THere is another type of financial concern we might have with physicians, namely, physician ownership of treatment facilities. If a physician owns a treatment facility, you can see why he might be more eager to recommend patients use itor to recommend less lucrative patients use his competitor's facilities. The flip side is that not allowing physicians to refer to their facilities might create extra administrative cost and inefficiency. The law polices physician ownership in several ways and bars it in many instances. One place it does not bar ownership is with respect to facilities known as ambulatory service centers, which are in essence a kind of lower cost treatment alternative to hospitals. It does indeed look like physicians, in making referrals to ASCs whether they own or do not own, seem to take into account their own financial returns.

Do you think that is a problem? If so, is a better solution an outright bar of the practice or merely requiring doctors to disclose to their patients their ownership interests in treatment facilities?

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The issue of physician ownership of treatment facilities raises ethical concerns regarding potential conflicts of interest and the impact on patient c... View the full answer