Categories:
Business Economics
Economics of Health Care
Patients with multiple diagnoses require someone who can organize the efforts of multiple medical professionals. It is not unreasonable to imagine that delivering health care effectively, particularly for complex patients, could require a corporate model of organization.
We point out that government instead promotes the traditional model of medical delivery by promoting fee-for-service health insurance and through licensing and practice restrictions on health care providers.
READER COMMENTS
Karl Hoffman
Jan 14 2009 at 10:36am
Arnold-
You are finally speaking my language on healthcare reform.
But I think the model that would develop is not McMedicine, but something more along the lines of the financial industry.
For managing your personal finances, you have several choices. One, you can do it yourself. From diagnosis of your financial needs ie savings, insurance, investment strategy, to actual investment selection. Think individual stock = individual doctor. Individual mutual fund = individual practices that specialize in particular areas. Fund family = hospital center with every practice under one roof.
Two, you can go with a broker. Broker = doctor tied to a hospital or healthcare group.
Three, you can go with an individual investment advisor. Think not a doctor, but a professional who reviews doctors, practices, and hospitals and for some sort of retainer fee, helps you make your medical selections and monitors the care that is being provided.
Four, you can go with a financial planner. Think of this as a healthcare coach. They would likely help you not only with specific medical issues, but also with exercise regimes, and other holistic/lifestyle concerns.
The last two especially, investment advisors and financial planners, but brokers too, are not necessarily CPAs or CFAs with highly technical skills in analyzing company balance sheets but instead have a better big picture understanding of investment strategy and monitor/execute implementation on behalf of the client. A similar model would be highly effective in healthcare too.
You should also mention the negative impact on healthcare provision that the whole medical educational process has. The monopoly that the Boards have on restricting who can or can’t practice medicine and what requirements are necessary destroys the possibility of competition.
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