It's Not Greed - Just $80 per Minute!

You're checking into BestCuts Medical Center to have your gall bladder removed. In the administration office, the operations manager is discussing to whom they'll assign your surgery. It seems you were referred by Dr. Jones across town and he's getting a 25% referral fee. "Let's give it to the new surgeon, Dr. Baker, as he's just out of internship and doesn't have much work yet. None of the top guys want it because they're busy and don't want to give up the 25%." Doctors don't do this type of referral business.....wonder why?

For a comparison in real estate showing $4800/hour referral compensation, check out this article. There are also a couple of recent articles on this at Realty Times.

"Just Say No" is being used more often by agents and brokers when it comes to charging or paying for referral business. Or, perhaps there's merit to the Realty Times article suggestion by Peter Miller mandating stringent disclosure of referral fees to the consumer. This approach, short of banning them completely, could be a good thing for our industry.