Why doctors are so afraid of apples
Smartphones and wellness programs can scare doctors. As implied in “An Apple a Day keeps the doctor away,” smartphones and insurance wellness programs can both reduce the need for doctors, and many of them are terrified for good reason.
Those at the top of the healthcare mountain especially fear the Healthcare MiniTrends I write about, because they know only 49 of the original Fortune 500 companies (1955) are still in business today (2026). And they’re looking down at a new class of hungry competitors who are already exploiting these minitrends. This short article looks at just two of the trends: (1) the new focus on wellness, and (2) the new smartphone uses introduced by Apple.
Wellness and Functional Medicine
The apple image represents wellness programs that help prevent the need for medical care. Prevention, however, is a threat to doctors who learned a lot about diagnosing and treating disease but little about how to prevent it. They’d better adapt quickly or lose business and income.
Insurance companies developed wellness programs for their large corporate clients to help avoid illness and improve workforce productivity while lower medical costs. They are already extending the reach of those programs because Obamacare now prevents them from cherry-picking the healthy and most profitable customers, cutting off others once their care gets too expensive. It seems offering wellness programs to individuals is a no-brainer.
The wellness programs are one way to encourage healthier lifestyle decisions, but that’s really just part of a bigger aim. Their real goal is to redefine the purpose of health insurance and replace prepaid medical care with protection against catastrophic illness & injury. The hope is to give consumers more skin in the game, to help them find the best value in medical care. Good luck with that.
Increased competition among providers is another reason why doctors are scared. And it’s why so many are starting to embrace natural, holistic, and functional medicine. They’re developing skills or partnerships in nutrition, sleep, meditation, acupuncture, and other practices that were once known as Alternative medicine and are increasingly known as Complementary or Integrative medicine.
The Smartphone Physical & Telehealth
Technology is enabling much of that new competition. Already, consumers can get a comprehensive, clinically relevant well-patient checkup using only smartphone-based devices, and the data is immediately readable and fully upload-able to an electronic health record.
As Dr. Eric Topol says, smartphones help democratize medicine by promoting competition, empowering patients, helping them schedule telehealth calls, house calls, or office visits to a concierge clinic. A physician assistant or nurse practitioner can now replace many general medical functions. Even a home health aide offers new competition when armed with digital diagnostic & medical imaging equipment in a briefcase, and with video connections to summon help when needed.
The smartphone threat (or opportunity) intensified in late 2014 when Apple introduced its iPhone 6 with Apple Health apps and a HealthKit interface between sensor devices, medical record systems, and doctors. The Apple Health app today uses AI and sensor technologies to automatically gather and track metrics from your iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and compatible third-party apps. It securely organizes your vitals, fitness, and medical records, displaying them through dynamic trends and detailed interactive charts.
Threat? or Opportunity?
So, it seems there are two kinds of doctors – (1) those who see innovative technologies and wellness programs as treats, and (2) those who see them as opportunities. The doctor practices most at risk are those that don’t anticipate and adjust to the disruptive changes in healthcare. That’s why I highly recommend reading 101 MiniTrends in Health Care, and I welcome your comments below.
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- Doctored, book about Physician Disillusionment
- Reframing the Question of Doctor Frustration
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Would You Trust An Automated Doctor? (Forbes, 6/19/2019) There’s an important point not covered in this article and the survey it’s based on. Think of tech innovation as an extra tool for you and your doc, not as a replacement of your annual physical with her. Beyond just real-time monitoring of a patient’s health is the ability to provide context and actionable insight that can influence behavior. Diabetics can learn what diet and exercise choices most affect glucose levels, with the objective of minimizing measurement swings. Athletes can tailor workouts for maximum benefit and minimum risk while tracking progress. And patients, family, and/or caregivers can be alerted if things seem dangerously out of sorts.