A Theory of Better Medicine

by: Benjamin Styles
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Word Count: 757

In old China doctors would set up contracts with individuals or whole villages who would pay them a monthly or weekly salary. If a person became ill, seriously ill, they would be exempt from paying so long as they remained sick. This forced doctors to tend to the wellbeing of their patients.
There are a lot of things wrong with the medical community today: malpractice suits, drug and equipment prices, medical incompetence, etc., but we can all agree that the idea of doctors having a real psychological incentive to keep patients healthy will bulster the system, if only at the grassroots level.
For one, malpractice suits involving doctors intentionally ignoring patient symptoms out of apathy (it happens more then you think) would be harder for doctors to shrug off. A malpractice suit is a dangerous thing for a doctor, it damages his reputation and career as well as bringing him in front of medical and legal judges. However, medical malpractice insurence covers much of the cost, something which the doctor is forced by law to have. Now imagine if that same doctor wasn't tried with a malpractice suit but instead was told he would recieve no money whatsoever for the whole expenditure!
Beyond the doctors lies the vast landscape of the medical community. Changing the medical system to what some label as "proactive medicine," that is-having doctors paid for health and not sickness, would have little impact on these industrial giants. Doctors will continue to use drugs, equipment, and other resources the same as always; and, subsequently, people will continue to get sick. No, the change proposed would happen only at the very base of the medical community-in the doctor's office.
Doctors today work in small partnerships, clinics anothewords, which regulate the business of individual practitioners. If some clinics, not all but some, started offering a montlhy based medical plan that had patients paying as long as they remained healthy there is evidence that a sizable number of the population would favor such a package. Holistic and alternative medical procedures are very popular among special interest groups and senior citizens-and the core idea of giving doctors a real incentive to keep patients in the okay should appeal to many of the more concerned citizens who do not fall into those categories.
But there are complications, both in enacting such a plan and carrying it out. First, if someone joined such a theoretical group would they pay more or less, and would they do so in addition to regular medical insurence. Ideally, clinics attempting to try such a plan would preemptively reach an agreement with insurence companies that either offered major discounts or cojoined the monthly insurence bill with that given to the clinic. Such a plan would be appealing to insurence providers because the incentive to keep people healthy would directly translate into fewer malpractice suits, and fewer sicknesses kept people at work and not in court sueing for malpratice, lost time at work, punitive damages, etc.
Another worry people might have would be the issue of "less then credible" sickness claims on the part of clinic patients. People seeking to remain exempt from payment even when healthy would feign sickness. To cure this issue we would need to tap another complication: who decides when a person is or isn't sick? Ideally, the doctors themselves would declare a person fit or unhealthy. Disputes would be taken up by attorneys and courts or even third party companies brought in and paid equal amounts by both parties to ensure fairness. National guidelines and/or a document detailing specifically what constitutes sickness and health would be provided for by the federal government to ensure universal agreement.
If such clinics came into existence and survived, even thrived, the medical community would gain greater favor with the public and trust once lost through legendary malpractice suits might be regained. Insurence companies would also rest a little easier and rates might even go down (!!!) if this proposed plan succeeded in making doctors more effective and malpractice suits fewer. Again, the idea is to counter doctor incompetence and apathy. It's difficult to gauge the future properly but again-no one can argue with the wisdom of the old Chinese doctors, that to 'treat a man healthy was better then when he was sick.'

About the Author

Benjamin Styles, author of "The Creator," and "When Darkness Falls," and the story-blog "Intelligent Design, LLC," has absolutely no medical or proffesional standing in the medical community whatsoever.... However he does have a head and several close family members working in the medical community. This commentary on "poactive medicine," which is still largely unknown outside medical schools and colleges, is his way of trying to help all those involved in the often nihilistic and violent world of modern medicine.

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