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Collections under which this article appears: Other Ethics Regulation Organization of health care Professional conduct and regulation

BMJ 2002;324:1113 ( 11 May )

News

Doctors accept $50 a time to listen to drug representatives

David Spurgeon, Quebec

A new American company called Time-Concepts LLC is offering doctors $50 (£34; 55) each time they listen to a short sales pitch from a drugs company representative in their office.

The new company receives $105 from the drug manufacturer each time it secures a consultation, $50 of which goes to the doctor, $5 of which goes to a charity that the doctor selects, and $50 of which it keeps.

Doctors are accepting the payments, despite the fact that guidelines from the American Medical Association specify that they should not accept cash payments from drug companies.

Dr Neal Moser, a pulmonary and critical care physician with a 13-doctor group in Edgewood, Kentucky, for example, told amanews.com, the American Medical Association's newspaper for physicians, that he signed up because the plan lets him control when and how he talks to sales representatives. He said that it gave him a more efficient way to get the drug information he needed. He saw no ethical problem with the arrangement and said that the fee barely covered the cost of his time.

But Dr Frank Riddick, chairman of the American Medical Association's council on ethical and judicial affairs, said that accepting cash payment contravenes the association's guidelines for physicians. The guidelines say that physicians are entitled to accept gifts of low value ($100 or less) if they serve an educational, practice related, or patient care function.

"If the purpose of the contact is to educate the physician, then there is no need to pay the physician," he said.

The new scheme is similar to a scheme launched last year by a group of doctors in Cincinnati, called the Queen City Physicians. The group set up a subsidiary company called Physician Access Management, which charges sales representatives $65 a time to talk to Queen City physicians for 10 minutes.

Ms Pamela Coyle-Toerner, president and chief executive officer of Cincinnati's Queen City Physicians and one of the owners of its subsidiary, said that the proceeds helped to pay for an electronic medical records system.

Time-Concepts LLC claims its methods are efficient and ethical.

Footnotes

More information is available on the American Medical Association's website at www.ama-assn.org/sci-pubs/amnews/pick_02/bil20506.htm

© BMJ 2002
 

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Finally Authenticity

Ned Hoke

bmj.com, 10 May 2002 [Full text]

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