For about six weeks, from the beginning of June to the middle of July, I didn’t write a word for Economic Sociology, interrupting my steady two-posts-a-month rate. I wasn’t on vacation, but instead spending a lot of time with German doctors, trying to figure out why I suddenly couldn’t walk, sleep or eat without pain. I was sick, unable to walk a single step without holding onto something for support, and just miserable 24/7. It would have been a drag in any context, but trying to get help in a foreign language, in a country that is not exactly warmly disposed toward foreigners, made the whole situation very difficult.One of the best parts of the experience, however, was a very small thing that made seeking medical help a lot less stressful: the segregation of the business part of a medical practice (the part that does billing and takes in payments) from the care-giving part. That means when you go to a doctor’s office, everyone from the office staff to the physician’s assistants to the doctors are focused on the same things that you are as a patient: dealing with what ails you. That’s what people in the business school world call “alignment of interests,” and it works very well in terms of minimizing the roadblocks between people in need of care and those who can provide it.
