The Most Inspiring Doctor In Brooklyn (& Beyond): Dr. Jay Parkinson

In the midst of the health care debate, here’s a small story about Dr. Jay Parkinson, a Williamsburg, Brooklyn doctor, whose revolutionary approach is inspiring his colleagues and any of us who use social media.  (Special thanks to Jordana for telling me about this guy.)

 
Dr. Parkinson began his practice in NYC on September 24, 2007:

– Patients would visit his website
– See his Google calendar
– Choose a time and input their symptoms
– His iPhone would alert him
– He would make a house call
– They’d pay him via paypal
– He’d follow up by email, IM, or videochat

Here’s Dr. Parkinson’s vision, in his own words:

Healthcare needs a redesign.

Every 8 years, health insurance premiums double. We don’t have time before mandates are simply financially impossible for the American people.

We know that healthcare can be delivered with higher quality and half the cost. We see this in the top 10 functioning Healthcare Systems in the world, as measured by the World Health Organization. They do this by creating a closed-loop, 100% aligned System to render the proper care, not the most care. When incentives are aligned to deliver the most care, you get the US healthcare industry…double what other countries spend and ranked 37th in the world.

Since there has never been a reason to reinvent the business model of healthcare in America (and a mandate will not do this either), none of the players have tried. They would disrupt themselves. No industry will voluntarily decrease their revenue and profitability. And mandates sustain and increase that profitability. They do not curb it.

This should be an era of healthcare experimentation— not sustenance for a broken system. It doesn’t matter who pays for healthcare. If the business model of healthcare is unsustainable, changing who pays for healthcare will do very little, if anything.

We need broad, sweeping change to cut healthcare in half. “Here are 50 million new customers…carry on” type of handouts to the insurance industry simply won’t do this. In fact, handouts will prolong the death of the industry and hasten our country’s financial demise. We need disruptive innovation to enable closed loops in the process of healthcare delivery.

You can follow Dr. Parkinson here.