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WORDS MANUELA REISBECK
WHERE DOES LUXURY START IN MEDICINE? A
s a medical doctor providing medical care for numerous patients over many years, I have noticed a new trend in medical services requested by newcomers to my clinic. The old-fashioned visit to the doctor’s when it hurts the most has given way to wider concepts of preventive health check-up’s putting the emphasis on maintaining health rather than fixing something already broken. This is of course not a new concept. Extensive check-up programs have been offered by many doctors and clinics for years. The market is
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vast, and the concepts offered are also of a wide range: from simple health evaluations at your local doctor’s office, all the way to luxury clinics excluding sickness altogether from their business and focussing solely on the health market. On the other hand, insurance companies have not increased their portfolios with preventive medicine; the maximum a patient will get reimbursed for is a blood test and an ECG. The rest must be paid by the patient, and all offered preventive medicine programs do have one thing in common: they
cost a lot of money. In addition, new areas of interest in ‘health medicine’ have been introduced to the world, creating new demands.’ I am thinking of the new iv-therapies containing expensive vitamins and antioxidant agents, aesthetic medicine shaping the image of society, nutritional consulting programs promising complete rejuvenation and even dentistry claiming that only a beautiful white tooth is a healthy tooth. My non-judgemental question is: where does medical necessity end and where does medical luxury start?
