Personalized Medicine

How personal is it ?

It differs from traditional medicine, which has been referred to as a "one-size-fits-all" approach.

• More broadly, "personalized medicine" may be thought of as tailoring medical treatment to the individual characteristics, needs and preferences of a patient during all stages of care, including prevention, diagnosis, treatment and follow-up.

Personalized medicine has been growing for more than 25 years, especially in cancer care. It tries to take into account each patient's unique situation, including clinical data, genetic factors and environmental information, when forming a treatment plan.

♦ The theory is that a disease is as individual as the person who has it. That means for every person, the onset of a disease, its course and how it might respond to treatment are unique.

♦ The goal of personalized medicine is to sort out, in advance, the patients most likely to benefit from a given treatment from those who won't benefit or who may suffer side effects.

Considerable attention is being paid to using genetic tests to guide treatment decisions, including identifying genetic variations that could affect a person's risk of cancer and how well a drug works.

♦ Personalized medicine often pairs a test with a treatment. The FDA calls these tests companion diagnostics: they tell your doctor whether a specific drug is likely to work for you before you take it. Targeted cancer drugs are the best-known examples.

♦ Some real examples:

• Breast cancer: before prescribing the drug Herceptin, doctors test the tumor for a protein called HER2. The drug only works if the tumor has it.

• Heart medicine: some people's genes keep them from activating the blood thinner Plavix (clopidogrel). A genetic test can show whether a different drug would work better.

• Lung cancer: tumors are routinely tested for specific gene changes, and patients get a drug that targets their particular change.

• In the long run, personalized medicine seeks to reduce the burden of disease by targeting prevention and treatment more effectively.

With the help of personalized medicine, the goal is to shift health care toward prevention: moving from illness to wellness, and from treating disease to maintaining health.

Protect your genetic information

♦ Be careful with your genetic information. A federal law (GINA) bars health insurers and most employers from using your genetic test results against you. But it doesn't protect you from life insurance, disability insurance or long-term care insurance companies.

• Think twice before handing your DNA to a consumer testing company. Read the privacy policy. When a company changes hands, your genetic data can go with it.

Membership programs

♦ Unfortunately, the term "personalized medicine" is being used by many doctors to sell patients on joining their membership programs.

Concierge practices charge a membership fee, often $250 a month or more, on top of your regular insurance. In return, you get more time with the doctor and same-day or next-day appointments.

Don't want to join? At many of these practices, you can only see a physician assistant or nurse practitioner, not the main doctor.

Direct primary care practices work differently. You pay a flat monthly fee, often $50 to $150, directly to the practice, and they usually don't bill your insurance at all.

• New in 2026: direct primary care fees up to $150 a month for one person, or $300 for a family, can be paid with money from a health savings account (HSA). Concierge fees generally can't.

♦ Neither one replaces health insurance. You still need coverage for hospital stays, specialists and emergencies.