Bibliometric Analysis of Informal Payments in the Medical Care System

The paper focuses on the analysis of the interest in publishing articles related to corruption in the medical system. To identify this aspect and outline the link between corruption and the medical field and informal payments, as a form of corruption and self-rated health satisfaction, a bibliometric analysis was used. The analysis is based on articles published between 2000 and 2024 that involved key terms, corruption and informal health payments. Following this analysis, the research hypotheses according to which informal payments modify the level of self-rated health satisfaction were confirmed. Through literature review and bibliometric analysis, it can be concluded that corruption is an ongoing problem in the medical system, and informal payments decrease self-rated health satisfaction. Moreover, a post-pandemic decline in interest in publishing articles involving corruption in the medical system has been observed. Among the most proposed methods of combating corruption in the literature were the integrity of professional accountants combined with a more digitized governance and transparency that would provide people with real and current information about the medical system.