Consumer-driven health care is here to stay. Even if its coming of age has been somewhat lethargic, there's no denying each and every one of us will have to step forward and manage our own care—just as you would in any other consumer-vendor transaction.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
A couple of weeks back, right after I returned from my trip to Boston, I woke up with a stabbing chest pain. Later that morning, the family doctor told me in no uncertain terms to get out of my office and into the ER (sorry, Billy Ocean).
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Six hours, at least as many blood draws and a CAT scan later, they sent me home with a vague diagnosis of something like, "Well, your heart's fine, your lungs are clear, and your blood work's OK, so you must have torn a chest muscle. Follow up with your doctor."
I share this story with you not to reassure my reader that yes, I do have a heart, or that all these trips to Vegas (or the neighborhood basketball court) have somehow managed to spare these old lungs, and certainly not to argue for getting primary care at your nearest emergency room. (Trust me, I'm still shaking off the cold I picked up in that cess pool.)
But at the end of my stay, the nurse (a Boston native, serendipitously enough) handed me a stack of papers and a CD.
"I'm not an agent," I told her from the other side of my drug-induced fugue.
"No," she replied. "These are the results of your blood work and a copy of all your imaging results."
I couldn't believe it. Later that night, when I could actually think straight, I thumbed through my file. And while I couldn't understand a lick of it, it struck me as cool that I kind of had my own chest's Carfax report.
Now maybe I'm out of touch, and this has been going on for a while, but I don't remember getting an owner's manual when they sent my daughter home from the hospital almost two years ago. I got a lot of cool pictures, but I took those myself.
Either way, it puts me, the consumer, at the front of the transaction going forward. I've got the paperwork and some cool, if creepy, pictures to do with as I please. I can go back to my own doctor if I want (which reminds me, I still need follow up with him). Or I can seek a second opinion or maybe even crowdsource a diagnosis if I throw the pics up on Reddit.
The point is, we're finally getting somewhere—at least in the market. If only the Beltway suits would get out of the way…
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