An article in the December AARP newsletter caught my eye. It’s about an online service that allows you to bid on medical services (think eBay for Botox, and no, you can’t get it on eBay). PriceDoc “connects you to affordable, quality doctors and dentists for the best cash price”. Is this where our health care system is heading? How different is it from picking doctors on the Internet from the (ever shrinking) list that your insurance company provides? There are still a lot of doctors on the list that you have no idea about, and as someone once said, “half of them graduated at the bottom half of their class”. My friend Dr. Tara Kahn is the founder & CEO of DocMatcher, her ” goal is to help patients and doctors take control of health together.” Is a rating system the answer? Zagat for medical procedures? Do doctors get fewer points, if the patient dies?
Now if only they had to wear their sponsors logos...
If I wasn’t so nervous about things like Botox, I’d actually check this out, but when you’re dealing with your health… What do you think? Would you bid on a tummy tuck? How about a flu shot? Where would you draw the line? I guess the saddest thing is that this is even going on. Why in a country like the United States are we allowing ourselves to be ruled by the insurance companies, and the elected officials in their pockets? One of the many talking heads recently said that politicians should be forced to wear the logos of their sponsors on their suits, like racing drivers, so we can see easily which companies they’re in bed with. What do you think?
This week’s Blogging Boomers Carnival is sponsored by Andrea Stenberg. She’s always got great ideas for entreperneurs, so check it out here.
[...] Would you bid on healthcare? How much would you pay for Botox, an H1N1 vaccine? It’s All About Aging looks at an online site for bidding on healthcare. [...]