Health Habits: Autonomy - Taking Control of Your Healthcare in a Broken System

America’s health care system can be described as one of the most complicated in the world. From insurance to treatments everything seems complicated and overwhelming. Some patients spend as few as 5 minutes with a doctor. Doctors run a battery of tests, sometimes not needed. It sometimes seems healthcare is becoming over regulated by government bureaucracy.

I had a chance to interview Joseph Radich, Founder and CEO of R3 Health and Medhouse and author of Autonomy: Taking Control of Your Healthcare in A Broken System. Radich discusses how the current health care system healthcare system works for the pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and regulatory agencies and against consumers especially when it comes to managing their health. He also discusses what consumers can do to reverse this and also how this has affected overall health care in America.

Can you share a little about your book?

The most powerful, influential, and educated country in the world has one of the worst healthcare systems. In my book, Autonomy, I dissect the reasons why. I made the decision to write Autonomy compartmentalized into three sections. The first discusses how; how our system came to be this poor. This portion of the book is dedicated to understanding that the problems of the system are deep routed and plentiful. These problems include medical education and training, government involvement, and the prioritization of financial gains. The second section of Autonomy strategizes what; what needs to be implemented nationally that will make distinguishable changes in the current state of the system. In the final section of Autonomy, I discuss what I believe to be the most important what; what can you as a patient do to ensure that you don’t fall victim to the broken system. This portion of Autonomy discusses new, cutting-edge areas of medicine that myself and my team practice at my clinic’s R3 Health and MedHouse. I empower the reader to explore all aspects of functional, integrative, and regenerative medicine and know that they deserve the highest standard of care.

 

What led you to write it?

Autonomy is a direct result of the passion that I feel about how myself and my team practice medicine at R3 Health and MedHouse. I spent a third of my life completing all the requirements to become a healthcare provider in this country. When I graduated, I was excited to take all my education and put it to good use helping patients. Unfortunately, what I quickly discovered that I would be spending my day seeing as many patients as I possibly could. The structure of my days did not allow me to properly execute the core principals and philosophies I was trained in and instead of helping patients get better, I was seeing poor outcome after poor outcome. Even as a young provider, I knew there had to be a better, more efficacious way to improve outcomes and truly make a difference in my patient’s lives; I found the answer in integrative and regenerative medicine. While I was seeing great results, I was met with a lot of hesitation from colleagues and even patients. That was when I knew I had to explain why this will be the future of medicine and Autonomy was born.

 

What do you hope readers walk away with after reading it?

I hope the reader walks away feeling more apt to challenge the status quo. My main goal in writing Autonomy was to inform patients that they deserve more than the healthcare they are currently receiving. If from reading my book, even just one person acknowledges the issues of the United States healthcare system, works to educate themselves, becomes their biggest healthcare advocate, and strives for optimal health, then I have accomplished what I set out to do. 

 

 

What about your practice?

My practice, R3 Health, specializes in personalized, preventative medicine designed to help slow down the aging process. We do this by running an extensive panel of bloodwork to look at each patient’s biochemistry and tailoring a treatment plan to specifically treat any issues discovered in their results. My team and I also discuss in-depth lifestyle choices such as diet and exercise routines that will assist in achieving optimal health. What I feel is truly different about R3 Health is that we prioritize patient education. To have optimal health, patients must understand what we are doing and, more importantly why we are doing it. Throughout the patient’s wellness journey, my team is always explaining the “whole body approach” and how the tools we are providing to the patient are there to connect the dots between all organ systems, promoting the highest quality of life for the longest period of time. 

 

What has led to the rise of bureaucracy in health care?

As I discuss in Autonomy, the healthcare system prioritizes financial gains, and everyone wants a piece of the prize. Big pharmaceutical companies and insurance agencies are regulated by governmental agencies, influenced by lobbyists, that turn a blind eye to the wellbeing of the patient and instead allow large corporations to do as they please. Pharmaceutical lobbyists spend more than 100 million dollars annually to ensure that the government will establish laws in their favor- not in the favor of the United States citizen. 

Why do medical providers often order tests that aren't required?

Given the current state of the healthcare system, providers must think about what needs to be done to protect themselves against lawsuits. This means excessively ordering tests to rule out everything with no regards to how it affects the patients mental/physical well-being or financial wellbeing. This goes back to a major theme in Autonomy, there are deep rooted issues in the way medical providers are educated and trained. To avoid possibly missing something, providers order every test under the sun and healthcare becomes a one-size-fits-all process.

 

What are some of the factors that influence healthcare - besides the patients?

Unfortunately, the patient is the last on the long list of individuals and organizations that influence the way healthcare is performed. The list includes insurance companies, governmental agencies, lobbyists, big pharma, large healthcare institutions, academic institutions, public health officials, policy makers, and so on. Not only is the patient not represented in this list, the medical providers or any advocate for medical providers are not represented. I offer a more in-depth analysis on the influential factors of healthcare in the first section of Autonomy. 

How can consumers advocate for themselves and make sure they're getting the care they really need?

 First and foremost, patients must educate themselves. In all aspects of consumerism, an educated consumer is the best customer and healthcare is no different. If the patient is educated on their needs, they’ll feel more confident in challenging the status quo and being their own catalyst to receive the healthcare they deserve.