I know, this is supposed to be a blog about marketing, but I’m just so mad I can’t stand it.

My family just had a scary medical experience. In a nutshell, my dad was told he had an awful disease (no effective treatment and a life expectancy of 2-5 years) and his doctor wanted to do an invasive, painful test to confirm it.

We all went to a second doctor yesterday, who thought it best to check and treat simple conditions first, before jumping to conclusions that were complicated and exotic (hear hoofbeats, look for horses, not zebras).

I started wondering about the way our health system “works.”

Each year, I get a thick book from my insurance company, with listings of doctors on their plan. The book is heavy, but the information in it is minimal; mostly limited to name, address, specialty, and hospital affiliations. There’s no way to tell if the doctor is any good or not, whether he or she has been disciplined or sued, the effectiveness of the treatments s/he provides, or “customer satisfaction.”

Years ago, I had a “zebra” condition. For five years, I went from doctor to doctor trying to get a diagnosis. I was treated for conditions I didn’t have. I was told things like “you’re delusional,” “just live with it,” and other nonsense.

I admit, it was weird and my symptoms were idiosyncratic, but would any other business stay in business telling its customers they were imagining things?

And what about prices and services? If I buy a book from Amazon, the price is clearly marked. If I go to the doctor it seems I can be charged whatever he or she likes (or the insurance company will reimburse).

Why are there no ratings? I can go online and find out more and better information about a bathroom scale, an mp3 player, or a tea kettle (don’t get the orange one) than I can about a doctor! Where’s the crowdsourcing? (I understand that Angies List has doctor ratings, but you have to pay to join.)

How can we fix this?

Can someone build a doctor rating site? Give ratings with stars for the good guys and white ducks (quack, quack) for the bad ones?

Start a campaign to lobby the Congress?

Dress up as ducks and picket the bad docs’ offices?

Write letters to the President?

Got a better idea? Share it here.

UPDATE: Some months ago, Zane Safrit asked the members of Seth Godin’s triiibes for their ideas on broken health care and how to fix it. Get the result here.

(Back to our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow, with a post about promoting webinars).