ROBBERY OF PATIENTS

Southland Times, Issue 21430, 26 June 1931, Page 5

ROBBERY OF PATIENTS

DOCTORS AS RACKETEERS. SERIOUS MENACE IN LONDON. “Fee splitting,” the curse of the medical profession, by which doctors force patients to visit a series of practitioners, who are members of a secret and unofficial association, is becoming a serious menace in London. Patients who fall 'into the clutches of the fee “splitters,” says a London writer, may have to face bills three or four or even fifty times as high as those which they would normally incur. The practice is for doctors in new and populous suburbs to form themselves into partnerships—some of which may contain as many as ten doctors in association—instead of normally competing for patients. Some of these associations are little better than a form of “racketeering.” One or two members of the partnership provide themselves with Harley Street addresses for which they pay a fractional rent. Patients are then advised by other members of the “gang” to seek the advice of the “specialist,” and are promised that, as a special concession, the “expert” will reduce his fees. Dentists are sometimes taken into the “racket,” and patients are urged to have their teeth overhauled. The dentist plays his part by recommending his clients to seek the advice of “a tip-top Harley Street man, who will let you down easily if you come from me.” A startling instance of the length to which this form of racketeering goes is the experience of a prominent business man. His doctor, a member of one of these partnerships, advised him to see a specialist, who diagnosed appendicitis, and recommended a certain nursing home' for the operation. Another member of the partnership, described as a “brilliant surgeon,” performed the operation for a fee of 100 guineas, his assistant —another partner—collecting a fee of fifty guineas, these payments being additional to the charges of the original doctor and the specialist. Nothing was found to be wrong with the patient’s appendix, but he was unlucky enough to catch influenza from one of the nurses. Pleurisy developed, and he lay many weeks in the nursing home. The home charged the unfortunate men fourteen guineas a week, plus extras, inculding a heavy chemist’s bill, the charge for lint alone being about 500 per cent, above the usual price. When visitors called they were charged 3/- each for a cup of tea and a piece of bread and butter. Reputable medical men state that they do not know how to deal with the problem of the fee splitter, which is much more complicated than the old difficulty of the diplomaless quack doctor, who to-day hardly exists. ■ ~~