June 22, 2016-- A new study
suggests that doctors who receive free meals from pharmaceutical companies are
more likely to prescribe name brand drugs over cheaper generics.
The practice of
pharmaceutical sales representatives treating doctors to free meals may be
driving up the out-of-pocket price of drugs in the U.S., a new study suggests.
Writing in the journal JAMA
Internal Medicine, researchers from the University of California San
Francisco found that the marketing practice makes doctors more likely
to prescribe expensive name brand drugs, which are not always covered by
insurance, over cheaper generics.
The study found that doctors
who were treated to just one meal costing less than $20 “were up to two times
as likely to prescribe the promoted brand name drugs as physicians who received
no meals.” Doctors who accepted multiple free meals were three times more
likely to prescribe name brand medicine.
“Whether a formal dinner or a
brief lunch in a doctor’s office, these encounters are an opportunity for drug
company representatives to discuss products with physicians and their staff,”
said Adams Dudley, director of the Center for Healthcare Value at the Philip R.
Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at UCSF, and the senior scientist on
the study.
“The meals may influence
physicians’ prescribing decisions.”
Previous studies have shown
that people prescribed more affordable generic drugs are more likely to stay on
the medication for the prescribed amount of time while they are less likely to
do so with more expensive name brand drugs.
“A lot of the financial
burden of using brand name drugs instead of generic drugs falls on the seniors
enrolled in Medicare, who pay an average monthly co-pay of $40 to $80 for brand
name drugs, but only $1 for generics,” said Colette DeJong, a UCSF medical
student who was involved in the study.
Previous studies have shown
that doctors who take payments from pharmaceutical companies through activities
like paid speeches are more likely to prescribe the more expensive name brand
drugs.
