This article is for real? Am I missing something? Sure, people want a diagnosis and other services from an unregulated, anonymous doctor with a reputation built by what? Amazon-like reviews? Come on!
That's not like that at all. As far as I understand all answers doctors give are open to the public on the site, so everyone else on the internet, including other doctors, can read them and say if it's a good answer or a bad answer. I imagine if this sites starts issuing bad advice, no one would want to go there. However, as of right now, it appears you are wrong and answers are getting paid for by willing customers.
Now, this idea may be far from perfect. But comparing it to the existing system while having a blind faith in it is wrong. In our existing system patients don't have many options of checking what their doctor tells them; they are referred to doctors by other doctors and very often have no way of checking on the reputation (% of successful operations this doctor conducted, for instance). The current system is very inflexible and not consumer oriented at all. Consumer interests are sacrificed in the name of their supposed safety, without first giving said consumers options to decide what they actually want and consider safe.
I am not referring to CoinMD so much but this paragraph...
"Imagine a future where renegade doctors shun licensing laws and practice medicine over the internet. They build up a reputation around an anonymous identity. Use public key cryptography to sign their diagnosis, reassuring the patient that it really came from them. It’s not hard to imagine this would create a demand for anonymous accreditation agencies. These agencies could issue exams and then use their digital signature to sign the credentials of doctors who pass the exam. Patients pay for these services in anonymous currency ― Bitcoin ― and pay fraction of the price they would pay to the government enforced monopoly."
That someone is arguing this gives you an idea of the power of dogma.
Medical services are the place where in-person attention is pretty much generally needed, where consumers tend to be bad judges of their needs and so-forth. It's pretty much the point where the "disruption" paradigm breaks down.
Unfortunately, this paradigm seems to be the hammer that everyone applies to every problem today. Every scheme to make medical more efficient today, not just those of "crypto-anarchists", seems to hinge on giving consumer more choice when medical care is exactly where consumers are incompetent to make choices alone.
Now, this idea may be far from perfect. But comparing it to the existing system while having a blind faith in it is wrong. In our existing system patients don't have many options of checking what their doctor tells them; they are referred to doctors by other doctors and very often have no way of checking on the reputation (% of successful operations this doctor conducted, for instance). The current system is very inflexible and not consumer oriented at all. Consumer interests are sacrificed in the name of their supposed safety, without first giving said consumers options to decide what they actually want and consider safe.