Insurance is insurance; you cannot go out and buy T insurance that will be less than what it costs to go to T. Groups who have insurance (big companies, government agencies, etc.) you join one of them and you get group rates. But if you just go out and buy insurance to see a T, it is kind of obvious that you are buying insurance to see a T and you can't get there from here? No one is going to "pay you" to go see a T, they are going to charge you because they have to do the paper work, etc. Maybe you only have to pay T $20 but if your premium is $400/month then you are effectively paying $120 a week for T? If T only charges $100 out of pocket. . .

That's why insurance companies usually have their T's you get to choose between; T's that take their insurance and the price they want to pay the T. It is great if your T takes a zillion insurances but T's generally don't, unless they are part of a large practice that has a secretary, billing person, etc. and those T have to charge more because they have to pay the secretary, billing person, etc.

I would go find the T you want to see and find out what insurances they take/don't take, how much they charge, negotiate to see if you can pay less on your own, etc. Otherwise you are working from the business end not your end. Unless you work for a biggish business you cannot really get a "discount" using insurance, it's not worth it. If you are on Medicare/Medicaid/don't have much money then you pretty much "have to" use it but finding a practitioner is harder as those insurances don't pay enough to meet the T's expenses so they have to find more/enough clients paying out-of-pocket, or are a governmental agency being subsidized, etc. and the combination of having to do the paperwork AND find better paying clients somewhere makes it so fewer T's can or want to afford that scenario.

Insurance only works because people in a group get sick at different rates; it's very much like car insurance, not everyone gets into an accident but we all have to pay our insurance each month anyway. That goes to pay for people who get in accidents. Health insurance pays for people who get sick because the other people are paying premiums and they are not sick. You cannot have all the people sick at the same time, all the people who buy T insurance cannot all go to T (why dental and vision insurance is so expensive and lame and why vet insurance for your pets doesn't work).