Receiving medical attention shouldn’t be a struggle. However, it is an unfortunate reality for many. Not everyone has convenient access to medical care, and sometimes there simply aren’t any appointment slots available for the patient to receive the care and attention that they need. 

Difficulties

 

Patients who live in rural areas are going to struggle more to access their physician than a patient living close to the city. Rural hospitals also have to deal with constraints that many other hospitals don’t. According to the American Hospital Association “Remote geographic location, small size, limited workforce, physician shortages and often constrained financial resources pose a unique set of challenges for rural hospitals. Rural hospitals’ patient mix also makes them more reliant on public programs and, thus, particularly vulnerable to Medicare and Medicaid payment cuts.”

 

It is also worth mentioning that according to AHA statistics, about 3.6 million patients forgo care due to the fact that they don’t have access to proper transportation. Without the transportation that they need, patients aren’t able to get to their appointments on time– or even at all.  This, and many other factors, go to show that healthcare needs to be more accessible to those who need it.

CrowdMed’s Purpose

 

Here at CrowdMed, we can provide diagnostic suggestions to those in need. While what we do is not comparable to a visit to one’s clinician, we can help to cut down on the number of visits needed in order to address a medical issue. 

 

Our community of Medical Detectives isn’t limited to doctors– there are students, professors, and various medical professors who can pitch in with their unique  perspectives and experiences. Instead of having to struggle to get from one specialist to another, a patient who opens a CrowdMed case can get attention from the entirety of our Medical Detective community (though there is an option to limit a patient’s case to only the top case-solvers). 

 

This isn’t a solution to the growing problem that patients around the world face. Something needs to be done in order to address this, but it is obvious that this problem does not have a clear cut solution.