A personal story. I made the last move on the chessboard. A chance to combine calling and curiosity. I’ll always have a side hustle. It’s how I’m wired.
After surviving cancer for the third time, faced with the fact that I’d never had insurance again (the ACA marketplace is not an affordable solution for someone with a pre-existing condition), I became a patient advocate for myself and then my parents. Navigating self-pay (unheard of in 2004), Medicare, Medicaid, and then legal conservatorship to make healthcare decisions that were legal and binding. Running between floors with one parent headed to hospice, the other headed to long-term care, and me in a third round of chemo, I had a moment. Much like a scene from Gray’s Anatomy, I found myself in a stairwell lifting an IV pole on stairs (the elevators were too slow), trying to get to the hospital’s finance office to have yet again another conversation about paying cash for care. I sat down on the bottom step and just started laughing. Why do I have to keep explaining that I don’t need “charity”? Why can’t I pay cash for my care? For my mom and dad’s care (and before you ask, my family was not an option). Why am I still filling out hospital paperwork with a number 2 pencil?
Where is the human side of the healthcare experience? The modern term is now patient experience. Lots of healthcare articles and musings on what that is. It’s simple. It’s the Golden Rule. Treating people as you would like to be treated.
It’s now 2022, and the patient experience is no better. Some smart new companies are trying to tackle the problem. But you can’t fix a healthcare system built in the ’80s without getting to the root of the problem. Read Atul Gawande’s “Being Mortal .””The ultimate goal is not a good death; it’s a good life all the way to the end.”
I’d argue the patient experience is worse. Not better. The pandemic did us no favors in that regard. Gender bias (that is a very real thing. More on that later.), physicians and clinicians burning out at alarming rates and public health at its breaking point. The front doors of hospitals are turnstiles. Garbage in, garbage out. If I can attend a concert go to Disney World with a wristband that saves all my information, why can’t I do that at the hospital I’ve been receiving care from for over 20 years?
Back to the calling. The patient experience is broken. Lots of smart startups are trying to fit pieces and parts (you gotta start somewhere). They begin with a mission, then it gets boiled down to the bottom line. How much will we make on reimbursement (I’m a cold-hearted capitalist, don’t get it twisted. They need to make money to survive). Right intention, wrong execution.
A bottom line is not a brand. Neither is a cool logo nor stock photos of millennials looking at their phones.
Take a step back and decide if you want to be different. No, really different (hat tip to my first mentor Marty Neumeier). Or don’t. That’s a decision too.
For me, I made the move to a place of purpose. Where I’ll get the chance to work with healthcare companies that are trying to solve the big hairy challenges in healthcare, especially the patient experience. To bring the patient voice to the forefront. Open, honest, raw, and real. Where real words shape real dialogue. Checkmate.