You would be shocked to know how some physicians would like to speed it up and quickly give you a diagnosis and have you out of the hospital, or just plain don'

You would be shocked to know how some physicians would like to speed it up and quickly give you a diagnosis and have you out of the hospital, or just plain don't know stuff. Like you, I do believe most people can not make a good judgement, because they lack the medical knowledge, so they expect a professional to make the decision for them. Yet medical science is evolving - very quickly, with an ever reducing half-life for medical knowledge. Financial decision OTOH have a strong incentive (likewise for reliability checks) I'm sorry if it would break your trust, but for someone who has been on the both sides of the hospital business, "Doctor Doom" scenarios are far more worrisome, and unfortunately not that rare. There was a story on the NYT IIRC about a doctor his colleagues called "doctor doom and destruction" because his failings were so obvious. Yet he had a medical license and a great reputation, because of his excellent bedside skills. There are some parts of the business I'm not comfortable with (diverting MDs from patient care to billing - that's a negative externality) But this is something I now fully believe to be in the interest of both the patients and the hospital - ie something I would personally be very happy to pay for (or to have charged to me) if I was incapacitated and unable to take a decision by myself.