You've Got To Wonder

[poliphilo]

My doctor has changed my generic painkiller for a branded one which contains the same active ingredients but must surely cost the Health Service more and is certainly harder to source. We went to a couple of pharmacies. The first said, "We haven't had this in for months and- since you're from out of town we're not offering to order it for you" and the second didn't have it in either but will get it for us. By the time I have the product in my pathetically grateful mitts we'll have burned a lot of petrol running it to earth.

One hears a lot about drug companies bribing doctors to prescribe their gear. I'm not saying this is what has happened in this particular instance but if I were a fearless investigative journalist and not a drug-dependent saddo I'd be asking questions.

Comments

[moth-wingthane.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, I've just had the opposite problem. I have to pick up a specific brand of medication for mum as it's more convenient to use but the pharmacy refused to dispense it on grounds of cost. Never mind that we've been doing this for years already. Even when our doctor authorised the cost they still refused, so we ended up going to a different pharmacy. I'm convinced that there is some budgetary prestidigitation going on.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's strange.

We asked the pharmacist if she could give us the generic drug in place of the branded one but she said she wasn't allowed to
diverge from what the doctor had written.

[artkouros.livejournal.com]

And the doctor won't budge? Maybe you need a new one.

[wyrmwwd.livejournal.com]

Doctors do get bribed... all of the time. It is very common. Some doctors are very nice, caring, ethical people. Some doctors are money grabby nasty pigs. Most doctors, like most people, are somewhere in between.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Perhaps...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I like our doctor. He's a sweet, shy man. Whether he's a good doctor is another matter.

[wyrmwwd.livejournal.com]

I used to run the I.T. department at a small newspaper. One of my duties was to buy the toner cartridges for the printers. Because I did the buying for all computer and computer related items, I sometimes met with vendors either in person or over the phone.

At some point, I ended up buying cartridges from this one vendor, and in return, he sent me a boom box. Now, supposedly, it was to "show his appreciation", but, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that there was a fine line here that I was dangerously close to.

Was this a bribe? I wasn't sure. I did get a good price on the product, but I'm not sure I would have bought from him if he hadn't been such a good salesman. You see, I used to help engineer printers. I know what an inferior toner can do to the inside of one.

So, anyway, the boom box arrived, and I still have it, and it still works (15 years later!). I'm long past that employer (who wasn't a nice man, anyway). But, to this day, I'm not sure if I took a bribe or not.

I think this happens with a lot of doctors... otherwise nice people, but the drug companies turn on the charm with them and maybe even give them "tokens of their appreciation". It's insidious.

It is what could have happened in your case.

But this doesn't just happen with drug companies. This was how they tried to teach me to sell when I was a financial planner (and why I got out of the business). There are people who are professional sales people to who, all they care about is getting the sale... which means manipulating people into doing what they want. I'll never be like that, but I know the economy needs these people who are good at it, or else the whole system would collapse.

[zephyrcrow.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of an article I just read that said that in the US, sometimes generic drugs are marked up over 200,000% by pharmacies. Crazy, right? http://www.snopes.com/medical/drugs/generic.asp

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

A very fine line.

In some parts of the world bribery is just the way business is conducted. If you're part of that system you bribe and accept bribes because you'd get nowhere if you didn't.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm.

I expect the same thing happens in the UK.