Take Control, Patients!

It's long past time that patients demonstrated some impatience over their treatment by healthcare providers.

Let's be clear. I'm not talking about diagnosis and treatment necessarily. Those can actually be accomplished without any patient at all and they routine are. All they require is some symptoms.

Of course the symptoms must be attached to a means of monetary compensation--hence the need for a patient.

I had spent the past 25 years in Minnesota prior to coming to central Ohio in 2009. During that time I lived in the Rochester area and worked at the Mayo Clinic and the area's only alternative, OMC. In all of that time I failed to appreciate just how unique and effective the healthcare "system" was. The contrast upon arriving in central Ohio and seeking a primary physician (my doctor) was breathtaking.

The concept of a group practice was defined by the Mayo Brothers during the early part of the 20th century. In that model, the patient of one was the patient of all in the group and a single chart (and charting system) was accessible to and used by all as a condition of becoming a member of the group. Here, although the term is used, it refers only to the use of a common facility and the sharing of diagnostic and therapeutic equipment. Patients and their charts belong to one and only one physician within the group. No common system of charting is apparent and another physician--even one within the group--may find it difficult or even impossible to locate specific and critical information in the chart.

There appears to be no such thing as a multi-specialty group so that I am forced to consult several different physicians in different groups in order to have my health needs addressed. What I have seen is that this represent a significant risk to me since each of those physicians has only a fragment of me. This means that I must know enough about medicine to protect myself from mistakes about to be made. I never intended to be a doctor and I resent having to pay large sums for diagnosis and treatments which, without my active participation, have a high risk of actually doing me harm.

I'm interested in your point of view and will post it here. I plan to conduct surveys and post the results and analysis.