An alert FrontBurnervian sends along a link to a new ProPublica database filled with data about doctors and pharmaceutical companies. Says ProPublica:
Drug companies have long kept secret details of the payments they make to doctors and other health professionals for promoting their drugs. But 12 companies have begun publicizing the information, some because of legal settlements. ProPublica pulled their disclosures into a database so patients can search for their doctor. Accepting payments isn’t necessarily wrong, but it can raise ethical issues.
You can search your doc’s name. Or you can just search for everyone in Dallas and then order the results by amount of payment, which is what I did. Have a look for yourself. Congrats to Dr. James Dale Griffin, the top individual on the Dallas list. Last year Dr. Griffin took $122,000 in cash from Pfizer for speaking. Quite a haul.
Update (11:31 a.m.): As several people have pointed out in the comments, I missed some money. Dr. Griffin took some meals and travel from Pfizer, too. Tack on another $26,452 for a total of $148,452 in 2010. Nice!
7 comments
Plus $23,000 in travel expenses from Pfizer.
The $122,000 was just for one payment. If you look down the list, Dr. Griffin is listed multiple times as are other docs listed multiple times. This makes their haul, uh payments, even more impressive!
Cool website! It looks like some individuals are named multiple times by different drug companies, so maybe someone has Dr. Griffin beat, the name “Eric Nadler” comes up alot.
–Not Dr. Griffin
Cool database I’ll admit but this info is nothing new. As much as everyone would like to think that physicians are only in it to help people, they also are in it to make a living. Just because it is healthcare and it is big money doesn’t change the fact that it is a business and most businesses exist to make money not loose it. Across any industry, healthcare, IT, publishing, etc.. people get perks for choosing to use one brand or another and recommend to their patients/clients/customers. All too often people put physicians up on a pedestal when they shouldn’t. They are normal people just like everyone else and if an opportunity to make some money is there they will take it sometime. Realize the healthcare industry is a huge money maker and not all for charity.
“Across any industry, healthcare, IT, publishing, etc.. people get perks for choosing to use one brand or another and recommend to their patients/clients/customers.”
Yes, but in many, many industries those “perks” are called “kickbacks” and are considered “unethical” and/or “illegal”. In the medical field, not so much.
How about looking at the politicians or lobbyists in N. Texas and how they grease the wheel? I’ll bet dear Joe Barton is right up there.
Geez, if physicians are on the list look at the bigger picture. If a doc is in the pocket of a pharma company and is receiving a significant portion of their income from that one (or several) company; this is an issue. Likewise if their prescribing habits go hand in hand with who is paying them the honorarium, then that is potentially a far greater issue.
Transparancy in healthcare income reporting is improving all the time and with the Sunshine Act around the corner, it will become even more so. If you struggle with the pharma/physician relationship, don’t worry too much, your insurance company (Hello, Blue Cross Texas) is incentivizing the prescribing of generic meds over branded anyway.
Personally, I would rather have a physician who does maintain an appropriate relationship with pharma, as they will remain pretty current on medication trends/information. The level of the relationship should help me as a consumer decide if I still want him/her as my doc.
Now if we could get any of this transparency with our beloved politico’s, I’d be much happier.
As a physician, i have tremendous ambivalence about all this. I have spoken for drug companies in the distant past and as some of the commentators mentioned, it is an opportunity to go out into the community to get good information out to other doctors. Having said that, there is a wide variation of the talks that are given. Some are prepared slide sets that are no more that advertisements. Others are more informational and have no bias…it depends on the company, the drug and physician speaker. The fees are remarkably high. Five or ten years ago, it could be $1500 to 2000 for an hour talk (and free dinner!). I doubt the fees are less. I quit giving talks because I felt that if someone pays you, they own you to an extent. There is no way you will not feel obligated to use a drug if you speak for the company or get a free meal. There are lots of great resources to keep up with new drugs and techniques that are completely unbiased. Docs who take those kinds of stipends are compromising their values. It is an indictment on the quality of care we purport to provide and casts a dark shadow on us. PS. As an aside, the money that is ear-marked for research is totally different and should not be seen the same a speaking. PPS. If you really want to be shocked, look at the money that device companies like Medtronic and Smith and Nephew pay. They make pharma look like cheapskates.