This article is likely to save you hundreds of dollars over the course of your life. How much did you and your family spend on health this year? Do healthcare professionals view you as a patient or a customer? Or perhaps both? It is no secret that health is big business around the world and Australia is no exception. According to the 2016 census conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, healthcare is Australia’s largest industry, making up 12.6% of Australia’s working population. Personal spending on health is about $28.6 billion a year. I could bore you with more statistics but let’s just agree: we all need, and therefore spend, on healthcare. And we spend big.
But did you ever stop to think how much of your health expenditure was truly necessary? How can you even determine what was necessary and what wasn’t? While we could ask Pete Evans, patients are generally dependent on the expertise and advice of trusted health professionals. Health professionals are amongst the most trusted people in society. My experience is generally that they are worthy of this trust and their advice has my best interests at heart. Sometimes, however, there are other forces at play.
This issue is obvious in pharmacies where in addition to the medication that your doctor prescribes, you may be advised to purchase a complementary product of variable utility. Some of these products are evidenced-based and helpful, e.g. a bandage for a sprained ankle. Others, as my biochemistry lecturer used to say, “do nothing apart from making your urine expensive”. The field of optometry is a notorious culprit in this regard. People often complain that every time they have an eye check, the optometrist tries to sell them glasses. So how do I know if my optometrist’s advice is concerned with my health or their bottom line? Or perhaps it is both? One important question to ask is are they concerned with their “conversion rate”?
Many corporate optometrists are obsessed with conversion rates. It is simply the proportion of patients seen by a particular optometrist who purchases glasses on any given day. Or even more simply, how many sales (and how much money) that optometrist generated for the business. Unfortunately, it is not only a tracking mechanism, it is a KPI. Many optometrists receive sales training and even have a contractual obligation to keep their conversion rate above a certain level. I know because I’ve been there.
This raises a potential conflict of interest. Should a healthcare professional caring for a patient in need then opportunistically try and sell them something? Should a treatment that is expensive and unnecessary be prescribed? I wonder how you would feel if you were seeing a surgeon or dentist who was thinking about their conversion rate? It is something we really would not accept in any other health field and it is a mystery why optometry is exempted. The principle of caveat emptor has no place in health.
So how can you ensure that you don’t overspend on health this year? You can either go and get medical, nursing, dental, physiotherapy, podiatry, optometry and pharmacy degrees. Or you can ask two simple questions. What would YOU do if you were in my shoes? And what is your conversion rate? Find someone who honestly answers the first question, and doesn’t have an answer for the second.