Quote:
Originally Posted by golfing eagles
Perhaps I wasn't clear. My intention was to call out an example of a physician prescribing an "unnecessary" medication for the purpose of making a profit for himself or a pharmaceutical company, which seemed to be what the post I was responding to implied.
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I agree that prescribing to benefit a pharmaceutical company must be exceedingly rare. Writing a script to benefit Lilly makes no sense. I suppose there might occasionally be some tendency to choose a med from the company that has a nice rep or fed your employees when the med is one a several equal options.
But, when you give that worthless B12 shot and the patient has to come back every few weeks for another one you are increasing your profit. When you give the patient an antibiotic shot in the office for his viral sore throat or even documented strep, you are increasing your own profit. And yes I understand there are rare situations where strep might be treated with a shot... patient vomiting, history of not taking meds etc.
Friend went to an urgent care/freestanding ER here and diagnosed with a UTI. No vomiting, not dehydrated, not unable to take oral meds, not when pharmacies were closed. But in addition to the Rx for an appropriate oral antibiotic he was given a very expensive IM antibiotic to "get him started" Patient thought it was great that they did the shot, I think it was for profit.
By the way, my experience with DOs is that they are just as well, or poorly, trained as MDs.