Restoring The Patient-Doctor Relationship

Tanner Avery

Director of The Center for New Frontiers

Tanner Avery
/ Blog
January 12, 2022

Restoring The Patient-Doctor Relationship

Unencumbered by third party intervention, Fee-For-Service describes the physician-patient relationship as one that is based on the principle of mutually beneficial exchange of value between the physician and patient.

“The market directs the individual’s activities into those channels in which he best serves the wants of his fellow men. There is in the operation of the market no compulsion and coercion.” – Ludwig Von Mises

To some, the idea of receiving healthcare services off a menu with transparent prices is unethical, but this misconception roots from the idea that exchange is exploitative as opposed to a consensual model that provides mutual benefits, leaving both parties better off than they were before. Kalispell healthcare entrepreneur Jack Brown’s latest column explains how a return to a fee-for-service model can help to solve many of the problems seen in today’s healthcare system.

“The once transparent, agreed-upon fees between patient and physician have all but disappeared. Today, payment is no longer agreed to by the patient and the physician. Payment is primarily negotiated between insurers and other payers and not available for patients to see.”

“By undermining the direct physician/patient relationship, bureaucrats have created the very moral hazards they supposedly try to cure; the moral hazard described by the term Fee-For-Service, which has been corrupted by the third-party payer relationship.”

“Unencumbered by third party intervention, Fee-For-Service describes the physician-patient relationship as one that is based on the principle of mutually beneficial exchange of value between the physician and patient.”

“As we remove the moral hazards created by third party payers, we may find that Fee-For-Service in medicine can be both good medical practice and moral.”

You can read the entire article here.

For Liberty,

Tanner Avery


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