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Dubious referral practices discovered in Belgian hospitals
A leading doctor has called for more inspections of emergency services and intensive care departments after several hospitals in Belgium were found to be generating extra income through dubious methods.
In 17% of cases, an emergency room doctor refers the patient to another specialist, but in some hospitals that happens 100% of the time. That’s according to a study by the socialist mutual insurance fund, which was carried out three years ago.
“The mutuality knows at which hospitals these practices occur,” Marc Moens, vice-president of the Belgian Association of Doctors’ Syndicates, told industry magazine De Artsenkrant. “The previous minister will probably have known about this. It is a scandal that nothing was done about.”
The monitoring service of the medical insurance agency Riziv will now be requested to carry out extra inspections of emergency services and intensive care departments.
Photo: IngImage
Comments
There are many dubious practises going on, one of which I discovered when I got sick in Belgium with a very rare and hard to diagnose disorder. Specialist Doctors feeding each other work on a "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" basis rather than finding the best Doctor for the problem being just one.
@Mikek1 -- Here we go again: the scum of the earth conspiring against you; they seem to have missed their their target somehow. (P.S. Do they write 'doctor' with a capital letter where you come from?).