Wrong on many counts.
1. Family docs are well aware of the costs of the meds. We know which ones
are covered by the government for seniors, which ones require a limited use
code for coverage and which ones don’t have a generic equivalent. The
pharmacists don’t do that for us. If we don’t get it right we get a fax
from the pharmacy refusing the script.
Are you sure? Why do I see at least three times a day a doctor prescribing Levaquin to a known private pay patient. You know, the types that get pissed off because now they have to wait to get it changed because a 10 day run costs over 100 bucks. Yet when I ask “did you tell the doctor you didnt have Rx insurance” the response is “I sure did, he said it costs ‘about 30 dollars or so'”.
How about the rare times doctors themselves actually call in Rx’s, and say “oh shit” when I say “are you sure you want to prescribe that? Mrs Jones has no Rx coverage, and thats over 200 dollars”.
I call bullshit on your statement. You may know the cost of the medications, but ‘family doctors’ have little to know clue as to how much Crestor or Levaquin or Lipitor costs. Unless I somehow work in town full of retarded doctors (which I seriously doubt).
2. Docs get nothing from drug reps for prescribing their products. They’re
not allowed to leave anything more than free samples, so no one is getting
lap dances out here.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiight. You must live in a state that has those ‘free good’ laws out there. We have a clinic next door, and they look like santa waltzing in with bags and bags of free shit. They have paperweights, coupons, notepads, pens, etc, etc, etc. They come with their dinners and golf trips and vacations and on and on and on.
3. Some newer drugs have evidence behind them (meaning large-scale RCT’s)
proving that they work better. And some patients have had side effects or
poor response to the older ones. So not every doc prescribing the new med
over the old one is doing so with no therapeutic intent.
Did you read the studies? Or just listening to the reps who push them. The devil is in the details, and I bet if you actually sat down and read that clinical study (rather than just listening to a talking head), you’d actually realize that the glamor and hype whats news is just a rehash of something old and generic and cheap. Remember the first rule of Journal reading: See who paid for the study.
Rant away, angry one. But maybe you’ll want to step out behind the counter
every now and then and get back in touch with reality.
Dont have enough time too. Im too busy listening to your patients complain about their cost of their medications, answering questions about their health because ‘the doctor was too busy to answer this for me’, and giving explanations/excuses on why your office hasn’t faxed back my refill request/med change in 2 days.
Oh, you’re a Canadian ER Doctor (from what it looks like on your blog, i spent 2 min’s looking at it, so I might of missed something huge). Lets see how this changes things:
I’m at a loss to understand why you are bitching about an American Pharmacist ranting about an American Senior Drug Program and American Doctors.