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851 points swyx | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.612s | source
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nickjj ◴[] No.25826835[source]
That was a fun read. I wish the author mentioned how much he was trying to sell the service for. It could have been $59 a month or $599 a month and with doctors you could potentially expect the same answer.

I'm not a psychologist but some of the author's quoted text came off extremely demeaning in written form. If the author happens to read this, did you really say those things directly to them?

For example, Susan (psychologist) was quoted as saying:

> "Oh sure! I mean, I think in many cases I'll just prescribe what I normally do, since I'm comfortable with it. But you know it's possible that sometimes I'll prescribe something different, based on your metastudies."

To which you replied:

> "And that isn't worth something? Prescribing better treatments?"

Imagine walking into the office of someone who spent the last ~10 years at school and then potentially 20 years practicing their craft as a successful psychologist and then you waltz in and tell them what they prescribe is wrong and your automated treatment plan is better.

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dan-robertson ◴[] No.25827042[source]
The conversations are surely paraphrased and exaggerated—just look at the style of the rest of the article.

The position that doctors should be trying new things to improve their care sounds good but in practice most doctors are strongly biased towards the status quo and usually inaction is preferred to a slightly unknown action, even if that action has better expectancy.

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xivzgrev ◴[] No.25827241[source]
I don’t think that was the point. The point was better healthcare doesn’t necessarily translate to more revenue. Healthcare is weird like that - you get paid a flat fee for visits. There might be an argument to be made that better prescriptions = happier patients = more retention, but it’s a stretch. If your practice is already booked full what’s the point?

This biz was clearly made for consumers but yea ads are tough - need a lot of eyeballs.

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1. dan-robertson ◴[] No.25827291[source]
Yeah I agree that’s the point of the article. I think what I wrote would still be a reason even if it is rationalised differently.

The argument that “patients won’t know the difference so I can just do whatever” must break down at some point (hopefully before malpractice) but I think an argument of “I’ll just keep doing what I did before, it’s worked fine so far” doesn’t encourage worsening treatment or paying for more experimentation.

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2. f6v ◴[] No.25831089[source]
As somebody said here, first line drug is prescribed since it’s know to work based on experience. Any experimentation puts too much unwanted responsibility on the doctor.