We live in a capitalist economy right? And capitalism is driven by competition amongst business. This competition forces businesses to perform better and to better meet their customers' expectations. So why is it that there seems to be an apparent lack of competition in some areas of business?

Take for instance doctors. While many doctors are driven by a need to help people, we must realize that they are in businesses too. Just as anyone in business, they need to make money to make it worth their while. However, to me, there doesn't seem to be much competition in this area. Most of the time you don't even know what you'll be paying for and how much you'll be paying. When you are sick, you go to the doctor's office and they perform their tests and diagnose (hopefully correctly) without ever mentioning how much it will cost. We are just expected to pay whatever comes up on our bill a few weeks later.

Suppose they tested you for an illness when there was a low probability that you had it. Also suppose that you'd be charged $50 for this test later on. Many people would probably opt out of having this test.

And there's also this feeling of being locked in to a certain doctor or clinic. We don't shop around. Obviously, in the medical world the cheapest provider might not always be the best but customer value is driven by many things. When I make a purchase for anything over a $100, I really like to shop around and make sure I'm getting the best value for my money. But with doctors we don't do this. We go to the same place we always go. They could charge us $100 or $500. We don't have any way of knowing until the bill comes.

Doctors should post their pricing for common procedures or maybe there should be a pricing index that would allow us to see which doctors are the priciest. Then we as consumers could make an educated decision on where to seek services based on price, customer service, and other areas of value to us.