When most people eat fast food, they are usually not delusional enough to believe they are eating healthy food. Most fast-food places began as small restaurants that lost their souls to a corporate bottom line after franchising. Cheap ingredients and low pay for food preparers and handlers do little to encourage flavor or nutrition. Maximizing profit is the theme in our country today at the expense of our health and well-being.
Franchising has now extended itself into the healthcare market. It is present in Medicine, Chiropractic, and Massage, to name a few places. When franchising a service industry, a non-professional typically iinsert themselves into the provider/patient relationship. This limits compensation to the provider, de-incentivizing excellence. The provider becomes generic and replaceable. They are merely clocking in and clocking out, at a substantially lower pay scale. They may only sporadically treat their client, often leaving a lack of continuity of care, making well-being, a more unreachable goal. More mechanized, ccookie-cutter approaches tend to be applied to all patients, due to time constraints and franchise-imposed ones as well. Ultimately, the provider has less of a vested interest in personal and professional success, leading to poorer outcomes.
In addition to the lack of personal involvement on the provider’s part, we must examine the quality and caliber of providers that seek a substantial pay cut in order to be fed clientele by their owner. Often, these providers have a deficiency of experience or a deficiency of desire for success. There is a significant detachment of interest in results, too. This is all in the name of the appearance of decreased cost. In the famous words of Ben Franklin, “The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.”
The winnowing out of providers by frustration in the marketplace may be difficult, but its Darwinian effect is remarkable. The remaining independent providers left standing do actually strive for excellence. When you are looking for an individual provider, your likelihood for success will rise. Make sure you interview them extensively first, securing for yourself the knowledge that they will apply a specific solution after listening carefully to your problem. It is also vitally important that they address prevention and have a beginning, middle, and endpoint to your treatment.
Slow food is a growing trend. Slow Healthcare should become one as well.