As efforts continue by organized medicine and the pharmaceutical industry to curtail gift-giving marketing practices by drug companies, some doctors feel new ethics guidelines have gone too far in reining in the gifts.
A group of Washington, D.C., physicians, for example, next week will ask the American Medical Association to drop from its ethics guidelines a crackdown on reimbursement for travel, lodging and various personal expenses that have been paid for by some drug companies.
The AMA’s policymaking House of Delegates meets Saturday through Thursday for its annual meeting at the Hyatt Regency Chicago. The resolution on drug company gift-giving is just one of dozens AMA delegates will consider.
Drug industry gift-giving to physicians has become a hot topic as prosecutors, consumer groups and lawmakers delve into whether such marketing practices influence doctors’ prescribing habits. Meanwhile, the nation’s tab for prescription drugs is rising an estimated 17 percent annually and insurers blame drug company marketing practices as a key driver.
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Although giving gifts to doctors is not illegal, an increasing number of federal prosecutors are stepping up probes of the pharmaceutical industry to determine whether such enticements could qualify as illegal kickbacks. By winning doctors’ loyalty–and prescriptions–drugmakers increase their market share and profits, investigators say.
The drug industry lobbyist, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, recently established voluntary guidelines to curb certain sales tactics such as entertainment and “dine and dash” dinners that drug companies pre-order at restaurants so that doctors can go and pick them up at no charge. And last year, the AMA launched an educational campaign to remind the nation’s physicians of its own ethical guidelines about what is acceptable.
The AMA says its policy is clear in that subsidies from the drug industry should not be accepted “directly or indirectly” for travel, lodging or personal expenses, nor should doctors be compensated for their time.
But the Medical Society of the District of Columbia, in its resolution, says physicians’ time is “an undervalued commodity” and AMA policy may “discourage physicians from attending meetings and dinners for educational purposes.”
The D.C. delegation says doctors should be allowed to be reimbursed for a variety of things by drug companies, including travel, lodging, personal expenses and “token consulting or advisory arrangements.”
AMA leaders doubt that the membership will vote to drop any facet of its ethical guidelines, especially at a time drug industry gift-giving to doctors is under such intense scrutiny.
“In light of the new pharmaceutical industry guidelines, programs of these sorts are going to be few and far between anyway,” said Dr. Frank Riddick, a New Orleans endocrinologist and chairman of the AMA’s Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs. “In this climate that we are in, I don’t think we would do anything that would be perceived as weakening the guidelines.”