An Economic Analysis Information Asymmetry, Consumerism and Patient-Physician Relationship.

Today the patient doesn't stay put. Instead of enjoying a long-term relationship with a single physician, he flits back and forth between a variety of specialists, changing these relationships each time he relocates to a new community. Even within any single relationship, the contacts become shorter and shorter as well. Thus the authors of Crestwood Heights, discussing the interaction of experts and laymen, refer to "the short duration of any one exposure to each other ... The nature of their contact, which is in turn a function of busy, time-pressed lives on both sides, means that any message must be collapsed into a very brief communiquГ©, and that there must not be too many of these ..." The impact that this fragmentation and contraction of patient-doctor relationships has on health care ought to be more seriously explored. FRIENDSHIPS IN THE FUTURE Each time the family moves, it also tends to slough off a certain number of just plain friends and acquaintances. Left behind, they are eventually all but forgotten ...»