Gag rules

When two parties enter into a business contract, they usually share an unspoken "gentlemen's agreement" that neither one will start bad-mouthing the other. But in the often shaky relationships between managed care plans and physicians, what was once assumed has increasingly become codified. Just a few years ago, little one- or two-sentence clauses began popping up in physicians' contracts with managed care plans around the country, which managed care plans call confidentiality clauses. The house of medicine calls them gag rules and says they are just another strong-armed tactic to stifle physicians' abilities to act as patient advocates.