ABSTRACT
One of the most important practical business relationships for a consultant in private practice is with the medical insurance companies. An understanding of the history is important to the formulation by a consultant of his or her approach to the insurance companies. To understand the market for private medical insurance (PMI) today it is helpful to know how it has developed since the Second World War. Largely as a result of political pressures in the late 1970s, the private sector decided to reduce its dependence on the National Health Service (NHS) and to build more sophisticated hospitals. Commercial insurers, seeing what appeared to be a growth market for medical insurance in the 1980s, also arrived. In the current market, both patients and consultants in private practice are faced with a bewildering array of medical insurance policies. The market pressures to reduce consultants' costs was one fundamental reason for the investigation into private fees by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission (MMC).
