Your friendly 21st century neighborhood doctor…

We’re launching July 15th at 105 Berry Street in Williamsburg…it’s a lovely storefront with old pressed tin ceilings and big hardwood plank floors.

My aunt, who has been living in Saudi Arabia for the past 28 years, says this place is like a little medical utopia — just as described by Kenneth Mays, the Marketing Director for Bumrungad.

Money Quote:

“VG: So that model is very different than the US model, which tends to be reactive. So do you have, say, a list of set prices that you post on the door, that the people can even access before they go to Thailand? How does that work?

KM: In some cases we do, where there is a package price, and some of those are listed on our website. And we’re going to launch something in the next few months that will allow patients to go to our website and get the actual median price and range of what people paid who got a certain procedure so that they can see the actual costs out the door, including the doctor’s fees and surgical fees and room and everything. But, in the majority of cases now, you just get an estimate upfront, and our estimates are based on actuals, and we say, “well, you’ll probably pay 350,000 baht, which might be about $10,000 for this operation, or you’ll pay $4,000 for this operation, or $2,000,” whatever, and it comes very close to that.

VG: So it sounds like you are already light years ahead of the US system in that you kind of created one bundled bill with one bundled estimate, instead of just seeing all kinds of different bills from different people much later in the process.

KM: Right, it’s a very interesting laboratory for health care reform, because it’s such an ideal thing. We have a number of American administrators and managers who said this is the way it should be. It’s very consumer-driven, and that was based before the medical travelers came, the Thai consumers are used to. They have about 100 private hospitals to choose from in Bangkok alone. So they come in, they want to have an estimate, and if you’re too much, then they’ll go and call another hospital and get their estimate and go over there. So it’s very, very consumer-driven.”

The scientific method will be dead soon.

I’ve been grappling with this issue as I’ve been thinking about the platform we’re building.  It was at one time so confusing — all of these medical data models constructed years ago — ICPC-2, ICD-9, ICD-10, soon ICD-11, and the list goes on.

Does Google have all of these ultra rigid database models to ensure it finds what you need 99% of the time within the first two pages?  Obviously the answer is no.  However, Google has simply figured out how to mathematically analyze a mishmash of “meaningless” data into super-relevant relationships.

It’s a new era folks and a new dawn of science is emerging by following a company that makes billions by associating ads with “meaningless” content.

This is what happens when reimbursement is skewed towards specialists and procedures and away from primary care.  People in need of mental services (which is of course horribly not reimbursed) are left dying in the waiting room while staff and security mosy on by.

I’m sorry but these policies stem from the very top.  Bush and his lackeys did absolutely nothing to even start to solve our healthcare crisis.  He turned a blind eye to damn near everything in healthcare that could benefit patients because it would have taken money away from the AHA, the AMA, and the insurance industry.

It’s no wonder the Insurance Industry is throwing money at Obama.  They’re hoping he’ll federally mandate insurance and have one huge opportunity for record profitability before they go bankrupt in 10 years because they can’t continue to ask individuals and employers to doulbe what they pay for insurance every 6 years.

(via noahkalina)

Noah is one of my best friends.  You should see his photo series he did for Seed Magazine of research labs at night.  The cover photo is absolutely amazing…

Noah is this and this guy.

We’re in the process of creating the advertising for Hello Health.  He’s going to be shooting Sean and myself and six of my patients tomorrow night for hellohealth.com and the posters that are going to be up all over Williamsburg.  You’ve never seen a doctor’s practice like Hello Health.  I promise.

I’m a huge fan of Zappos.

I still have no idea why this sort of thing has not been implemented in the online pharmacy era with pre-packaged medications.  Unfortunately, laws exist prohibiting this sort of activity with the assumption that this technology isn’t an alternative to real human pharmacists.  I’m sure the error rate of Amazon and Zappos fulfillment is much, much less than the 100 steps between a doctor’s handwritten prescription and the patient’s mouth.

Serra describes in the interview how he reverses the traditional subject-object relationship in art. Here’s the old way: a painting hangs on a gallery wall, and we, the subject, are invited to look at it, the object. We’re here, and it’s there. In contrast, Serra’s work makes us the object. As you walk through the mazelike structure of “Sequence,” for example, the art’s impact is on your own personal experience walking through the space - perhaps feeling confused or disoriented. It’s an experience, not a set of aesthetic qualities in the steel itself. The steel just sets up the context for the experience (always note the importance of setting context when creating good experience!).

I think that Serra’s subject-object reversal teaches an important a lesson for anyone who creates experiences for others - which is to say, every entrepreneur, manager, technologist, teacher, doctor, parent, and most everyone else.

To be a good experience, the focus should be on the other person, not on oneself (or one’s own company, or one’s own short-term benefit).

This pattern holds outside the art world - like, for example, in the world of technology or business. The most user-centered and customer-centered companies are emerging as the leaders of their fields because they make the customer - more accurately, the long-term benefits of the customer - the subject of the development and marketing efforts.

Wow…even easier than tumblr.  Tumblr was (and is) a revolution in terms of blogging.  However, someone looked at tumblr and said “Why all the steps?  Everyone  already emails everything.  Let’s make it that simple.”

Good stuff.