'An unstable situation': Medicine is being revolutionized and torn apart

Medicine is being revolutionized and torn apart

Medical Economics spoke with Richard Anderson, M.D., FACP, chairman and chief executive officer of The Doctors Company and TDC Group, about the organization's annual report, "Healthcare on the Horizon: Predictions for U.S. Healthcare Through 2026." Asked what risk physicians are most underestimating in 2026, Anderson did not point to a single threat — he pointed to the whole system.

"Every aspect of it is changing dramatically," he said. Consolidation, artificial intelligence (AI) and shifting payment structures are all reshaping how medicine is practiced, but the oversight frameworks that are supposed to govern that change are not keeping up.

"It is 100% certain that the technology that is integral to the practice of medicine today will not be matched by the legal system," Anderson said. "The legal system will be completely out of step with the realities of current medical technology."

He also raised concerns about the finances underpinning the system. The federal government now covers more than 55% of all medical care in the United States — but that share does not pay for itself and must be subsidized by private payers, Anderson noted.

After years of declining uninsured rates, that trend is beginning to reverse.

Burnout, Anderson said, runs through all of it. "The cause of burnout is basically the industrialization of medicine — it is about throughput," he said. "As long as we prioritize throughput over quality of care and the doctor-patient relationship, burnout is not going to get better." The responses he sees most often — a Friday pizza party, a monthly check-in — don't address the root cause, he said.

"The system by which health care is practiced is, on one hand, being revolutionized, and on the other hand, being torn apart," Anderson said. "That is a very unstable situation."