The frustrations of Chinese patients stem not from their country’s physicians’ skills, but rather a healthcare system that fails to meet its society’s needs. For example, China’s medical system gained attention in recent years when fed-up patients began physically assaulting physicians.
These sentiments fueled companies to spring into action. MediStar Health, an eight-person startup based in Shanghai and founded in 2014, is one. The company connects cancer patients with a network of 400 U.S.-based physicians and charges about $3,000 to translate hospital records and set up one-hour online consultations where physicians offer their expertise.
Although MediStar physicians don’t prescribe medicine or examine patients, the company is making its mark on the Chinese health system, where physicians see up to four times as many patients a day as U.S. physicians and are paid less than $15,000 a year. That over-crowded and under-paying structure creates incentives for physicians to push costly drugs and order multiple tests, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“We’ve seen so many cases of misdiagnosis or overtreatment,” Claire Wang, one of Medistar’s three co-founders, told the Los Angeles Times. “We’re happy if we can help with one small step in the journey to proper care.”
For one family, a MediStar consultation may have saved their daughter’s life. Chinese physicians told then 16-year-old Renee Gao the tumor on her chest required an expensive procedure she may not even survive. After seeking second opinions, in which the family stood in hours-long lines for, no one could tell them why Ms. Gao’s cancer was life-threatening. It wasn’t until the family consulted with physicians in the U.S. — with the help of MediStar — and learned chemotherapy was a viable option.
“Doctors in China are like machines,” said Gao Jing, Renee’s father, told the Los Angeles Times. “If you’re cured, it’s your luck. If you die, it’s your fate.”
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