A headline recently caught my eye.
A quasi-new health venture had popped up, with the initials M & D fit neatly into its name.
The venture (with OUR degree strategically embedded within) promised to team up with an already billion-dollar giant to “take care” of patients, by opening up stores across the country and ensure that care becomes more accessible.
I call bullshit.
I’m a physician. I’ve seen the recent healthcare landscape take a 180, evolving into an arena in which the mightiest of marketing-swords wins.
There is no way that this venture is expanding in rapid fashion, without bringing in “other” professionals working in the healthcare field, who are very rapidly replacing physicians.
I'm a physician. I've seen the recent healthcare landscape take a 180, evolving into an arena in which the mightiest of marketing-swords wins. #medtwitter Click To Tweet
I worry about this type of tactic; a quintessential bait-and-switch, in today’s world of care-giving.
In it, it doesn’t matter what you’re ACTUALLY delivering to a consumer, as long as it looks really nice and glitzy. What you get are ventures like this, which merely pop that once-coveted degree (an MD, which stands for medical degree), into its name and voila, the public follows.
Here’s what I’m guessing you’re going to see in this “genius” new venture to rapidly provide access to care: you’ll see a ton of NPs (not to even mention the the no problem-mills that have been built up over these last few years with a promise of faster service in health, and the increasing leniency in which they get to practice), with a physician who will be signing their charts and making money for that supervision, without actually supervising.
Who’s going to ultimately pay the price for this corporate machine?
You, the patient, will.
Who's going to ultimately pay the price for this corporate machine? You, the patient, will. Click To Tweet
You’ll get subpar care.
You’ll be seeing whoever it is that the clinics decide to staff themselves with, and, many times, (and I hate to say this but..) you won’t even know it.
Because you’ll unsuspectingly be going to get your care at a place that has the word MD planted cleverly into its marketing billboard, and you’ll wrongfully be feeling safe.
You'll unsuspectingly be going to get your care at a place that has the word MD planted cleverly into its marketing billboard, and you'll wrongfully be feeling safe. Click To Tweet
It will be too late at that point, however. Because The “Best Clinic In The World MD” will have raised its gazillion-dollars in VC money, or get backing from the venture that’s already known, and will have spread its satellites around like a spawning fish.
Sadly, I won’t be around to say “I told you so.”
So just remember that I said it, on the day that this piece gets published. Here in this very spot.
