Attention WalMart Shoppers: The Doctor is IN.

First I would like to say that I couldn’t agree more with your description of the so called “Non Profit” machine that has worked hard to crush its competitors. This effort only to usher in the factory-mentality of care today. To do this they have had to convince consumers that they are too stupid to understand and they should just let them take care of everything for them.
This type of machine is unlike any other industry in that it actually protects the individual from his or her own information. When it does share with them, it takes simple concepts like high cholesterol and turns them into “hyperlipidemia” or other mixes of Latin terms. This may work better for the industry but it leaves the average patient bewildered and out of the loop about their own health.
Part of what any successful new solution will do for the future of health care will concentrate on those things that can be easily explained (like routine care or current health status) and has the biggest impact on outcomes. Subjects that are more complicated should and will be left to the traditional approaches that provide more extensive solutions.
This is evident in the current fight going on between the RediClinics you spoke of and your local Primary Care Physician. I find most of the national press about these new solutions quite comical. The first part of the story focuses on the new choice and the consumer who loves the lower cost and convenience it provides for their family’s routine care.
The second part of the story is always the angry doctor who’s been replaced because of the two-week wait for an appointment for a sinus infection. This same provider, who is fine with the quality of care provided by the NP or PA that works in his office, has now dramatically changed his tune. Once they move out to be more accessible to the public, and provide the exact same service, they are incompetent, greedy and personally responsible for destroying the healing art of medicine with their care-for-profit motives.
This case is very similar to what our company, MyMedLab is bringing to the lab world. Over 70% of all medical conditions are either diagnosed or confirmed by laboratory testing. That makes them a huge part of not only identifying potential health problems early before symptoms arise, but vital to engaging the patient with chronic diseases like Diabetes and Heart Disease to get more involved in their care. The days of turning ALL your health care decisions over to your doctor are no more and informed consumers know it. They know they must get involved if they want to make it better.
That is what MyMedLab is designed to do. The majority of our new customers come to us for the basic look at their current health in our Wellness Profiles. Think of what we provide as a virtual “Health Fair” that never ends. Not only can you create a baseline or starting point for your current health, but you can return any time you want to track changes in your health over time. All completely confidentially, for a fraction of the cost of doing it the old way and on YOUR schedule without an appointment.
Our goal is not to eliminate a doctor from their care but to send an informed patient, with lab work in hand that they have had time to study and educate themselves about, to their next appointment and maximize the time they spend with their doctor.
We have used more than a decade’s worth of experience operating a direct-to-consumer lab in the Midwest to create a truly unique service to the public. This experience was used to design simple to understand groups of tests called Wellness Profiles that are based on an individual’s age, sex and family history. This basic information is all the consumer needs to identify which one of the 20 profiles offered provides the best evaluation of their risk for the common conditions associated with their specific group. Both the test descriptions and the results include links to the National Library of Medicine for vast amounts of public information on each test.
In addition, we have included the oversight of a physician from their home state in every test we offer. Their role is to approve the initial order, review results and be available for a free one time consultation if the consumer requests one. We also provide the consumer with a free MyMedLab Personal Health Record that provides them a secure place to keep other private medical information along side their lab results. The PHR allows them to easily share their private health information with those they trust while keeping it private from everyone els.
These are services that today’s informed consumers have been asking for. They want a seat at the table and are tired of being kept in the dark by a doctor that changes every year with their insurance coverage. Its no wonder once consumers become familiar with our service they never go back to the old way of paying more and getting less.
David Clymer, CEO
MyMedLab