Every week, medical journals bring us news of astounding scientific discoveries: CRISPR gene editing, or CAR-T cell therapy for cancer. And yet just as frequently we hear, “Why can’t health care be more innovative?” The resolution of this paradox lies in recognizing that when people lament health care’s lack of innovation, they’re referring to how we deliver services to patients. That distinction makes the paradox even starker: “So, you’re telling me that you can reprogram T cells to find and kill cancer cells, but it took four months to get my mother an appointment with a neurologist; she spent two hours in the waiting room; and then she got an exorbitant bill that read, ‘This is not a bill’?”