The plight of hapless patients

Have you wondered why some doctors recommend so many tests, but rarely look at most of them when the results are actually received?
Of course, the problem lies in the corporatisation of health care. It is common knowledge that large hospitals insist on doctors generating minimum average revenue per patient (ARPP).
Hospitals analyse their revenues based on average revenue per bed (ARPB), just as mobile companies calculate their earnings to design their product offerings. Some of these hospitals share a portion of their revenues with the doctors who generate them. The more a doctor generates, the more he gets for himself.
As a result, patients are advised to undergo a plethora of tests most of which they might never need. It is not unusual when after the first set of tests, patients are advised to undergo another few tests until on most occasions, either the patient or the doctors give up.
Added to this is the role of pharmaceutical companies, which in order to promote their products incentivise doctors with gifts and get-away programmes organised under the guise of medical conferences.
In the good old days, when health care was not so sophisticated, junior MBBS doctors could easily identify the problem without resorting to many tests. They used to prescribe simple syrups and tablets along with an injection and one was back to normal in no time.
Today, hospitals don’t give such syrups; and injections are rarely recommended. On the contrary, patients may have to visit the hospital many times and stand in a long queue for consultation, giving samples, collection of results and review by doctors. Finally, patients may have to carry as much medicines as the daily provisions they buy from super markets. Yet, on many occasions either the problem does not disappear or they develop new ones.
So, the big question is who does the advancement in health care benefit—patients or health care service providers? I am tempted to feel that in the majority of circumstances, except complex diseases, it has helped the service providers more than the patients. Given this understanding, what can patients do? Can they decide to forgo the tests doctors recommend?
More often, they would not because of two reasons: One, the cost is paid by the insurance company and two, an inherent fear or insecurity. Health care is one of the few fields where the consumers (patients) have no say. For fear of risking their life, they cannot exercise similar choices as in buying a refrigerator or a washing machine. It is this fear of life that the health care industry appears to be exploiting just as the ‘fear of unknown’ in business has made ‘Risk Management’ a multi-billion dollar industry.
But, we cannot ignore the fact that, due to these wrongful practices, the cost of health insurance is bound to go up. More than this, insurers will be forced to come up with a number of conditions and exclusions to protect their revenues. And all these may not augur well both for the consumers and the health care industry.
Meanwhile, hospital promoters might argue that unless they generate sufficient revenue, advanced medical care could become unviable. - Exclusive to Times of Oman