title: The effect of for-profit laboratories on the accountability, integration, and cost of Canadian health care services.
abstract: Canadian public health care systems pay for-profit corporations to provide essential medical laboratory services. This practice is a useful window on the effects of using for-profit corporations to provide publicly funded services. Because private corporations are substantially protected by law from the public disclosure of "confidential business information," increased for-profit delivery has led to decreased transparency, thus impeding informed debate on how laboratory services are delivered. Using for-profit laboratories increases the cost of diagnostic testing and hinders the integration of health care services more generally. Two useful steps toward ending the for-profit provision of laboratory services would be to stop fee-for-service funding and to integrate all laboratory work within public administrative structures.
authors.affiliation: Kingston Community Health Centres, Kingston, Ontario, USA. elbe@web.ca
authors.forename: Ross
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sutherland
mesh_terms: D002170:Canada; D064790:Clinical Laboratory Services / Q000191:economics*; D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D019033:Delivery of Health Care, Integrated / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods; D018588:Fee-for-Service Plans; D006269:Health Facilities, Proprietary / Q000191:economics*; D006801:Humans; D007373:Interinstitutional Relations; D012941:Social Responsibility