“Health Care” and “Health Insurance/Payments” are two separate things.  But in our society, they are generally considered the same.

Unfortunately, they are not.

In the Health Insurance/Payments world, there are many factors.  They are:

• Personal/company health plans
• Obamacare
• Medicare
• Medicaid

In the political world, the terms are:

• Medicare for all
• Medicaid expansion under Obamacare

The real issue is the patient and physician relationship.

There is an emerging category of that relationship called Concierge Medicine.

Concierge Medicine allows the patient and the personal primary care physician to have a more individual relationship outside of the ‘normal’ insurance directed visits.

The physician and the patient have a more focused time together.  Concierge Medicine allows the parties to move beyond the timed and restrictive insurance rules. 

As Concierge Medicine expands, the Health Information Gathering System (HiGS) will play a more crucial part in that interaction.

HiGS allows the patient to establish his personal health biography in that relationship.  The patient is not required to fill out forms in the office in advance of the consultation.

The patient can also provide a focused health history based on his own signs and symptoms.

The physician and the patient are beyond the ‘paper and clipboard’ initial interaction.

They meet with history, baselines, risks and issues established.  They can go directly to substantive discussion of the reason for their meeting.

HiGS is a ‘game changer’ when it comes to patient/physician relationships.  Paper, clipboards, unread forms are a thing of the past.

With HiGS, the patient and the physician have real time data provided digitally to start the discussions.

Concierge Medicine and HiGS are perfect complementary approaches to the patient and physician relationship…where real healthcare happens!