Healthcare Complexity, Primary’s Growth, and “The Child First” with Dustin Lipson

I imagine if you were to say that, what you just said, that it's a very challenging industry and it's very complex and it's just so challenging because of its complexity and because of all these parts to it.

I wonder if you could just go like a layer deeper on that and say, what is it that makes this so difficult? Because it's essentially you get a never-ending supply of sick people who want to get better and we have people who are trying to help them get better.

I guess fundamentally people would go, man, that seems really not that complicated.

Why is it so complicated?

Yeah, I think one of the reasons is it's mediated by insurance.

And even insurance in the industry itself is mediated by brokers.

So buying your healthcare directly is actually difficult if not impossible, especially when it comes to really expensive healthcare.

Then when you think about how you buy the product or service, also not clear.

Because when we take you in to have a surgery, for example, we don't know whether we're going to find something really complicated or really easy and that surgery is going to be an hour or it's going to be six hours because of some unforeseen complications.

Pricing the service itself is very difficult.

So you're buying it as hard, pricing it as hard, paying for it as hard, and then you get into the actual delivery of it.

It's been called the practice of medicine for generations because science is ever evolving.

And the idea that there's one way to do things is also... not a thing in health care.

So you can find many different ways to solve for a complex scenario in health.

And then the path of your health care subsequently is difficult.

Surgeons operate in different ways.

Your hospital statement may look different.

So it's not just this is a vacuum and here you go.

It's our health.

And I think that's part of the reason is that individuals are unique and that the industry as a whole as a result of that is also unique.

And I think any business wants to deliver their goods or services in a way that keeps their customers happy or at least happy enough to continue buying the goods and services.

You're in a totally different boat, right? Like I say, people continue to get sick, and when they come, they really want you to help.

How do you balance that, that you want to get really efficient and run a very efficient business? like a good business, I guess is the easiest way to say it, but in a way where you're not optimizing to where it's hurting the people who are coming to you at really one of the most vulnerable times in their lives.

Yes.

I think one of the major challenges in healthcare is that the incentives are really backwards.