There is a growing demand by patients for specific treatment regimes that physician providers are not comfortable with. Home grown MDs is what some call it. Patients that spend hours on the internet searching for specific information about illnesses, symptoms, and treatment modalities are arming themselves and then seeking care from their primary care provider or their local emergency department and requesting [sometimes demanding] specific treatments usually in the form of medications and periodically certain diagnostic studies.
While "doing your homework" is a noble venture, and anyone with a chronic condition should keep themselves informed about their condition, forty minutes on line with WebMD does make anyone a credentialed healthcare provider. On-line medical sites which are widely available are constantly used by patients for medical information. As I mentioned above, becoming informed is appropriate and should be expected so that patients can discuss treatment possibilities with their providers and so they can ask appropriate questions. Additionally these sites offer loads of information about home care and what patients should do on a daily basis when living with a chronic medial condition.
That being said, the other side of the coin is that several patients feel that they have the requisite knowledge after a few hours on-line to self diagnose and establish treatment. All they need is someone with a medical license to prescribe. This is where the ground work is laid for conflict. In an era of out of control healthcare costs and poor reimbursement rates, obtaining diagnostic studies and prescribing medications just to placate patients only adds to the glut of unnecessary spending of healthcare dollars. Giving patients what they want is not the focus of medicine and healthcare. Providing patients what they need is what healthcare should be about.
While "doing your homework" is a noble venture, and anyone with a chronic condition should keep themselves informed about their condition, forty minutes on line with WebMD does make anyone a credentialed healthcare provider. On-line medical sites which are widely available are constantly used by patients for medical information. As I mentioned above, becoming informed is appropriate and should be expected so that patients can discuss treatment possibilities with their providers and so they can ask appropriate questions. Additionally these sites offer loads of information about home care and what patients should do on a daily basis when living with a chronic medial condition.
That being said, the other side of the coin is that several patients feel that they have the requisite knowledge after a few hours on-line to self diagnose and establish treatment. All they need is someone with a medical license to prescribe. This is where the ground work is laid for conflict. In an era of out of control healthcare costs and poor reimbursement rates, obtaining diagnostic studies and prescribing medications just to placate patients only adds to the glut of unnecessary spending of healthcare dollars. Giving patients what they want is not the focus of medicine and healthcare. Providing patients what they need is what healthcare should be about.