Your employees' prescription drug use and expenses.
What's driving it?
The practice of medicine has gradually moved away from the idea that the doctor is there to communicate, to inform and assist.
Until the late 1990s patients received most of their advice about medications from their doctors. Today patients are bombarded with persuasive drug advertising on TV, in print and on the internet.
Drug company spending on advertising to patients has increased twice as fast as spending on promotion to physicians, and has escalated at twice the rate of spending on research and development.
Outside factors unduly influence the practice of medicine and the consumption of medications. Shifts to newer and higher priced drugs are directly related to the dual targets of drug advertising: patients and providers.
There was a 71% increase in the total number of citizens with a prescription drug expense between 1994 and 2005, compared to only 9% increase in US population. In one year, prescriptions written for the top 50 most heavily advertised drugs rose 24.6%, compared to 4.3% for all other drugs combined.
Sales of prescription narcotic painkillers went up 90 percent in a decade. Each year Americans buy 200,000 pounds of prescription narcotics—enough to give 300 mg of painkillers to every person in the country.
Free drug samples are the primary influential sales tactic that sway doctors’ prescribing habits. Whether they are aware of it or not, doctors are heavily influenced by the freebies given by drug reps. Pharmaceutical manufacturers spend $150,000 per year on each general drug salesperson, and nearly twice than per year on specialty reps. The same practices that generated success in drug promotion to physicians is now targeting nurses, physician assistants and nurse practitioners. These personnel are increasingly recognized as the de facto decision-makers in drug choices in the clinic.
73% of panelists on FDA drug approval advisory committees have conflicts of interest with drug manufacturers.
National advisory panels, government medical institutions and disease-specific advocacy groups may insidiously represent the interests of other entities. For example, in 2004 the National Institute of Health’s National Cholesterol Education Program issued new lower acceptable cholesterol levels based on unimpressive scientific data. Eight of the nine authors of the new guidelines were found to have financial ties to makers of cholesterol lowering drugs.
