Good Doctors, But Bad Advice

The doctoring profession has its standard operating procedures, but these procedures may result in bad advice.

Now let’s not start off by blaming the doctors. For the most part, they’re good people who want to make a difference in our lives. However, they are strongly bound to their standard operating procedures. If they do not follow the procedures and something goes wrong, their insurance company will be stuck with a huge payout. The insurance company will respond by raising the doctor’s premiums so high it will be impossible for the doctor to continue in business. So much for the doctor’s good intentions. He/she can’t make a difference if he/she is not in business.

So where do these standard operating procedures come from? They are based on a statistical concept called “expected value.” Data about all the treatments/recommendations/advice are collected and the expected values of insurance payouts are calculated. The standard operating procedures are based on using the treatments that minimize the expected payouts. This is how the insurance companies think, and they impose this thinking on the medical profession.

Most readers will recognize that it can be no other way. If the insurance companies don’t minimize their losses, they will have to raise rates to the point where no one can afford to be a doctor. Either that or the insurance companies will go out of business. With no one to insure them, the doctors wouldn’t put their own livelihoods on the line. And we would be left with no doctors.

HOWEVER, these tenured, ingrained procedures may not be the best thing for YOU. The rest of this posting tells why.

Expected values are based on the average patient. The question being answered is “How much will the insurance company have to pay out ON AVERAGE in all situations that are similar to the one being evaluated. People who are different from the so-called average person are lost in the multitude. [Those who deviate greatly from the average are called outliers. Their data are thrown away, so they aren’t even included in the multitude. It is as if they never existed.]

Now if you are average, these procedures and the decisions they produce will work quite well for you. However, there is no such thing as an average person. We are all unique, which means we all deviate from the average in some way.

Let’s sum it all up: Doctors’ procedures, decisions, and recommendations are based on the average person. This is good for them because, on average, they will have a greater percentage of successful outcomes, which means they can keep on doctoring. However, when you (a non-average person) seeks treatment, the doctor’s average advice may not be the best advice FOR YOU.

I am proud to be an outlier. It reflects my uniqueness. I am disappointed, though, that many doctors do not respect my personal health care choices, which are not based on averages.