What is 'capitation'?

What is 'capitation'?

Capitation goes back to the idea of capitates and the head. So per head, it is an amount that the doctor receives. As we've discussed as a little insurance company, he gets thirty dollars a month for you from the insurance company and that's all he gets. If you're sick, he still gets thirty. If you need referrals to specialists, he still gets thirty dollars. What we have exposed in several cases is that capitation is a clear conflict of interests, because you as the patient don't know that and the doctor can't tell you in many of the insurance contracts. Therefore, because of that, you're at risk every time you walk into the doctor's office because you do not have the information he has and there may be an incentive to deny you care, or to deny you a specialty consult, or to deny you an X-ray that may come out of the doctor's pocket when it really should be out of the insurance company's money.