Order your own tests

Here is a line of thinking on health care you may find interesting. Disguised as the potential for saving money, it follows the old “more is better logic of health care” – exactly what helped us get into trouble with health care costs.

I could mention the absurdity of this or the risks to patients or the very likely increase in costs caused by patients reading an outlier on a test result running to their doctor and demanding more tests and more services – and the doctors fearing malpractice accommodating the patient against their better judgement, but instead I have included the rebuttal letters from physicians.

Em­pow­er­ing in­di­vid­u­als to en­gage in their own health, includ­ing through order­ing their own lab tests, means the prices of these services will in­creas­ingly be­come trans­parent. Trans­par­ent pric­ing and con­sumer en­gage­ment al­low mar­kets to func­tion, dri­ving competition and in­no­va­tion for higher-qual­ity and lower-cost services. Source: Elizabeth Holmes, How to Usher In a New Era of Preventive Health Care, Wall Street Journal, 7-28-15