Overdiagnosing Market Clearance
This article from Five Thirty-Eight discusses the implication of word choice on treatments and the ensuing effect on Overdiagnosis. Overdiagnosis results in aggressive and expensive treatments for diseases patients probably do not have. A physician’s word choice while describing a condition can make patients more likely to opt for aggressive treatments, exacerbating the issue. For instance, adults are far more interested in using antibiotics to treat an eye infection if it is referred to as pinkeye. Similarly, parents believed pinkeye to be more contagious than an eye infection. Overdiagnosis can also result in negative psychological pressures. It is easy to feel insecure if you perceive yourself as ill. The bottom line of Overdiagnosis is extra financial and psychological costs.
Overdiagnosis comes into play in the healthcare market. When matching buyers and sellers to maximize payoff as each buyer gets a unique item, these extra costs affect the way the market clears. Patients, or buyers, place a different emphasis on different labels for a condition. This may be due to ignorance on the part of the buyer and trigger words in certain conditions such as “tumor” or “cancer”. As the emphasis changes with the label of the condition, the buyer will be willing to spend more to mitigate the costs they associate with the condition. This results in unnecessary costs when patients opt for more expensive treatments to treat a simple condition, such as antibiotics for pinkeye.
The increased cost that results from Overdiagnosis can push buyers out of the market and make a cleared market inefficient for a time. The affected patients may resort to new options in terms of treatment or even doctors. The search for an alternative seller that provides patients, enough utility may take so long that the illness may worsen, which is a negative outcome that increases costs further. Additionally, the extra cost to the buyer may have a ripple effect in other markets, as the buyer will have less expendable income for other items (especially if their condition gets worse). Finally, the greater demand for more expensive treatments for simple conditions will increase the price of these treatments for the overall population, preventing some people from being able to afford the treatment and leaving them to suffer.
Overall, Overdiagnosis can destabilize markets with merely the language the doctor uses. The inefficiencies caused by Overdiagnosis can be avoided by patients asking better questions about conditions and not taking labels at face value. For instance, asking about the differences between pinkeye and an eye infection would reveal that the two are one and the same, helping the buyer to avoid the unnecessary cost of antibiotics.