Money Can’t Buy Me Love…Or Health
/Money has everything and nothing to do with health. It’s a leading indicator of life expectancy, it can keep people on life-saving medical equipment for days, weeks, months and years, it can pay premiums, doctors, hospitals and pharmacies, but within our system of healthcare, it can’t buy the things that work best at keeping people healthy.
Are these sweeping generalizations? Yes, but that doesn’t render them any less concerning. It’s true that there are countless medical professionals who do great work and benefit their patients; and there are health insurance plans offering solid coverage and good service. But the vast majority of consumers are suffering the consequences of a system that few are willing to change at its core. Existing incentives and payment models keep the health consumer at a disadvantage. Adding to this imbalance in power is consumers’ relative lack of control over — or extreme difficulty in procuring and aggregating — all the various sources of their health data. And last but definitely not least, there remains a prevailing attitude in the industry (think doctors, hospitals, payors) that consumers don’t know what’s good for them. For an entertaining glimpse of this attitude in action, read PatientPop’s 2018 advice on dealing with “problem patients.”
Here are some of the things that money can’t buy in today’s healthcare, as practiced in the U.S.: Consumers can’t typically buy a conversation with their doctor or care team that lasts as long as they would like. They also can’t usually achieve the level of clarity and understanding they’d like when it comes to their medications, their diet and lifestyle practices, how to follow instructions following treatment or hospitalization, and more. There’s a common saying in the industry that “80% of what keeps us healthy happens outside the doctor’s office/ clinic/ hospital” but astonishingly little of the remaining 20% is really informed by that truth.
If the best answers come from those that stand to benefit most, then clearly consumers must lead where their health care providers cannot or will not. That means finding ways to consolidate all their health information, arming themselves with the questions they want answered, having a point of view on their own health, exploring multiple sources of preventive, routine and specialty care, confirming diagnoses when they are in doubt, and being not only willing to research solutions that might work best for them, but refusing to be embarrassed at having done so.