Ditching the Disease Management Model

We don’t have a healthcare system. What we have is a disease management system, but disease management is just second rate.

We should be working to make you as healthy as possible. Failing that, our fallback should be treating disease. Unfortunately, most doctors spend virtually all of their time treating disease rather than improving health. But improving health requires active participation by Dr. and patient, while treating disease is often done with the patient in a passive role. Unfortunately, most physicians have focused on treating disease for so long they don’t even know what the optimal laboratory and physiologic ranges are anymore.

When you see your doctor don’t accept normal as the goal. Ask what the optimal range is. If your doctor doesn’t know the difference between optimal and normal, change doctors.