Psychiatric Group Faces Scrutiny Over Drug Industry Ties

Commercial arrangements are rampant throughout medicine. In the past two decades, drug and device makers have paid tens of thousands of doctors and researchers of all specialties. Worried that this money could taint doctors’ research plans or clinical judgment, government agencies, medical journals and universities have been forced to look more closely at deal details.
In psychiatry, Mr. Grassley has found an orchard of low-hanging fruit. As a group, psychiatrists earn less in base salary than any other specialists, according to a nationwide survey by the Medical Group Management Association. In 2007, median compensation for psychiatrists was $198,653, less than half of the $464,420 earned by diagnostic radiologists and barely more than the $190,547 earned by doctors practicing internal medicine. But many psychiatrists supplement this income with consulting arrangements with drug makers, traveling the country to give dinner talks about drugs to other doctors for fees generally ranging from $750 to $3,500 per event, for instance.

Blue Cross halts letters amid furor

Facing a torrent of criticism Tuesday, Blue Cross of California abruptly halted its practice of asking physicians in a letter to look for medical conditions that could be used to cancel patients' insurance coverage.In a statement issued about 6 p.m., the state's largest for-profit insurer said, "Today we reached out to our provider partners and California regulators and determined this letter is no longer necessary and, in fact, was creating a misimpression and causing some members and providers undue concern.

Do Free Pens and Lunches Influence Doctors' Prescribing Behavior?

A new UPMC conflicts-of-interest policy will take effect that day aimed at making doctors' decisions free from influence created by gifts or improper relationships with the drug or medical device industries. Among other provisions, the policy bans gifts such as pens, note pads and food provided by industry representatives as they work to present information about their products at doctors' offices. . . . The policy directly applies to about 50,000 faculty, staff and students of the university's Schools of the Health Sciences and other professionals and staff employed or contracted by UPMC's U.S. operations.

Bill makes drug-makers financial link to doctors known

Your doctor says you have high blood pressure. And he knows exactly which drug is perfect for you. You head home and hit a few keys on your computer. Instantly, you see the full picture: The medicine he wants you to take is going to help him a whole lot more than it's going to help you.

Psychiatrists Top List in Drug Maker Gifts

As states begin to require that drug companies disclose their payments to doctors for lectures and other services, a pattern has emerged: psychiatrists earn more money from drug makers than doctors in any other specialty. How this money may be influencing psychiatrists and other doctors has become one of the most contentious issues in health care. For instance, the more psychiatrists have earned from drug makers, the more they have prescribed a new class of powerful medicines known as atypical antipsychotics to children, for whom the drugs are especially risky and mostly unapproved.

The Prescription Project Lauched

Community Catalyst and the Institute on Medicine as a Profession launched The Prescription Project on Feb 12, 2007, calling on academic medical centers, professional medical societies and public and private payers to end conflicts of interest resulting from the $12 billion spent annually on pharmaceutical marketing. Building on a series of reforms recommended last year in an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the project will conduct and publicize research on conflicts of interest, advocate for policy reforms that will eliminate such conflicts, and promote prescription practices that are based on scientific evidence...