The real hack is having friends and family in the medical field. You can skip the chicanery of medical “intake” and diagnosis outside highly specialized conditions, get advice without extortionate bills or misaligned incentivizes, and they can help you get appointments with specialists/tell you who’s the best to see, even write you rx’s directly.

I recently had an infection that, due to being geographically isolated from my typical medical network of friends and family, resulted in $1k of bills after insurance for something that was essentially routine and which I would have been able to treat myself if I had the ability to get medicine without an rx.

The general public who don’t have the scientific/medical literacy to self-serve and lack the network to get treatment without going through the formal process are getting fleeced.