Free market for surgery: interview with Allevion CEO Arnon Krongrad, MD

Surgery can be expensive, scary, dangerous and even deadly. Yet it’s hard for patients and even for referring physicians to navigate the system. So I was intrigued when I was contacted by Dr. Arnon Krongrad , CEO of Allevion, Inc., a healthcare logistics company that markets surgery packages. The company’s Surgeo online marketplace let’s patients shop for the surgeon of their choice. I explored the topic in depth with Dr. Krongrad in this email interview. What are the limitations of referrals to surgeons by primary doctors? Conventional surgeon referrals by other doctors, such as primary physicians, rely upon limited knowledge about a limited number of surgeons. For example, primary physicians tend to know a relatively small handful of surgeons for specific procedures, such as vision correction. The simple reality is that in today’s environment, when primary doctors are pressured to churn patients, type into EMRs, and speak ICD-10, they have little time to sort through choices of surgeons. They will reflexively refer to the familiar, which may or may not be optimal. Primary physicians, like the rest of us, might welcome systematic, easy access to knowledge about choice of surgeons. It looks like your surgeons are selected based on the opinions of their peers. Are there more objective, quantitative ways to rate surgeons? Surgeo’s purpose is to simplify access to quality care. In surgery, quality comes from the surgeon. The question, then, is how to qu...
Source: Health Business Blog - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: e-health Entrepreneurs Patients Physicians Source Type: blogs