A multi-billion dollar medical fraud scandal leaving Americans with dangerous and painful medical problems has surfaced prompting patients to take a close look at the financial ties of their doctors have to pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies. So how do you find out if your doctor is taking any money from a company that may not have your family’s best interests? We’ve got that anser! You’ve trusted Mamavation to cover topics like how to manage ADHD without medication & how chewing gum as a child has protective benefit from disease as an adult, now join us as we show you how to tell if your doctor is taking money from other companies.
Celebrities Have to Disclose Financial Ties to Companies, Why Not Doctors?
We all know when we see celebrities or athletes promoting a product on television that they’ve been paid for their endorsement. Sarah Jessica Parker probably doesn’t really use boxed hair dye, but we let that slide because it’s obvious she’s just a paid spokesperson for the brand. That’s what big companies do, they pay out billions of dollars to market their product. The more influential the person, the more sales that company is bound to see. This same marketing strategy is used with more than just fast food and beauty products. It’s used with Big Pharma too. The big difference is it’s not as clear who’s being paid to endorse a product when you’re sitting in a doctor’s office. Each year the pharmaceutical industry spends $24 billion on marketing directly to physicians. That number is 8 times what’s spent advertising to consumers, so it’s obviously an effective strategy.
Who’s Working For Who Exactly?
These paid relationships between doctors and pharmaceutical companies bring into question who the doctor is really working for. Are they working for you, the patient, to manage your care in the best way possible? Or are they working for Pharma in exchange for perks, and a paycheck when they prescribe or recommend their product? Having knowledge of these sorts of partnerships can help you better decide if your doctor has your best interests in mind.
Risky Business When Doctors Align with Pharmaceutical Companies
Just because a doctor is prescribing medication doesn’t mean it poses no threat. Pharmaceutical drugs are the 4th leading cause of death, above AIDS, diabetes, automobile deaths, and more. Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are responsible for 1.9 million hospitalizations annually, and that isn’t even taking overdoses, or misprescribing into account. It’s estimated 328,000 deaths from ADRs occur each year in the U.S. and Europe alone. With such severe risks, prescribing drugs should be carefully considered, as well as options for care that may have less risks. If Pharma is in the back pocket of doctors, their decision of which treatments to offer may be influenced. Knowing what companies have contributed their marketing dollars to your physician can help you decipher the motive behind their suggested treatment.
How to Find Out if Your Doctor is Beholden to Pharma
Legally pharmaceutical companies and makers of medical devices are now required to disclose whom their dollars are going to. You can search a specific doctor and see payments made to them from these companies with Dollars for Docs. The site lists the top 50 companies to offer payouts, the highest paid physicians, and the physicians paid most frequently. If you’re looking for information on a specific hospital, you can use the search tool from Open Payments by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
This tool can be used when choosing a new doctor or assessing your current doctor. It offers full disclosure and opens the lines of communication between doctor and patient. Ultimately, getting the best care for you and your family is what matters, and having knowledge on your side can help.
What did you find when you searched your doctor?
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This is problematic. I am a recently minted doctor, i have never received money from a pharma company, but the site lists I received 14 bucks at some point.
I checked some other doctors I know and all of them had received 14 dollars. There is an error in these reports. I have started the process to challenge it, but the site requires me to verify my identity with Equifax! The same goons who were just hacked. If you check your doc and it says they received 14 dollars, or some low number multiple of that figure, it is probably an error too. I am outraged by this. I do take samples of meds some of my patients in need cannot afford copays on, but that is it, since becoming an attending i have not gotten so much as a pen or even spoken to a pharma rep (only my front staff talks to them and gets med samples for our stock) maybe it is just an error for me, but I am guessing there is some flaw in the reporting.
You should contact them to make sure it’s not another doctor they have you mixed up with.
Way too many doctors have been corrupted by Big Pharma … thanks for bringing this to everybody’s attention!