Speaking from personal experience, it's impossible to find anyone who wouldn't be labeled as unbiased in this area.
There are too many turf wars, government sanctioned monopolies, and rent seekers for anything but that to be the case. There's biases in maintaining the status quo too.
I suppose you could have someone with a pure economics or public health background but in my experience they tend to avoid these topics, in part because they have no incentive to fundamentally change healthcare delivery structures.
Lack of real competition among providers is a real underecognized problem in discussions of healthcare in my opinion. Much could be deregulated in a very beneficial way, but discussions almost always focus on payment instead. When deregulation is raised as an issue, it's almost always done in a way that focuses on easing obstacles to large pharm corps, without addressing other forms of deregulation.
In every case that I'm aware of, increasing scope and practice of providers only has net public health benefits. The only losing group is physicians. It's has always been that way, all the way back to dental practice.
How is this different than minute clinics and such at places like CVS? We definitely need more NPs. So much of basic health care doesn't seem very complicated.
When I had a major health need about a decade ago, I went from MD to MD with no success for months. Eventually my family was desperate enough to pay out of pocket to see a NP with good recommendations. She listened, investigated options, and fixed me. Later on, for less serious needs, my experience with others was that NPs consistently delivered better care.
This is 100% an anecdote as worthy of skepticism as every other. But I'd encourage everyone not to let your own "common sense" color your interpretations of the evidence that shows that NPs give >/>= care.
6 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 23.2 ms ] threadNo bias here!
There are too many turf wars, government sanctioned monopolies, and rent seekers for anything but that to be the case. There's biases in maintaining the status quo too.
I suppose you could have someone with a pure economics or public health background but in my experience they tend to avoid these topics, in part because they have no incentive to fundamentally change healthcare delivery structures.
Lack of real competition among providers is a real underecognized problem in discussions of healthcare in my opinion. Much could be deregulated in a very beneficial way, but discussions almost always focus on payment instead. When deregulation is raised as an issue, it's almost always done in a way that focuses on easing obstacles to large pharm corps, without addressing other forms of deregulation.
In every case that I'm aware of, increasing scope and practice of providers only has net public health benefits. The only losing group is physicians. It's has always been that way, all the way back to dental practice.