You go to your doctor, who orders tests.  You pay for the tests, and then go back to the doctor who referred you (who also gets money from the testing place), for analysis.  The testing place doesn't give you the results directly.

My primary care physician is a salaried employee of a medical facility/diagnostic clinic that does its own testing in house.  He doesn't get any kickbacks for ordering tests.

I recently had some blood work done there, and the results were sent directly to me in the mail, although I also had the option to have a copy included in my medical file.  Whenever my doctor has ordered tests, he's always been happy to give me a copy of the results upon request.  I haven't bothered to ask often, for the very reason that the results aren't sent directly to me: I usually have no idea how to interpret them.  

You wilI then be given a perscription for expensive medications, and the manufacturers of those medications have been paying your doctor for perscribing it.

I recently went to a specialist for a problem that had been bothering me for a couple of months.  After talking about the problem with me in depth and doing everything short of ordering expensive tests to make a diagnosis, he wrote me two prescriptions for medicines whose patents expired years ago.  Total cost for the prescriptions, without prescription insurance: about $9 (with tax).  It might have been almost ten.  It was less than ten, though.

Maybe they're just putting on a hell of a good show, and they're stealing from my wallet while I'm changing, but my doctors have almost always gone to great lengths to save me money.  They usually prescribe tried-and-true medicines that are available as generics, and when they feel that a newer medicine would work better, they give me samples.  I had another medical problem last year, and the doctor I got in to see at urgent care (not my PCP or the specialist I mentioned above) wanted me on a medication that's about $3-4 per pill.  I didn't even have the chance to express reservations about the price: he wanted me to take a 14 day course of the medication, and gave me a month's supply of samples without me asking.  I still have a bunch of the samples in my medicine cabinet.

It's not hard to find imperfections in our medical system (and I'm speaking of the whole shebang, from medical training, to insurance, to the development, marketing, and prescribing of drugs, etc), and I have my share of mediocre to poor experiences with doctors and medical facilities, as I'm sure we all do.  Before we completely hijack this story, however, let's remember that we beat the topic of conventional/alternative medicine into the ground a few months ago in discussing Starchild Abraham Cherrix.

As a side note, Mr. Cherrix has voluntarily returned to Mississippi for more radiation, since the alternative treatment he was pursuing hasn't worked.

In regione caecorum, rex est luscus.

Clearly I need to find a better set of providers.  My doctors are very good at what they do, but they do tend to perscribe the $1/pill version instead of the generics.

Thalia

"since the alternative treatment he was pursuing hasn't worked."

To be fair, most healers and Swamis don't claim smearing herbs on yourself is 100% effective.

Conventional medicine is much closer to a pyramid scheme in terms of pricing and structure.

While your criticism of conventional medicine may be fair to some extent, what I'm talking about here is an actual pyramid scheme. I'm not maligning acupuncture, or herbs, I'm talking about an actual pyramic scheme. Maybe the stuff they sell works, I don't know, but their "science" sounds like bunk and their "pricing structure" sounds alot less benevolent than conventional medicine.

And, on second thought, you're maligning some people I know personally and who I know don't just prescribe medicine they're being paid to sell. Doctors - maybe not all, but alot of them - put a great deal of time and effort into learning a stupefying amount of information that they put to work to help people. That they can't grind up their own medicines or run all their own tests isn't their fault, and it isn't, in and of itself, a reason to assume they're just there to make money.

Now with caps!

Ah, I've never encounted an actual pyramid scheme, outside of the Herbalife/Avon/Tupperware folks.

There are a lot of good doctors, and I like my doctors too.  But the feedback system is screwed up badly, because the patient is not the customer.  I wasn't arguing that doctors were in it for money, just that the cycle of visit-test-perscription was a lot closer to a pyramid scheme were you hire someone who hires someone than most alternative medicine (which tends to involve single practitioners who do everything inhouse).

"If you happen into a difficult to diagnose situation, you can repeat this cycle dozens of times"

That's an outrage. Why waste time trying to figure out what the problem is by doing a bunch of fancy tests based on science when you could've been smearing herbs on yourself from the beginning?

"I've found run the tests inhouse, give you results almost immediately, and provide the medicines directly."

I'm sure this couldn't possibly be because the tests are bogus, the diagnoses are imagined, and the "medicines" don't do anything, no the only rational explanation is Western Medicine is a hoax on a massive scale. Herbs, baby!

I didn't say western medicine is a hoax.  I wouldn't go anywhere else if I had a broken bone.  But if you have a chronic condition of any sort, you will find Western medicine has difficulties properly diagnosing it.  And herbs do work on your body.  Even Western medicine acknowledges that when it it uses the effective ingredients from herbs to make "proper" medicine.

Thalia

"But if you have a chronic condition of any sort, you will find Western medicine has difficulties properly diagnosing it"

The more chronic your condition the more foolish it is to have some charlatan attempting to treat than a real doctor. But it's a free country, I'll take diagnostic methods such as blood tests and MRI's, you can have the Shaman down at the herbal academy diagnosing you by sensing your aura with his third eye-chakra.

(I'm guessing no matter what he imagines you have, the cure's going to be some herbs he happens to have around. Just a guess.)

"...if you have a chronic condition...Western medicine has difficulties properly diagnosing it."

I disagree, Thalia. I hang out with a couple of docs, and we talk about this stuff a lot. Most of the complaints against "Western" medicine come from the extravagant expectations Americans have of the universe, and from the history of medicine.

Infectious disease is a horrible drain on the Third World. For all the touching stories about techno-millionaires dying of cancer, day after day after day more human beings die of malaria than any other single cause. Western medicine works wonderfully against infectious diseases.

No one in my family has died of malaria for three generations.

Western medicine is also very good at diagnosis. You know how the doc takes your hand at the beginning of an exam? One of my friends mentioned that he could understand why palm readers were so popular with some folks; he told me that a good look at the back of your hand would tell him about your diet, exercise, health history, a rough idea how long you would live, and a rough idea of what would kill you.

Unfortunately, he added, there was damnned little he could do about the last two. And that may be the problem. He said he could, with a blood test, diagnose whether a patient had Guianne-Barre' or chronic fatigue syndrome; but the problem was that the treatment for both is the same, and it hasn't changed much in 500 years, except that docs don't use leeches much any more.

January 20, 2009. Justice becomes possible.

Actually, these creepy crawlers are making a comeback.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

I meant to add...be careful of the pictures in the link...not for the weak of stomach.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

I've never had anyone but alternative doctors take a good look at my hands.  That is the type of diagnosis of your overall health that I usually miss in conventional doctors.  Your doctor buddies sound pretty cool.  

And I do agree that malaria, malnutrition, and the lack of availability of clean water are the biggest killers in the world by far.  And for those things, nothing beats conventional medicine & science.

Thalia