Dollars For Doctors!

SeaBreeze

SeaBreeze

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Behind the scenes payments to doctors that many are not aware of, more here. https://projects.propublica.org/docdollars/

Dollars for Docs

How Industry Dollars Reach Your Doctors

By Charles Ornstein, Lena Groeger, Mike Tigas, and Ryann Grochowski Jones, ProPublica. Updated December 13, 2016

Pharmaceutical and medical device companies are now required by law to release details of their payments to a variety of doctors and U.S. teaching hospitals for promotional talks, research and consulting, among other categories. Use this tool to search for general payments (excluding research and ownership interests) made from August 2013 to December 2015.
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Propublica has had a "Dialing For Doctors" page on their web site for several years....they now call it "Dollars for Doctors". Anyone planning on seeking out a new doctor, or having to see a "Specialist" should review this data to see if that doctor is more in it for the money, rather than patient care.

If you search on the "Top 10 Highest Paid Careers, in the US", 8 of the top 10 are in the Medical professions.
 
I think that's a great idea that they have to let the world know how they're influencing doctors to prescribe their drugs. Not surprising that doctors rarely look at your lifestyle issues and just turn to the prescription pad. Gotta keep your 'holiday organizer' happy right?
 

Make sure you look at the details. My spinal surgeon made 180K in 2015 in royalties on a device. I say, good for him! He took about $150 in food and beverage. Big deal.
 
I wonder if this is why my doctor recently stopped giving samples, he may have stopped accepting them from the pharmaceutical salespeople. In the past I did get 2 months worth of what I think is a great form of insulin- only one injection per week! Insurance doesn't cover it since it is SO expensive. It's just under $100.00 per syringe!
 
Debby said:
I think that's a great idea that they have to let the world know how they're influencing doctors to prescribe their drugs. Not surprising that doctors rarely look at your lifestyle issues and just turn to the prescription pad. Gotta keep your 'holiday organizer' happy right?
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True, they are probably taking "the easy way out". But think of it this way - he says, "Take this pill once a day" and you will probably do it. He says, "Lose 40 pounds" - what are the odds?
 
My PCP got $4429, for food & beverages.

My son's plastic & reconstructive surgeon got $44,604. Gastroenterologist got $59,772. Cardiologist got $0. My son's general surgeon got $529. My husband's neurologist got $0.
 
Ray said:
True, they are probably taking "the easy way out". But think of it this way - he says, "Take this pill once a day" and you will probably do it. He says, "Lose 40 pounds" - what are the odds?
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I have a cousin whose son became a doctor. He says that a major share of his time in med school was spent memorizing symptoms, and the drugs needed to "mask" those symptoms. Heck, a person could do some careful research on WebMD or the Mayo Clinic web sites, and figure that out for themselves. "Preventative" measures are a small part of the doctors training, because Treatment is so much more lucrative than prevention.
 
When one gets physical literature for a pill or procedure from a particular company that has print quality similar to a new car brochure there's a good chance the doctor didn't pay for that or find those things through their very own research. They were approached.
 
Ray said:
True, they are probably taking "the easy way out". But think of it this way - he says, "Take this pill once a day" and you will probably do it. He says, "Lose 40 pounds" - what are the odds?
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I have read numerous doctors state how they get almost no teaching on nutrition and I can only wonder how much funding medical schools get from pharmaceutical companies and then ask myself why there's no teaching on nutrition. So is it any surprise that doctors don't push the diet but do easily hand out pills. Just consider Don M's post above.

This morning they were talking about the obesity rates of children and how Quebec banned advertising junk food to kids in their province. In all of Canada, their childhood obesity rates are the lowest and fruit and vegetable consumption is the highest. So while Quebec kids are eating their fruit and veggies, other Canadian kids are getting handed pills and being tested for diabetes.

This is about our politicians, the pharmaceutical companies, the doctors and yes, deliberately uninformed consumers who have allowed themselves to be trained into choosing the pills. Given how powerful marketing is, we are all to blame, but those first three groups are more to blame.
 
This subject has been raised with British doctors too. Not so much cash incentives, but sales reps influencing doctors by seemingly innocuous methods like buying lunch for groups of doctors etc... while explaining the benefits of their latest products - and of course handing out free samples.

T
 

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