Saturday, March 1, 2008

Consumer awareness for prescription drugs

Have you ever noticed when you go to a mental health or family clinic, there are pens, paper, highlighters, and other free goodies from drug companies in the waiting rooms and in the providers' offices? Do you ever ask your prescribing physician, psychiatric nurse or psychiatrist about the safety of the drugs they are giving you for your health conditions? The community needs to be more aware that sometimes the prescriptions you are getting may not be really safe to take due to doctors falling for high pressure sale tactics from pharmaceutical salespeople. Read below about the movement to reform how drug cost are marketed to doctors:

Who We Are:
The Massachusetts Prescription Reform Coalition (MPRC) is a diverse group of non-profit national and local organizations, community organizations, healthcare advocates, private insurers, public payors, and healthcare providers. Members include:
AARP Massachusetts
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts
Commonwealth Care Alliance
Commonwealth of Massachusetts Group Insurance Commission
Health Care For All
Massachusetts Senior Action Council
MASSPIRG
National Physicians Alliance
Neighborhood Health Plan
The Prescription Project
Why We Have Come Together

Massachusetts’ healthcare access expansion can only be maintained if healthcare costs are controlled. The cost of prescription drugs is among the fastest growing segments of health care spending. Between 2000 and 2007 the price of many of the most commonly prescribed brand name drugs rose by nearly 50%, far exceeding inflation. These rising costs threaten the stability of health care reform and the Commonwealth’s budget. The costs also threaten people's ability to access the medications that they need to maintain their health.

Our Priorities

The Coalition urges the Commonwealth to take action against industry marketing practices that inflate the cost of prescription drugs. Pharmaceutical companies spend more than $7 billion annually on marketing to physicians alone. These costs get passed along to consumers and the state through the high price of medications. The Coalitions top priorities are:
Pharmaceutical Industry Gifts to Prescribers: Studies show that gifts from pharmaceutical companies to prescribers inherently impact prescribing decisions.
Data-Mining: Pharmaceutical companies purchase prescription data to target their marketing efforts, magnifying their influence.
Evidence-Based Outreach: Much of the information that prescribers get about drugs comes directly from pharmaceutical salespersons and is, therefore, biased. An evidence-based physician education program (often referred to as “academic detailing”) would provide doctors with unbiased evidence to guide them in their prescribing decisions. Such programs have been shown to more than pay for themselves with savings to public programs in other states. Data
Pharmaceutical industry marketing expenditures directed at physicians doubled (from $3.5 billion to $7.2 billion) between 1996 and 2005.
Nationwide prescription drug spending rose 500% (from $40.3 billion to 200.7 billion) between 2000 and 2005.
Overall, the pharmaceutical industry spent $29 billion on promoting and marketing prescription drugs in 2005.
$7.2 billion spent on marketing directly to physicians, which is an average of about $8,800 per physician, per year.
The industry employs a sales force of over 90,000 representatives or “detailers,” which is about one for every nine physicians
Generics cost 30% to 80% less than brand name counterparts.
Spending would be reduced by $8.3 billion or 11% annually if adults substituted generics for brand names.
94% of physicians receive meals, medication samples, and other payments from pharmaceutical companies.

Contact Health Care for All for more information. Their website is:hcfama.org

Robbin Miller, LMHC
Moderator

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