One of the more interesting parts of the conversation we had with David Lee was around thinking about changing the economics of going to the doctor. As David explained, a regular doctor visit has a bad risk/reward situation: There is a low liklihood anything is wrong but good chance that if something is wrong that it’s serious. On top of this, people have a tendency to overestimate small risks and devalue the future, all leading to a situation where it’s hard to get people into a regular routine of visits.
So how can this be fixed? Well, it’s counterintuitive, but first off you’d need to accurately communicate to people the low risk of the situation by letting them know just how unlikely it is that anything is wrong with them. Then, in the case that something actually was, you’d have to be prepared with a good explanation of how to approach the issue and the liklihood of success (again, people will tend to think that the risk is higher than it really is).
