Hospitals are employing more doctors, often by acquiring offices, and they consequently are pressuring those doctors not to send patients to competing hospital systems, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation. Some employment contracts explicitly require doctors to refer patients to a hospital system's own facilities.
The big picture: Referrals are the lifeblood of hospital systems' businesses, and keeping patients in house allows hospitals to charge more and prevents rivals from getting their revenue. These types of practices are a major contributor to the country's $3.5 trillion health care system.