Health Care Freedom

Health Care Freedom Medical Insight Awareness Training

Medical insight awareness training leads to enhanced health care freedom. It helps both doctors and patients identify when they are making health care choices based upon a payer-centered model as opposed to a patient-centered or shared decision-making model. The Challenge and Choice program, founded by Robert G. Schwartz, M.D., consists of a series of home tutorials. Using the tools provided in the tutorials, both doctors and patients can gain medical insight and consequently make superior decisions about health issues.

Doctors frequently cite the violation of the doctor-patient relationship as the most regrettable aspect in the delivery of health care today. In choosing to move toward a patient-centered model, however, the doctor faces significant challenges. The Challenge And Choice program offers the doctor a broader prospective on the issue, allowing him to evaluate which portions of his personality, or current situation, have greater influence upon him. He therefore improves his ability to choose how he wishes to practice.

For the patient, medical insight means changing the relationship to the role they play in their own health care on a daily basis, both during the doctor-patient encounter and as they relate to their own disease. People often engage in habits or activities that contribute to the deterioration of their own health. They frequently cannot cope with the challenges their personal situation has thrown upon them. The ability to change perspective upon illness, to recognize what it can mean as a source of purpose and direction in their life, rather then a source of pain and confusion, is often sited among patients as the single most important desire they have in healthcare. The Challenge and Choice program helps people meet this need.

For payers of health care, medical insight awareness training helps remove the victimization and disincentives that are intertwined in today’s delivery model while improving upon outcome, satisfaction and reducing cost. Many payers want to offer health care benefits without worrying about abuse, over utilization or governmental regulation. They realize that the procedures required to address these concerns have impacted upon their ability to keep the insured’s optimal health as their primary objective. Numerous studies have shown that an improved doctor-patient relationship, enhanced empathy in health care administration and a larger role for the patient will bring down costs and improve outcomes. The Challenge and Choice program offers a different perspective that creates opportunities for the payer to achieve these goals.

If you are a physician, patient or interested organization that would like to see the workings of the Challenge and Choice program in action, you may visit the office of Piedmont Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, in Greenville, South Carolina, where the principles of the program are in active use.