Everything you pick up to read about the future of healthcare these days will almost always include how COVID figures into the mix. But I am optimistic about how we will soon be putting this virus into the “dust bin” of history ( it will still be around but hopefully not the villain it has been).
It is not a stretch to tell you that healthcare has needed a serious reinvention. It’s not just a matter of sky-high costs, way too much bureaucratic duties (paperwork, charting,etc), or not enough time to see and talk to your patients. Those are just the tip of the healthcare iceberg.
For 30 years of my career, I was a hospital operating-room-type surgeon. When I had had enough, I became a non operating-room-type surgeon. I wasn’t ready to stop being a surgeon, I was just ready to stop the nonsense that has slowly crept into medical care. So what does a surgeon do in that instance? There’s probably a thousand things I could have done to keep my hands and brain engaged but I chose the road less traveled… start up a clinic that has never really existed before.
So here was my chance to do “healthcare reform” albeit on a personal and very small scale. I had the opportunity to change everything I wanted to change about healthcare. It really bothered me that patients had to wait to see the doctor, both for an appointment and during an appointment. So I designed a system to see patients in the exam room within 3 minutes of their appointment time. It really bothered me that the cost of some services was out of reach for all but a few, so I calculated my costs and set my (cash) prices more realistically for everyone. It bothered me that there were things that were needing to be done but nowhere to go to do them. So the idea of a minor surgery clinic was the only logical thing to do.
Could this be the model for clinics of the future? Of course. But only if you still have high expectations for your medical care.