EP 960 Our Health Care System Prioritizes Intervention Over Prevention

 There is a largely invisible pricing structure in the American health care system that dictates the types of medical procedures that are most valued and therefore best compensated.  It affects the way you interact with the system day after day.  In her short, but clear-eyed, dissection of why specialists and surgery are often the weapon of choice to fight disease, as opposed to front end interventions focused on prevention, Dr. Robin Blackstone, author of “American Health: Who Gets Paid” unwraps how the process works.  In it she shows how the system rewards procedural intervention and late rescue, while undervaluing early judgment, longitudinal care, prevention, and accountability at the time.  The result is a system that incentivizes volume over health, fragmentation over continuity, and crisis response over risk reduction. Dr. Blackstone, herself a surgeon, is now writing on medical topics that are vital and little understood.  Her newest book, touched upon as well in the conversation, is “Doctor AI: Reimagining Health Rebuilding Trust Delivering Health 4.0.”

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