All of the hospital adjacent entrepreneurial inventions exist to strip-mine the huge pool of money created by Federal, State, and local governments + employers, the purpose of which is to care for sick people.
But you have to admit that the core of medicine has made a valiant effort to cash in, too. Why does an audiologist charge ten times what a drugstore does for essentially the same hearing aids?
Every po-dunk town used to have an eye doctor who made a fat living working 4 short days and playing golf on Wednesdays until somebody figured out eyeglasses didn't have to cost an arm and a leg.
And the duplication of million dollar diagnostic machines in service areas is another cost-driving force. We have a good friend wh is a Doc in private practice, and he loves to talk about the two medical monstrosities at war in our service area, but they do everything but fight a price war.