Pascha asked:
If a doctor has an investment in a drug company that has just come out with an expensive new drug, is he more likely to prescribe it?
If a doctor has an investment in a drug company that has just come out with an expensive new drug, is he more likely to prescribe it?
Are those investments likely to influence the doctors’ stance on health care reform?
Yes, I think it does, but it is also natural for a doctor to invest in health care or pharmaceutical company stocks, like a person who knows the auto industry (when it was better) would have been likely to invest in a car company or something.
Hopefully, most doctors who own stock actually have brokers who handle it and on a day to day basis don’t pay that much attention. I don’t know if it should be illegal, but it can seem like a conflict of interest if he prescribes drugs, especially new ones because he has stock in the company that makes it.
The drug companies now control medicine. My Doctor told me that with the new computerized prescription forms, every time you fill a prescription, the information goes back to the drug company who keeps a record of how many of their drugs that Doctor is prescribing and he is pressured by the company to continue doing so. The doctor can no longer prescribe what medicine he thinks is best for you, the drug company has already made the decision. My Doctor also said, Soon, people won’t want to be Doctors anymore.
depends on the persons moral conscience- all prescriptions are partly funded by the govt in the UK and this behaviour occurs less than in the last Century.It’s documented so can haunt the doc at any time in future.
You may be able to get information on a Doctors investments prior to choosing one
yes. it definitely creates a conflict of interest.