Fee Splitting in Medicine and Healthcare
This is essentially the payment of a commission to the referrer with the express intention of ensuring that the referring doctor directs referrals of patients to the payee.
In most parts of the world, the practice is considered unethical and unacceptable, hence fee splitting is often covert. The reason it is believed not to be in the interests of patients is because it represents a conflict of interest which may adversely affect patient care and well-being, since patients will not necessarily be referred to the most appropriate doctor to provide their on-going care but will instead be referred to those doctors or hospitals with whom the referring doctor has a "fee splitting" or commission payment type of arrangement. It is also called as 'CUT' (also spoken as Cee-You-Tee) practice in many parts of the world including India for its reference to a 'cut' from the patients bill.
Many countries do not allow promotion of health services via mass media, advertisements and other direct promotions, and in a significant way, information on pricing and quality of care institutions and medicines reaches to patient through their primary care physician, many of whom indulge in a referral fee split unethical practice to refer a patient for business to a higher specialist, brand prescription and admissions.
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Famous quotes containing the words fee, splitting and/or medicine:
“As a general rule never take your whole fee in advance, nor any more than a small retainer. When fully paid beforehand, you are more than a common mortal if you can feel the same interest in the case, as if something was still in prospect for you, as well as for your client.”
—Abraham Lincoln (18091865)
“Verily, chemistry is not a splitting of hairs when you have got half a dozen raw Irishmen in the laboratory.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“Authority, though it err like others,
Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself,
That skins the vice o the top.”
—William Shakespeare (15641616)