Time to take on the drug samples problem
Time to take on the drug samples problem
So yet another institution probably will lower the boom on gifts from pharmas and medical device manufacturers. As you saw yesterday, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is proposing to ban all forms of pharma and device freebies, up to and including drug samples, and even suspend admitting privileges of physicians who break the rules.
Is this a good idea? I'd argue that while it sounds nice, it's pretty questionable to ban samples until you come up with a workable alternative for poor patients. Sure, UPMC is said to be considering choices, but it doesn't look like that's a central part of its plans.
I'm not suggesting institutions should never set limits on accepting drug samples. After all, it seems intuitively obvious having them on hand will encourage physicians to use them, and then prescribe the drug thereafter.
But it doesn't seem fair to penalize the poor and struggling middle-income patients who can't afford co-pays just on principle. As a consumer, I'm all for knowing physicians are unbiased, but the reality is that samples bring some pretty effective drugs to patients who wouldn't be able to get them otherwise.
What I'd really like to see is an industry-wide effort, perhaps spearheaded by the same institutions which are kicking off bans, to come up with a vigorous, realistic and effective alternative to accepting samples en masse. We're not talking about some vague discussion of vouchers here--I'm talking a real-world solution.
OK, folks, are any of you aware of such a solution? Even better, have you come up with one that works in your facility? Write to me and tell me more! -Anne
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Comments
By Anonymous | Posted 12:12pm | July 6, 2007
I am not happy with this editorial. It actually makes me wonder about the entire content of Fierce and how much you really understand about healthcare.
For the poor, you prescribe for one of the many excellent generic medications that are available on the market today. I'll admit there is the rare occasion in which a new product is unique and a suitable generic is not available, but that is rare. Prescribing patterns are clearly affected by drug company promotion. If it means that on the rare occasion extra work must be done to obtain a medication for a poor patient, the overall cost of healthcare would still decrease for everyone.
To give the poor samples for one or more months and then somehow expect them to be compliant with a costly regimen a short time later is not reasonable.
Many pharmacies now provide several generic medications free of charge (e.g. antibiotics at Meijer).
The majority of medications are taken long term, expensive newly marketed products are not the best product to select for a poor patient and changing part way through, when the samples run out can lead to confusion and medication misadventures.
By Anonymous | Posted 7:40pm | July 8, 2007
Most drug samples are of new expensive drugs that often prove little/marginally better than a generic. So rather than getting started on an equally effective affordable generic, patients get started on a new expensive drug that may not be sustainable for them in the long run. That's the problem with samples. I've lost count of the number of patients that had been started on Avandia before even trying Metformin for diabetes.
By Anonymous | Posted 4:52pm | April 21, 2008
I applaud this editorial. Banning samples is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It's just a way insurance companies distract us from the real problems of health care (costs and whay we pay, not treatment options) and activists get health consumers to focus their ire on big bad pharmaceutical companies as the cause of woes -- but where would we be without them? What other industry is restricted to any similar degree? Banning market access of drug makers to doctors is silly -- if doctors don't want to meet with drug reps or accept free samples so be it; but don't make the rest of us suffer too!
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