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  1.                                                                                 THE WEEKHEALTH & SCIENCE, Page 26Making a Profit From Self-Referrals
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  4. Ownership of clinics by doctors is helping run up the U.S.
  5. medical bill
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  8.     The growing trend for physicians to invest in the clinics,
  9. treatment centers and laboratories to which they send their
  10. patients -- a practice known as self-referral -- is blamed by
  11. many experts for contributing to excessive treatment and soaring
  12. national health-care costs. Two reports in the New England
  13. Journal of Medicine provide new ammunition for the critics. In
  14. one, researchers analyzed 6,581 California workers' compensation
  15. cases and found that physiotherapy was recommended twice as
  16. often by physicians with a stake in physical-therapy centers as
  17. by doctors who had no financial ties to the facilities.
  18. Moreover, 38% of body scans ordered by physicians who owned
  19. imaging centers were deemed unwarranted, in contrast to 28%
  20. requested by independent doctors. Another study of Florida
  21. radiation-therapy centers concluded that self-referral increased
  22. the frequency and cost of treatment. Moreover, researchers found
  23. that none of the centers were located in inner-city or rural
  24. areas, though service to these communities is a major rationale
  25. offered for doctors' ownership of health-care facilities.
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