Getting Clinical

No place to be ending but somewhere to start
--Sade

An Oklahoma clinic provides a glimpse at what competitive medicine can look like. Current health care markets are so hampered that posting of a simple price list of procedures seems almost stunning.

The clinic also encourages non insurance business and cash payments. Great comparison of invoices between this clinic (simple half page) and a local Medicare/Medicaid hospital (multi-page maze of charges) as well.

In today's hampered health care markets, consumers have little incentive to shop for value. Without that incentive, the pressure is off producers to innovate.

The paper file storage area shown in the video looks no different than file areas I visited at major hospitals and clinics when I was involved in a corporate health care improvement initiative in the early 1990s. Given the advances in info tech in the last 20yrs, it is hard to imagine that this time warp would be present if competitive pressures were driving this market.

Obamacare will make the conventional health system worse.

Maybe this OK clinic is an example of an alternative market. What if some producers leave the conventional system and build their own--one that actually caters to the consumer?