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Comment by xivzgrev | Hacker News Reader

I don’t think that was the point. The point was better healthcare doesn’t necessarily translate to more revenue. Healthcare is weird like that - you get paid a flat fee for visits. There might be an argument to be made that better prescriptions = happier patients = more retention, but it’s a stretch. If your practice is already booked full what’s the point?

This biz was clearly made for consumers but yea ads are tough - need a lot of eyeballs.

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Better healthcare outcomes are of interest to health insurance companies and employers, not the healthcare providers. A reduction in overall claims over a patient's lifetime and better employee health are quantifiable financial results.

Healthcare providers hope for better outcomes I'm sure, but it's true there's not much financial incentive in most cases. Your comment sort of suggests the model for such a service should be on a per-use model, covered by an insurance company when a doctor uses it for their patient. That's a trickier model than subscriptions, but it may be viable.

Yeah I agree that’s the point of the article. I think what I wrote would still be a reason even if it is rationalised differently.

The argument that “patients won’t know the difference so I can just do whatever” must break down at some point (hopefully before malpractice) but I think an argument of “I’ll just keep doing what I did before, it’s worked fine so far” doesn’t encourage worsening treatment or paying for more experimentation.

As somebody said here, first line drug is prescribed since it’s know to work based on experience. Any experimentation puts too much unwanted responsibility on the doctor.

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