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Netflix and Blockbuster

We Need a Netflix of Recovery

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Netflix of Recovery

When Netflix first started steaming videos Blockbuster laughed at such an idea.

They were certain that people were going to continue making their weekly trips to the video rental stores. They couldn’t imagine a brand new way to do home video.

Well, Netflix could. And then they invented this new way.

And Blockbuster was left out in the cold. We need a Netflix of recovery.

A New Idea

What follows is an example of a new idea to solve our current crisis.

To address DEATHS OF DESPAIR. Annually: 65,000 overdoses. 45,000 suicides. 88,000 alcohol related deaths. Record high anxiety. Record high levels of “loneliness”. Cultural rot.

Nothing Changes if Nothing Changes

Let’s start with a basic principle: Nothing changes if nothing changes. We can agree on that.

Unless we act decisively these trends will continue and they will escalate.

Can we also agree that reversing these trends will require innovation and invention? By the way, if you think everything is fine the way it is and these results are acceptable stop reading this.

The Federal Government Will Need to Act

Second principle: the federal government will need to act as venture capitalist and put up the initial money for the payout.

And/Or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates or these other larger national foundations.

If it works in a couple of pilot programs perhaps permanent reallocation of the dollars could follow?

Insurance and criminal justice and behavioral healthcare funding gets reallocated because the results are so staggeringly good. Back end monetization is the only flaw in this plan.

I know the current structure would push back hard against any change.

From a sociological perspective it is very realistic to create a matrix of community behavioral health severity. A rating scale on how bad it is in any given county in America.

Many academics would jump all over this. Especially if it was tied to transformation.

Run some analytics on insurance claims, mortality, incarceration related to substance misuse, emergency room utilization, and many other social determinants. This becomes the “score”. This is not hard to do….

Then put out request for proposal to “fix” this problem.

5 Year Study With Mass Payouts

Make it a five year study. Set the parameters for the target metrics. And offer a MASSIVE INCENTIVE. A MASSIVE PAYOUT AT THE END OF 5 YEARS if these targets are hit.

Tell the “companies” that want to get in on this: they need to figure out how to bring the score down.

Don’t prescribe the protocols. Let them invent the protocols. This idea would bring the power of free market enterprise to bear on this issue.

You would see the power of entrepreneurship unleashed on our crisis of despair.

It would be best if this was open to any vendor. Not limited to the existing healthcare or treatment providers. As a matter of fact it would only work if there was low barrier to entry for any and all vendors.

RJ Corp. – Traders of Knowledge!

I personally would love to get in on something like this. I will start the company tomorrow.

The current behavioral health system makes its money and maintains its power and prominence from the same broken system we are proposing they fix?

Do you see the lack of logic in expecting innovation to arise out of this arrangement?

Do we actually think people in the existing system and structure are going to work to make their own model obsolete?

A Really Cool App

Adding a new trauma therapist to the team or increasing access to medication assisted treatment or hiring a mental health counselor for schools is NOT INNOVATION.

Even a really cool app to track progress.

It’s all the recycling of the same service and approach. More of the same. For example, the app is just a new way for “willing people” to journal.

Unless we change the incentives we stand no chance of changing the outcomes. ( Basic Principle #1)

It will take appropriate compensation to attract talented people and creative thinkers from outside the Recovery Bubble.

It would be fantastic. The status quo would stand by and watch…. thinking it silly and a “fad”…. then they wake up one day and realize the world has changed and they better cancel this year’s golf tournament and victory lap at that posh resort….

Anyone visit a Blockbuster lately????

I didn’t think so.

Pay attention –

  • Donald J. Trump
  • Kellyanne Conway
  • U.S. Surgeon General Chan
  • Zuckerberg Initiative
  • Gates Foundation
  • Warren.Buffett

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