Hippocratic Entrepreneurship

Aritstotle identified the entrepreneurial substance of medicine. Hippocrates his contemporary, also understood the contractual nature of patient-physician partnerships and laid down basic rules to maintain the financial interface of medical services within an ethical framework. This did not stop him from earning money from his trade or from the teaching of his art.

The capture of medical services by the "solidarity" principle (i.e. by collectivist ideology) has removed the entrepreneurial spirit from physicians. As a result, the control & management of their professional tools has been relinquished to bureaucracies and third parties not bound by the same ethical principles or obligations.

Many doctors are ashamed to admit that they are actors in a market, and that medical services entail a commercial interchange. They willingly accept third parties as their paymasters as this, in their eyes, keeps financial transactions separate from their service to the patient. When rationing steps in, they look the other way, as long as their fees are not overly affected.

There are however, physicians who uphold the Hippocratic mission. They have vowed to keep their practice totally free from third parties. In the US, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) shows the way. Patients are the first to gain from such medical entrepreneurship. By keeping overbearing third parties in line, they regain control of their physician and make sure that they will get treatment to the best of his ability,