To the Editor.—
Bernard D. Hirsh's excellent article "Antitrust and Medical Ethics" is "must" reading for all of those in organized medicine who may be called on to explain our position in regard to contemporary medical ethics.
The question of advertising, minimum fee schedules, and prohibition of competitive bidding is not the real issue with medical society peer review activities. It is, rather, the unethical "unconscionable" fees of a few practitioners. The dilemma lies in the fact that the third-party payers, including medicare and other federally funded programs, do in fact maintain fee schedules including maximum allowable charges and profiles while organized medicine is forbidden to use this information in what Mr Hirsh has described as "carefully controlled disciplinary proceedings."
Mr Hirsh is to be commended on pointing out how the courts narrowly, by a divided vote, have restrained organized medicine in one of its ethical pursuits.
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