52Pathology practitioners making payments to requesting practitioners

52 Pathology practitioners making payments to requesting practitioners

(1) A person commits an offence if: (a) the person is a pathology practitioner; and (b) another practitioner (the requesting practitioner) requests the pathology practitioner to provide pathology services to a person (the patient); and (c) the patient is an eligible person; and (d) the pathology practitioner provides those services; and (e) the pathology practitioner makes a payment (either directly or indirectly) to the requesting practitioner either: (i) in respect of other services provided by the requesting practitioner to the patient in connection with the request; or (ii) in respect of the use of the requesting practitioner’s staff in connection with taking pathology specimens from the patient.

Penalty: 60 penalty units.

(2) Strict liability applies to paragraph (1)(c).

Note: For strict liability, see section 6.1 of the Criminal Code.