Thread by @allthingsmarco

Healthcare should be human at its core. The convenience of the rising star DTC healthcare products is attractive, but far from comprehensive.

Here’s what I’ve been wrestling with lately. A thread...
💊👩🏾‍⚕️🏥

I've been calling this new paradigm "Patchwork healthcare".

Multiple companies focusing on single problems does not qualify as a valid substitute for a good relationship with a physician.

The tension lies in that they’re great vehicles for capital, because their main value prop is convenience in an unmistakably archaic system.

Through better and cheaper tech, DTC health companies allow you to do everything at home and on your own. Many of these symptoms solution brands (@wearehims, @getkeeps, Cove, @ModernFertility) have a veneer of holistic healthcare, which make consumers feel confident when buying.

Being direct-to-consumer does not relieve you of the true responsibility of being customer centric. And in healthcare that means more than a convenient solution.

The future may look more like @parsley_health or @goforward. Both great options for engaging directly with qualified physicians, but still doesn’t cover the emergency hospital visit for a broken bone or a heart attack. Preventative health is ideal but, again, not comprehensive.

We all read the NYT article about @hubblecontacts essentially sidestepping (whether intentionally or not) optometrists and doctors, replacing $200 prescriptions for specific vision issues for their own outdated disposable product.

nytimes.com/2019/07/21/bus…

The reality is that compared to making a human centered medical practice, delivering single use contacts is easy.

It’s harder to make a medical practice that sticks to a schedule, has a simple and intuitive scheduling portal, + allows rescheduling and drop-ins easily.

It’s a lot harder to make insurance that is easy to understand for consumers and easy to navigate for practitioners.

Recently, a friend told me that her GP and OB/GYN *both* have stopped accepting insurance because of the 20+ hours of overhead required each week. They’d rather take fewer clients at a premium with no follow up. Seems like there’s a problem to be solved there.

Now - HC DTC products are a step in the right direction, but HC still needs to be human at its core, delivered through personal connection and reliable and trustworthy experience.

A human example worth sharing with the curious… 👇🏾

Barbershops have been a trusted source of healthcare advice in the black community for generations. It’s where discussions of sex education, mental health, diet, and occasional escalation (“Go see the damn doctor!”) occurred.

There’s trust and community there.

I worry that by making incomplete healthcare so accessible, we’re actually sacrificing our relationships with the professionals that are qualified, trained, and actually care about our health.

And here's a heartwarming video of a dancing doctor who cares about his patients.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1058498490337132544