Medical Economics: Time to retire the “patient consumer”

When the patient is a consumer there is a shift in the implied power dynamic. Rather than presenting to the physician seeking his or her expert advice and counsel, the interaction becomes a transactional one in which the physician provides a service and the patient pays for it. In this type of dynamic, the patient-customer is “never wrong,” according to Cesar Ritz’s well-known edict, broadly adopted in the hospitality industry.

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