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Rxing & Txing based on markets or industry gain or personal gain
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/06/29/483895152/industry-finds-receptive-doctors-at-for-profit-southern-hospitals
"Where a hospital is located and who owns it make a big difference in how many of its doctors take meals, consulting and promotional payments from pharmaceutical and medical device companies, a ProPublica analysis shows.
A higher percentage of doctors affiliated with hospitals in the South have received such payments than doctors in other regions of the country, our analysis found. And a greater share of doctors at for-profit hospitals have taken them than at nonprofit and government facilities.
Doctors in New Jersey, home to many of the largest drug companies, led the country in industry interactions: Nearly 8 in 10 doctors working at New Jersey hospitals took payments in 2014, the most recent year for which data is available. Nationally, the rate was 66 percent. (Look up your hospital using ProPublica's new tool.)
For the past six years, ProPublica has tracked industry payments to doctors, finding that some earn hundreds of thousands of dollars or more each year working with drug and device companies. We've reported how the drugs most aggressively promoted to doctors typically aren't cures or even big medical breakthroughs.
And we recently found an association between payments and higher rates of brand-name prescribing, on average. Accepting even one inexpensive meal from a company was associated with a higher rate of prescribing the product to which the meal was linked, another study showed.
This analysis shows profound differences among hospitals, but it's uncertain why that is. It could be that hospitals play a role in shaping affiliated doctors' acceptance of payments or that like-minded physicians congregate at particular hospitals.
Those who support limits on such payments say patients may want to know how prevalent industry money is at a hospital before choosing it for care. "Maybe they're prescribing or treating you as a patient not based on evidence but rather based on markets or industry gain or personal gain," said Dr. Kelly Thibert, president of the American Medical Student Association, which grades medical schools and teaching hospitals on their conflict-of-interest policies. Patients, she said, "need to be aware that this could potentially be an issue and they need to speak up for themselves and their loved ones who may be in those hospitals."
ProPublica matched data on company payments to physicians in 2014 with data kept by Medicare on the hospitals with which physicians were affiliated at the time. We only looked at each doctor's primary hospital affiliation and only at doctors eligible to receive payments in the 100 most common medical specialties. The payments included speaking, consulting, meals, travel, gifts and royalties, but not research.
To be sure, the data aren't perfect. Companies must report their payments to the federal government, and some doctors have found errors in what's been attributed to them. Companies can face fines for errors, and doctors have a chance each year to contest information reported about them. Also, Medicare's physician data may not capture doctors who don't participate in the program and it may not accurately reflect the status of doctors who have moved.........."
"Where a hospital is located and who owns it make a big difference in how many of its doctors take meals, consulting and promotional payments from pharmaceutical and medical device companies, a ProPublica analysis shows.
A higher percentage of doctors affiliated with hospitals in the South have received such payments than doctors in other regions of the country, our analysis found. And a greater share of doctors at for-profit hospitals have taken them than at nonprofit and government facilities.
Doctors in New Jersey, home to many of the largest drug companies, led the country in industry interactions: Nearly 8 in 10 doctors working at New Jersey hospitals took payments in 2014, the most recent year for which data is available. Nationally, the rate was 66 percent. (Look up your hospital using ProPublica's new tool.)
For the past six years, ProPublica has tracked industry payments to doctors, finding that some earn hundreds of thousands of dollars or more each year working with drug and device companies. We've reported how the drugs most aggressively promoted to doctors typically aren't cures or even big medical breakthroughs.
And we recently found an association between payments and higher rates of brand-name prescribing, on average. Accepting even one inexpensive meal from a company was associated with a higher rate of prescribing the product to which the meal was linked, another study showed.
This analysis shows profound differences among hospitals, but it's uncertain why that is. It could be that hospitals play a role in shaping affiliated doctors' acceptance of payments or that like-minded physicians congregate at particular hospitals.
Those who support limits on such payments say patients may want to know how prevalent industry money is at a hospital before choosing it for care. "Maybe they're prescribing or treating you as a patient not based on evidence but rather based on markets or industry gain or personal gain," said Dr. Kelly Thibert, president of the American Medical Student Association, which grades medical schools and teaching hospitals on their conflict-of-interest policies. Patients, she said, "need to be aware that this could potentially be an issue and they need to speak up for themselves and their loved ones who may be in those hospitals."
ProPublica matched data on company payments to physicians in 2014 with data kept by Medicare on the hospitals with which physicians were affiliated at the time. We only looked at each doctor's primary hospital affiliation and only at doctors eligible to receive payments in the 100 most common medical specialties. The payments included speaking, consulting, meals, travel, gifts and royalties, but not research.
To be sure, the data aren't perfect. Companies must report their payments to the federal government, and some doctors have found errors in what's been attributed to them. Companies can face fines for errors, and doctors have a chance each year to contest information reported about them. Also, Medicare's physician data may not capture doctors who don't participate in the program and it may not accurately reflect the status of doctors who have moved.........."
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