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After her arrest, Apollo Hospitals said Dr Rajakumari was a freelance consultant engaged on a fee-for-service basis and it had discontinued all clinical engagements with her.

Under “the modern fee-for-service healthcare model ... hospitals must fund round-the-clock capacity but are only reimbursed when their facilities and staff are in action,” wrote Dr. Anna Reinert, an assistant professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology at USC’s Keck School of Medicine, in a recent op-ed.

The modern fee-for-service healthcare model, which pushes hospitals to maximize efficiency and reduce staffing, treats the resiliency necessary for delivering babies as a drag on their bottom line.

The traditional fee-for-service model, on the other hand, pays providers retrospectively based on each service they provide, meaning they’re rewarded for volume.

So they aren't incentivized to create records that are as detailed as for privately insured patients, whose care traditionally is reimbursed under a fee-for-service model.