Like any profession, homoeopathy, too, has its share of the black sheep who can do anything just for the money.

Their shady tricks vary from over-prescribing to ordering “prescriptions” from a particular pharmacy where they have a stake. It is very difficult for the unsuspecting victims to smell something fishy or get an inkling of what is going on until they have lost much precious time, a good deal of money and, in some instances, health.

Prescribing costly medicines is quite a common practice. Particularly, the homoeopaths who are in the retail business of homoeopathic medicines prefer to prescribe medicines (usually mixtures and combinations) carrying a higher margin of profit, notwithstanding that a better product for the same medical condition at a comparatively cheaper price is available. At times, even medicines not warranted by the patient’s condition are prescribed!

Some homoeopaths, apart from dispensing medicines from their own clinics, also hand out coded or unreadable prescriptions to their patients, asking them to have them prepared from certain homoeopathic stores or pharmacies. These coded or illegible prescriptions, needless to say, can only be deciphered by the designated pharmacies that charge a price several times higher than normal.

Another questionable practice, like in allopathy, is the ordering of unnecessary pathological tests. This is done either to appear “modern” or to oblige a friend owning a pathological lab.  Some homoeopaths, employed by private medical centres with diagnostic facilities, do so under compulsion. They have to be “productive” or may lose the job!