Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 04/2009

Does the Doctor Need a Boss?

Arnold Kling, Michael F. Cannon

January 2009

The Cato Institute

Abstract

The traditional model of medical delivery, in which the doctor is trained, respected, and compensated as an independent craftsman, is anachronistic. When a patient has multiple ailments, there is no longer a simple doctor-patient or doctor-patient-specialist relationship. Instead, there are multiple specialists who have an impact on the patient, each with a set of interdependencies and difficult coordination issues that increase exponentially with the number of ailments involved.