As a rule, practitioners are currently very averse to giving credence estimations to patients. Chesterton’s Fence: understand thoroughly why before tearing that down. Here are some possible reasons.
practitioners are unskilled in that estimation; their heuristics output a decision instead
patients are unskilled in interpreting that estimation and on average providing it would be harmful
hospitals disincentivize providing that information
insurance companies disincentivize providing that information
patients would rather be told what to do and would be averse to doctors otherwise
doctors would rather tell what to do and would be demoralized otherwise
I’m sure there are more. For each, if it were the main driver of the current situation, what would happen if you tried a startup that tore down the fence?
As a rule, practitioners are currently very averse to giving credence estimations to patients.
In general experts in all fields are adverse to giving credence estimations to their customers because it allows the customers to hold them accountable for bad advice.
A homeopath who would have to provide credence estimations might lose his job as a result. People in mainstream medicine with similar outcomes would also lose their jobs.
Even scientists don’t like telling you their credence for an experiment finding a statistical significant outcome before they run the experiment.
On a more metaphysical level various fields want objective knowledge that’s true regardless of the subjective judgement of a person. The search for transcendent absolute truth prevents people from being public with their subjective credence judgments.
practitioners are unskilled in that estimation; their heuristics output a decision instead
Yes, they would need to learn to do proper estimations. Just like the good judgment project found that there are certain Superforcasters in political domains, we are likely to find that some doctors are much better at forecasting than others. It’s very valuable to find out who’s good at making those forecasts. Having strong economic pressure to develop the ability to forecast medical decisions is very useful for more broadly developing our way of understanding the human body and developing new treatments as well.
patients are unskilled in interpreting that estimation and on average providing it would be harmful
A patient might not be perfect at understanding what paying 600$ for a treatment with 60% chance of success means but if he’s shown various treatment option and there’s one treatment with 600$ that has a 30% chance of success and one that has a 600$ 60% chance of success.
insurance companies disincentivize providing that information
There’s a lot of impetus in pretending that we provide the best possible medicine to every person. If this project would go through we would person who get’s the 1-bed hospital room might not only get more comfort than the person with the 4-bed hospital room. A lot of people dislike the idea of putting a cost on a human life. I think we should know what a good medical outcome costs for similar reasons as we want evidence in EA about what it costs to safe a human life.
As a rule, practitioners are currently very averse to giving credence estimations to patients. Chesterton’s Fence: understand thoroughly why before tearing that down. Here are some possible reasons.
practitioners are unskilled in that estimation; their heuristics output a decision instead
patients are unskilled in interpreting that estimation and on average providing it would be harmful
hospitals disincentivize providing that information
insurance companies disincentivize providing that information
patients would rather be told what to do and would be averse to doctors otherwise
doctors would rather tell what to do and would be demoralized otherwise
I’m sure there are more. For each, if it were the main driver of the current situation, what would happen if you tried a startup that tore down the fence?
In general experts in all fields are adverse to giving credence estimations to their customers because it allows the customers to hold them accountable for bad advice.
A homeopath who would have to provide credence estimations might lose his job as a result. People in mainstream medicine with similar outcomes would also lose their jobs.
Even scientists don’t like telling you their credence for an experiment finding a statistical significant outcome before they run the experiment.
On a more metaphysical level various fields want objective knowledge that’s true regardless of the subjective judgement of a person. The search for transcendent absolute truth prevents people from being public with their subjective credence judgments.
Yes, they would need to learn to do proper estimations. Just like the good judgment project found that there are certain Superforcasters in political domains, we are likely to find that some doctors are much better at forecasting than others. It’s very valuable to find out who’s good at making those forecasts. Having strong economic pressure to develop the ability to forecast medical decisions is very useful for more broadly developing our way of understanding the human body and developing new treatments as well.
A patient might not be perfect at understanding what paying 600$ for a treatment with 60% chance of success means but if he’s shown various treatment option and there’s one treatment with 600$ that has a 30% chance of success and one that has a 600$ 60% chance of success.
There’s a lot of impetus in pretending that we provide the best possible medicine to every person. If this project would go through we would person who get’s the 1-bed hospital room might not only get more comfort than the person with the 4-bed hospital room. A lot of people dislike the idea of putting a cost on a human life. I think we should know what a good medical outcome costs for similar reasons as we want evidence in EA about what it costs to safe a human life.