The awareness that each of us is responsible for our own medical care has been developing gradually for over a generation. That idea has become more clear in recent years.
While respecting doctor’s considered opinions and diagnostics is the proper starting point towards good care, an informed patient is a prudent position to hold. We are blessed with resources that place incredible amounts of information at our disposal.
Health care professionals have come to expect that patients may secure a second opinion from “Dr. Google”. It does take discrimination to wade through the data available.
The insurance industry is incentivizing us to become more informed consumers of healthcare with the introduction of high deductible insurance plans. These plans require us to pay out the first $2500.00 to $10,000.00 dollars. Some employers subsidize the choice of a high deductible plan by contributing to an employees health savings account (HSA).
HSAs are a tax advantaged plan that both employers can contribute into and that employees can contribute into pre-tax. Those tax advantaged accounts spread the costs of the large up front expense throughout the year. I think that we can expect the employer contributions to shrink in the out years as these high deductible plans become more ordinary.
Another factor that encourages us to be coordinators of our medical care is the degree of specialization that our healthcare professionals migrate towards. That specialization comes with the advantage of doctor’s having great knowledge in their field of discipline. It also requires that we organize treatment across different specialties if we have more than one medical condition to attend to.
The days of “doctor knows best” where our parents may have held doctors assessments beyond reproach are surely over. Viewing medical professionals as “vendors” toward our wellbeing is also not appropriate. But holding the simple idea that ultimately we must advocate for our proper care has become a sensible and ordinary idea.