The pros and cons of DIY medical testing.

From American public media,

this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Lily Dramale. What if receiving a medical diagnosis was as simple as shopping online.

With a growing home diagnostics industry says it can be.

At home testing grew during the COVID-19 pandemic,

but more health tech companies also offer DIY kits that test for food allergies, fertility, and thyroid function.

By some estimates, the home diagnostics market generates $5 billion a year,

and it's expected to double in the next eight years.

Some medical experts are wary of this on-demand model, but health tech investors,

Chrissy Far and Anargia Vardanaana say it can make health care more accessible.

We live in a world today where the health care industry is going in two directions.

On one side you have big health, that's capital B, capital H, getting bigger and bigger,

more and more opaque, less accessible, less transparent.

And on the other hand, you have the internet, which is a complete Wild West, where people have the ability to, once upon a time, self-diagnosed with the likes of Google and WebMD, and that's changed nowadays to self-diagnosing using chat

gp. And a plethora of other online tools. And the challenge is that people want

information, they deserve information.

Consumers should be able to get access to health-based information and

health-based care as easily as they can get an Uber or as easily as they can get

their Insta- cart groceries delivered.

Unfortunately, we aren't there yet.

And my hypothesis on the increase in at home testing

...