme that echoed louder than any other: the patient-physician relationship is under attack.

Not from patients. Not from doctors.

But from the growing list of middlemen—insurance companies, pharmacy benefit managers, hospital systems, and equity-backed conglomerates—who profit off a relationship they’ve never truly been part of.

This relationship—the one between a patient and their personal physician—has always been sacred. It’s what healthcare was built on. And for generations, it worked. Your doctor knew your name, your story, your concerns, and your goals. You trusted them not just with your labs, but with your life. And they worked relentlessly to give you the best care possible.

But over the last few decades, that relationship has been slowly disassembled—piece by piece—by layers of bureaucracy, profit-driven systems, and policies that put cost over care.

The Real Cost of "Adequate Care"

Let’s be clear: adequate care isn’t enough.

As physicians, we don’t get into medicine to offer “good enough.” We’re here to deliver excellent care—the kind we’d want for our own families.

Yet too often, that pursuit is blocked by prior authorizations, denied claims, formularies we didn’t create, and systems that expect us to do more with less. Patients show up needing help, and we spend hours fighting for them—sometimes just to get them the medication or diagnostic test they already discussed with us in the exam room.

These obstacles don’t just frustrate doctors. They hurt patients.
And they slowly erode the very foundation of what makes medicine work: relationship, trust, and advocacy.

15% of the Cost, 100% of the Blame

Here’s a sobering stat: physician services make up only 15% of total healthcare costs.

So why are doctors and patients bearing 100% of the burden when things go wrong?

Because we’ve allowed too many outside voices to dominate the healthcare conversation—voices that prioritize profit over people. Many of these entities now own physician practices, dictate care protocols, and steer treatment decisions using financial incentives that have nothing to do with health.

And while these systems grow richer, the average physician grows more burned out, and the average patient grows more confused, more frustrated, and less cared for.

It's Time for a Revolution

I believe we’re on the verge of something different.
What I felt at TexMed25 was more than concern—it was momentum.

Doctors from every setting—private practice, hospital-employed, insurance-affiliated—are all saying the same thing: we want to give excellent care. We want the freedom to do what’s right. And we’re ready for a system that supports that.

We don’t need more meetings. We need more seats at the right table.

The patient and the physician should be at the center of every medical decision-making discussion—not sidelined by administrative agendas.

It’s time we reclaim that space. Together.

A New Era of Healthcare

My hope is that The Dr. Huber Show becomes part of that movement.

A place where real conversations spark real solutions. Where patients and providers learn from each other. And where we start rebuilding the kind of healthcare system we can all believe in again.

Because healthcare shouldn't feel corporate.
It should feel personal.

And it starts with us.