[bilbo0s]

Mmmm, I'm gonna play Devil's Advocate here and ask what would be necessarily wrong with a physician actually examining patients prior to making an admit decision? (Particularly given the fact that said physician really is acting more like he/she got a referral than a consult request.)

You can do consults, but they have to be consults. I think what happened here is that these two organizations are playing fast and loose with the essential distinction between a consult and a referral. The decision to admit has to come from this physician, so really, it was not a consult. Because the original physician had little to no power. (I'm almost ready to argue that the original physician had essentially no power over the decision, but I'd need a bit more information to make that call.)

EDIT:

Friend just pointed out that some people may not understand the difference between a consult and a referral. Basically, in laymen's terms, a referral is a request that you assume care of the patient. Whereas a consult is a really just a request for, let's call it, "advice", for lack of a better term. Kind of like, "Hey man, can you give me a second opinion on this?" But the patient is still under your care. You still make the final calls on things. As opposed to, "Woah, dude... you're gonna have to handle this one, I'm no cardiologist, so I'm not even gonna try to do a cath, much less a PCI."