Alexandra Sifferlin

I am not saying that physicians are bad at diagnosing.

They get it right 90% of the time.

However, if you have 1 billion doctor's office visits a year, 155 million visits to the emergency room a year, you can quickly see how even a low rate of error can still affect a large number of people.

So by diagnosis crisis, I mean that there are millions of Americans who are living either without a diagnosis or they have experienced some kind of diagnostic error.

So that could mean a delayed diagnosis.

So you've spent a very long time, sometimes years, without a diagnosis.

So it just took much longer than maybe it needed to.

That could be a missed diagnosis.

So you're sort of living undiagnosed or something wasn't caught early enough.

That could also mean a wrong diagnosis.

So you were given a diagnosis of pneumonia, turned out to be heart failure.

It was an incorrect diagnosis.

And

There are millions of people who have experienced this, and research suggests that nearly everyone will experience one diagnostic error in their lifetime.

And I think what's important about it is your diagnosis is the most important piece of medical information that a person can receive because it informs everything else.

Without a diagnosis, it's hard to get the best treatment for your health condition.

It's hard to get insurance coverage for treatments or other appointments.

You can end up spending a lot of time and money going from physician to physician, clinic to clinic, trying to get answers.

And it's also just a sort of baffling experience and frustrating experience to feel like you're suffering without answers.

There's this sociologist, Sarah Needleman, who says that a diagnosis gives you permission to be ill.