The Path to 'Rolls-Royce' Healthcare For All

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‘Concierge healthcare' has been dubbed the Rolls Royce of healthcare, which is why wealthy senior citizens are opting out of the traditional patient-doctor model in favor of shorter wait times and more personalized care offered by these fancy healthcare plans. Of course, convenience comes at a price - many concierge plans charge $5,000 plus per year just to be a member. Nevertheless, those that can afford to avoid the congested system jump at the chance.

For the rest of us, though, industry consolidation and other fallout from Obamacare, mean we're stuck on the trajectory of declining quality of care, less choice, and rising healthcare costs. Under today's standard coverage, the patient-doctor ratio is about 3,000 to one. Imagine if that were your prospect for getting service at a grocery store, bank, or any other service provider.

But while the dream of ‘concierge healthcare' may seem out of reach, exciting technologies will revolutionize our healthcare system soon and yield tremendous, immediate improvements in the quality and price of care. That is, if regulators stay out of the way and allow innovation to take shape and flourish. While new technologies are better and safer overall, errors and hiccups, such as the "Digital Doctor," which inadvertently prescribed 38.5 Septra pills instead of just one, are going to occur. The key is for industry regulators to keep cool and let the changes happen.

Online medicine is a great example of what's possible if we embrace change. It is quickly making individualized care more convenient and effective. For example, the ability to "Google" symptoms at the first sign of a cold is certainly helpful, but has its limitations. For a common cold, you can get over the counter medicine recommendations but what happens when symptoms don't lead to a clear-cut diagnosis? Accuracy is critical when trying to decipher between a common cold and pneumonia.

Entrepreneurs are filling this information gap by offering online consultation with actual physicians. Through sites like virtuwell.com, getting a diagnosis is just a click away. Programs like this allow patients to use computers or mobile devices to describe their symptoms through an online portal. Patients are then charged a fee - often around $25 - if the clinician can diagnose their condition online.

These services are catching on across the country and are now offered through hospitals like The University of Alabama-Birmingham, which provides 5-minute diagnoses and much lower blood pressure readings for patients.

While concierge services may be the Rolls Royce of healthcare, online offerings give poor and middle class patients at least a wide selection of Toyota Camrys and Honda Civics - it's certainly more personal than being one of 3,000 and the convenience is a bonus.

Other advances are percolating in Silicon Valley where innovators are coming up with all kinds of different technology solutions that could displace diagnosticians and surgeons with machines. ProMedica Toledo Hospital, for example, has introduced robotic sedation in place of anesthesiologists. While imperfect, these machines are proving far more accurate and safe than humans.

As a whole, technology offers greater promise than politicians when it comes to fixing our system. And, these advances will continue so long as politicians, for once, take the doctor's Hippocratic oath and vow to "Do no harm" when it comes to the vital technological breakthroughs in medicine.

Like Uber's emergence in the taxicab industry or online alternatives to expensive college classes in higher education, the new technological breakthroughs in medicine are facing strong resistance from the status quo: The convenient and smart tools will turn the phrase "the doctor will see you now" on its head into some form of "the robot will see you now." And, a big fight against these technologies - in the name of standards and safety and the need for human engagement in the healthcare process - is sure to ensue.

Let's resist attempts to impose speed limits or put-up road blocks on innovation in the healthcare. After all, when it comes to healthcare, there's no reason Roll Royce plans can't make room on road for the rest of us.

 

Scott Beaulier is executive director of the Center for the Study of Economic Liberty at Arizona State University.  

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