Doctors Receiving Kickbacks

[hobbes9324]

Good on ya for doing it, too....

In our little town (about 400,000), we now have no oral surgery coverage 5 weeks out of 6, no plastics coverage 1 day a week, no hand coverage one day a week, and ENT, Optho, and Urology are all probably going to be uncovered to some degree in the near future.

Wouldn't be advisable to get too sick on the wrong day with the wrong problem......

MM MD

[renodoc]

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Good on ya for doing it, too....

In our little town (about 400,000), we now have no oral surgery coverage 5 weeks out of 6, no plastics coverage 1 day a week, no hand coverage one day a week, and ENT, Optho, and Urology are all probably going to be uncovered to some degree in the near future.

Wouldn't be advisable to get too sick on the wrong day with the wrong problem......

MM MD

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I would be shocked if ophtho coverage became unavailable. There is a lack of department leadership that will not go toe to toe with the hospitals. Reasonable compensation should be granted to all of these docs however. Either that, or legislation that allowed for charity care only if the patient agreed never to bring suit to the samaritan treating them. Health care is a resource, not a right.

[Roan]

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Doctors also get inundated with free samples from drug companies. Some describe very intense courting by the companies, and huge amounts of profitable free drugs over a good period of time. Some doctors vigorously deny this, but I've read of many saying it's so common it's pretty ridiculous, and they get so many free samples of some drugs, even quite expensive ones, that they have to turn them away after a while because they couldn't possibly use any more.


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the doctors give those free smamples to their patients, suggesting that the doctors get any direct benefit from those free samples is ridiculous

[DcifrThs]

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what does this mean? Pharmeceutical companies pay doctors for prescribing their drugs?
That is a gross conflict on intrest, I can't see how that would be allowed.

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if memory serves me (i read articles a while ago) it is indeed true. i dont know if it's the form of a direct payment but doctors have SOME fairly large incentive to prescribe the newest or latest drug that some pharma is producing.

Barron

[Chief911]

***From an EX-Pharma Rep***

I used to work for Pfizer. Did it for a little less than a year. There certianly used to be alot more DIRECT kickbacks being done to physicians than there are now.

Used to be:
Could take people golfing, give them tickets to games, etc.
Many reps would pay their higher writing physicians directly out of their expense accounts.
Would pay physicians huge amounts of money to speak to other offices/groups/grand rounds, etc about their product.

Things have now changed. And to clarify, its not because of any laws, or what not. The pharma companies got together and decided to police themselves (Hold the laughter, please).

Now:
You take groups of physicians out to eat, but there has to be something "educational" about the meeting.
You pay physicians to come speak for your product to other groups/meeting/grand rounds. This is the most common way of "rewarding" or kicking back money to physicians. For example you may pay a physician $5,000 for a day of speaking to several different groups.
Now that the pharma rules are here, reps have to get more creative about how they do it. But most companies have loopholes that allow reps to still give out some of that stuff. Its just all under the table now.

Some ways reps can get around the regulations:
-Most companies require you to do expense reports, but dont have to have a receipt for anything under $25. So, 10'ish items at about $20 per month = $200 in funny money. I've seen more of reps doing that and pocketing that money than those that give it to docs under the table, but meh.
-The other way to put larger amounts in slush funds to be used for physicians is to get to know some caterers. So, caterer does a meal for 15 person office for you, charges you $250, really only charges $150, and kicks the other $100 back to you. Viola. Slush fund.

So, that's some of the ways physicians are rewarded for writing your drugs. Some are receptive to that stuff, some arent.

To be honest, I would say most physicians put up with reps, because it makes it much easier for their patients if they have lots of samples, so the patient can try the drug for 30 days to see if they can tolerate it before having to pay.

Lastly, for those that try to hate on the pharma industry. Remember, its just sales. And when there are lots of people going for the same thing, [censored] like that is going to happen. Its life, and it goes on in all areas.

For those of you that are going to start bitching about drug costs, I only have one question for you. When was the last time a Generic drug company brought a new drug to market?

Nick

[slamdunkpro]

I wrote a piece of software for a medical device company and was asked (hired as a consultant) to accompany some of the sales reps for a few months to assist in introducing it into the market. I don’t know about pharmaceuticals & GP physicians but I can state that specialists are the biggest whores on the planet. I’d say that 80% of the specialists that we visited openly solicited large cash payouts to “consider” the device and my software. I went to at least 5 $6,000+ dinners (picked-up by the manufacturer) for small groups (less than 8) of physicians (advise from the manufacture’s rep “never let the doctors have the wine list” – I did get to try some spectacular wines). Retreats (“business trips” on the company – 1 – 2 hour meeting over 3 days) to golf Mecca’s, Churchill Downs, Hilton Head, Hawaii, for the doctors and their spouses. Research “grants”. The list just went on and on.

[posnera]

Was this "device" surgical? There have been a bunch of recent cases where surgical device use was being determined by the individual surgeon's choice of brand - mainly in orthopedic surgery.

I am a specialist, so I take a little offense to your blanket statement. You need to be alot more specific before saying

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I can state that specialists are the biggest whores on the planet

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[slamdunkpro]

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Was this "device" surgical?

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No
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I am a specialist, so I take a little offense to your blanket statement

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OK fine, the specialists in the discipline that I was dealing with are the biggest whores on the planet.