Doctor. Founder of Really Intelligent. Building predictive healthcare and helping people live for longer, more active lives.
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I’m a consultant in private practice in London and I treat patients covered by private medical insurance every day.
If you think it’s better in the UK, think again.
I’ll share some stories I and my colleagues see every day. After reading these please DM me or share your own 🧵
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.@AXAHealth has just removed recognition from many of the best physicians and surgeons in the country for commercial reasons. They call it “recognition” but it’s nothing more than this insurance company’s refusal to let its customers (our patients) have their treatment from the specialist of their choice. It is NOT for any clinical, safety, medical, ethical reason. Simply money.
In many cases, like some of mine, they’re mid-treatment, just hours before long scheduled surgery. Most will have made plans, psychologically prepared themselves, booked time off work, cancelled holidays, and more.
@AXAHealth did it with days notice - sending letters out in mid August when many people are on holiday. There’s no channel for communication. A voicemail message where you can’t leave a message. No named contact person. No email address.
My notice came from “Beth (she/her)”. No surname. No job title. No email. No postal address.
No plans from @AXAHealth for how they propose to ensure the continuity of care for their customers. We ensure continuity of clinical care, but if they pull the plug on funding for treatments that may cost £40,000 out more, we can’t go ahead without plans for continuity.
Well done @AXAHealth 👏 👏 👏. You’ve badly let down customers who chose you for what they expected to be at least a year of care.
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If you want to help disrupt legacy healthcare and build the health system of the future, join the waiting list for Really Intelligent, builders of Pomegranate, and share it with your friends and colleagues.
reallyintelligent.health/
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AI and tech will disrupt legacy healthcare from the end user up, and it’s going to happen very soon. Of that, I have no doubt. The days of Big Healthcare are over.
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It’s because everyone gets sick and insurance wasn’t designed for something with 100% probability. Bottom line is insurance isn’t right for healthcare. Even the most basic healthcare is unaffordable for most people, so governments and societies have to find equitable ways to get healthy people to pay for the healthcare of sick people.
The concept of health insurance is simple: you pay your premiums today for the promise of the insurance company paying for future medical services!
However, the truth is more like the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde!
When you sign up for your health plan and are paying the premiums the insurance company smiles and is great, it is Dr. Jekyll!
However, when you try to get the insurance company to pay for medical services, they quickly turn into the villainous Mr. Hyde!
They throw every obstacle they can in your way to get the medical services YOU paid for!
They hit you with:
• Delays and denials of service
• Prior authorizations
• Deductibles
• Co-pays and Co-insurance
• Maximum out-of-pocket charges
• In and out of network
We were promised that the Affordable Care Act, AKA Obamacare, would solve all the problems. Of course it made matters worse.
As a physician, I am tired of the games the insurance comapanies play and how the government lets them get away with it.
As a physician, I am tired of the game that the insurance companies play and how the government allows them to get away with it.
Ben and Amy deserve better than this! @realDonaldTrump @realRFKJr @DrOzCMS You three can hold the insurance company to their duty to pay for the care Ben needs. Please help this great American.
My prayers are with Ben and his family. @Freddy_Media @noahkaufmanmd @DutchRojas @mhp_guy
We were promised that the Affordable Care Act, AKA Obamacare, would solve all the problems..lems.ems.
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telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2025…
This is a simplistic and incorrect view. Reforming the NHS will not make the nation healthier or reduce already unaffordable healthcare costs.
Making the nation healthier requires a wholesale shift from disease treatment to prevention and prediction 🧵
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I was talking to an upper GI surgeon in his late 50s a couple of nights ago at the opera (as you do in London!), and he told me that he’s doing oesophagectomies for cancer faster now with Da Vinci robots than he could in his early days. He’s sitting down so he doesn’t get so tired, so he can do more. Teaching is easier as his junior colleagues can watch and assist from additional consoles. The surgical access is smaller so the wounds are less painful and recovery to discharge is faster. The complication rate is less. /
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Dr Nigel Kellow retweeted
Hello World! 👋
Really Intelligent healthcare has just been born! If you work in health insurance or legacy healthcare, brace yourself because we're coming for you. If you want to be in the future rather than the past, pop over to our website and leave your details. TTFN 😎
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The US spends $1 trillion dollars on interest alone servicing the national debt.
That’s the same as the entire GDP of Saudi Arabia.
Let that sink in.
worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-by…
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I just cannot get my head around how this could possibly happen. If you factor in all the costs of that CT - property, staff, utilities, equipment finance, servicing, etc, etc if it's utilised reasonably, the cost to the imaging center shouldn't be more than $150, so who pays this exorbitant money, and to whom? The imaging center? The doctors? The insurer? Can anyone please explain that to me. 🤯🤕
I can get the same MRI for a cash pay price of around $300
But The problem with these posts…
Is the conclusion people draw that we need more central control? Or we need more insurance…
That is the exact ‘solution’ that created the issues that created this situation in the first place… but bureaucratic geniuses will double down on the idea that we need more more regulation or centralization
Which inevitably leads to less choice and competition
Driving up prices
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Dr Nigel Kellow retweeted
1/ America cannot compete with China without building America's Shenzen – a place to build drones, ships, robots, and everything else cutting edge.
Where? On @CAForever's 100 square miles in Solano, 60 miles north of SF/Silicon Valley, where we invent that stuff. Here's why. 🧵
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Re-respectfully, the issue is that they’re insurance companies, not healthcare companies, and they have to decide whether they can make any financial contribution to the claim based on the terms of the policy. That gets to the very heart of the matter - that insurance is wrong for healthcare.
I agree with both of you but the argument we should be having is about the appropriateness of the funding mechanism. IMHO, that’s what’s wrong. Misaligned incentives. Even the best healthcare in the world is reactive, episodic and transactional. It’s always too late and always too expensive.
I respectfully disagree, as it is dangerous for the insurance companies to make medical decisions.
The insurance company is not basing decisions about care on a careful review of the medical record.
They deny care using algorithms and AI programs without any chart review.
If they carefully review the chart, that will cost them as much as providing the care.
Insurance companies should be in the business of paying claims, not managing patient care.
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