A recent review of the Open Payments database found that, over the last 10 years, the evil forces of Big Pharma have paid doctors $12.1 billion dollars.
That’s a lot.
Of course, there are also quite a few doctors out there, and the word “paid” is kind of a misnomer. Yes, some people did get paid directly — cash for research, speaking engagements, teaching other docs — but a lot of the money was really spent on marketing. It may show that Dr. Jones was “paid” $200 one day, when in reality that was the cost of providing lunch to her, her five-person office staff, and the medical student following her around that afternoon.
Dr. Allan M. Block
In the last 10 years, I’ve accepted “payments” of one pizza and three iced coffees, so I guess I’m on there, too.
When you actually break it down, this comes out to a national average of (drum roll) $48 per doctor over 10 years.
Let’s face it, if your prescribing habits can be bought for $4.80 a year ... that’s pretty sad. They say everyone has their price, but hopefully it’s not that of a Happy Meal.
I understand the reasons for tracking this sort of thing. The system certainly can be — and has been — gamed for abuse. If one doctor is getting a ridiculous amount of money for doing nothing but writing scripts for Walletgouge-XR, that certainly needs to be known. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark (or wherever).
But the headline, especially when used in the lay media, makes it sound like all docs are on payola, and further erodes trust in the medical field. The fact that it works out to $4.80 per doctor each year is going to buried deeper in the article, by which time most readers will have moved on to see what Taylor Swift is up to.
Perhaps I’ve taken it to an extreme, but since the pizza (2014) I haven’t done lunch at my office. I still meet with reps, but they’re told now that I don’t do lunch, or bagels, or even iced coffee anymore. Tell me what I need to know about the new drug, but at this point in my career I’d rather have time. By not meeting a rep over lunch, or coffee, it adds 30-60 minutes to my day to use for reviewing tests, returning calls, and typing up notes. Those are things I’m going to have to do at some point, so I’d rather do them at my office and have the extra time at home, even if it’s just to do a jigsaw puzzle with my daughter.
That’s worth more than $4.80 per year.
Dr. Block has a solo neurology practice in Scottsdale, Arizona.