By 1996, St. Barnabas ran seven hospitals in northern and central New Jersey, with 4,000 affiliated doctors, more than 20,000 employees and a million patients.

Much of the friction around the country focuses on how much control a hospital has over its affiliated doctors.

Around the same time, the hospital agreed to lease the building as office space for affiliated doctors.

Rowan Regional Medical Center and affiliated doctors' offices provide a majority of the city residents' healthcare.

In Manhattan, Beth Israel Medical Center and several hundred affiliated doctors provide per capita coverage for 43,000 people under Aetna, Nylcare and Health First plans.

Most N.H.L. teams have about 10 affiliated doctors - specialists and dentists with practices of their own.

They are: *"Low cost-sharing" plans, H.M.O.'s in which patients pay $10 per office visit to affiliated doctors.

These groups usually allow a choice of primary physician among affiliated doctors, but patients must go through this "gatekeeper" to visit specialists, who must also be in the group.

She pays $10 to visit any of the affiliated doctors, $25 to use the outpatient services of St. Luke's Hospital in Cedar Rapids and $100 for any hospital stay.

Under Medicare statutes, any payments from hospitals to affiliated doctors must be well documented as fair compensation for specified services or assets.