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> How can you design a payment scheme for the medical professional so that you actually get the ideal treatment? Draw up a contract whereby you are only obliga

by maxk42 5y ago

> How can you design a payment scheme for the medical professional so that you actually get the ideal treatment? Draw up a contract whereby you are only obligated to pay the doctor while healthy. The doctor loses money as long as your health is suboptimal and therefore it is in the greedy doctor's best interest to do everything they can to keep you healthy.

ghawk1ns 5y ago
Proof of Stake could work here. Doctor locks up money under contractual obligation. If they act dishonestly and your health declines, they lose their stake. As long as they act honestly, they are rewarded.
karpierz 5y ago
Or the doctor only takes on healthy patients, and refuses to take on anyone with pre-existing conditions. Also, what happens when people self-select such that only people who often get sick take on these contracts, and people who are normally healthy stick with pay-for-service?
- maxk42 5y ago
  > Or the doctor only takes on healthy patients, and refuses to take on anyone with pre-existing conditions. Only if they cannot help you. In which case you have the same medical outcome but save your cash.
- mactavish88 5y ago
  Yes there’ll need to be some way of catering for the reality of untreatable conditions (a kind of force majeure).
mactavish88 5y ago
I was about to suggest the same solution. The same approach can be applied to any service that requires regular intervention to avoid service interruption. If you pay someone every time the service is interrupted, then they’ll be incentivized to do a bad job so it gets interrupted more frequently (e.g. contractors tasked with ensuring traffic lights or electricity supply works all year round in all weather conditions). Pay a flat rate for continual service. Beyond a certain reasonable/acceptable level of interruption, reduce what you pay them. Eventually if they do enough poor quality work they’ll go out of business - as opposed to the current conventional approach that incentivizes them to do poor quality work. If this applied to certain goods as well (like electronics) we’d probably be able to get rid of planned obsolescence.

by maxk42 5y ago

ghawk1ns 5y ago

Proof of Stake could work here. Doctor locks up money under contractual obligation. If they act dishonestly and your health declines, they lose their stake. As long as they act honestly, they are rewarded.

karpierz 5y ago

Or the doctor only takes on healthy patients, and refuses to take on anyone with pre-existing conditions. Also, what happens when people self-select such that only people who often get sick take on these contracts, and people who are normally healthy stick with pay-for-service?

maxk42 5y ago
> Or the doctor only takes on healthy patients, and refuses to take on anyone with pre-existing conditions. Only if they cannot help you. In which case you have the same medical outcome but save your cash.
mactavish88 5y ago
Yes there’ll need to be some way of catering for the reality of untreatable conditions (a kind of force majeure).

mactavish88 5y ago

I was about to suggest the same solution. The same approach can be applied to any service that requires regular intervention to avoid service interruption. If you pay someone every time the service is interrupted, then they’ll be incentivized to do a bad job so it gets interrupted more frequently (e.g. contractors tasked with ensuring traffic lights or electricity supply works all year round in all weather conditions). Pay a flat rate for continual service. Beyond a certain reasonable/acceptable level of interruption, reduce what you pay them. Eventually if they do enough poor quality work they’ll go out of business - as opposed to the current conventional approach that incentivizes them to do poor quality work. If this applied to certain goods as well (like electronics) we’d probably be able to get rid of planned obsolescence.