Puterbac News Network and Political Discussion Thread

[Big Orange Junky]

In another example of just how corrupt Obama is, in the new ACA act if a rep buys a doctor lunch it has to be reported in a national searchable public database. It applies to anything over 10 bucks or even less if the total adds up to 100 bucks during the year. If a rep buys Pizza for the office and it comes to 30 bucks then they have to divide that up evenly among all that got a slice.

Of course that is going to eat up 6 hours yearly of staff and physician time to do to book keeping for this (gubment estimate so you know that is likely exponentially low), plus if it isn't accurate they are not going to fix it in the database because "they don't have the resources to do so". As a physician you have 45 days to dispute it and get it right before it goes on the website and after that no corrections. I mean after all doctors don't have anything better to do than to do paperwork for the gubment about an ink pen they got from Bayer.

On the other hand you have Obama accepting illegal money from over seas intentionally by not requiring the security code or address on his website, and remind me again how much they can accept from an individual and a corporation without recording it? And then is it a public, searchable database that can't be corrected? It may be a public database (I believe it is for individuals but not PACS) but I bet it can be corrected. Also there is no limit to indirect contributions, you know buying ads for them etc seems like that is much more influential than a friggin ink pen.

It doesn't matter to me, reps don't come to my office because I am in a rural area and I am a surgeon not primary care but jeeze these guys are idiots, either that or their morality is so bad that they really could be bribed by an ink pen........

[Johnette's Daddy]

In another example of just how corrupt Obama is, in the new ACA act if a rep buys a doctor lunch it has to be reported in a national searchable public database. It applies to anything over 10 bucks or even less if the total adds up to 100 bucks during the year. If a rep buys Pizza for the office and it comes to 30 bucks then they have to divide that up evenly among all that got a slice.

Of course that is going to eat up 6 hours yearly of staff and physician time to do to book keeping for this (gubment estimate so you know that is likely exponentially low), plus if it isn't accurate they are not going to fix it in the database because "they don't have the resources to do so". As a physician you have 45 days to dispute it and get it right before it goes on the website and after that no corrections. I mean after all doctors don't have anything better to do than to do paperwork for the gubment about an ink pen they got from Bayer.

Are they going to track all the blowjobs MDs try to get from hot pharmaceutical reps? What about all of the "conferences" Big Pharm sends y'all to, free of charge? My very close relative (medical director for a chain of dialysis units) has been to Spain, Portugal, Greece and Brazil in the past two years, all on the dime of Big Pharm under the guise of "medical directors conferences," as well as several trips to Torrey Pines and Pebble Beach for "conferences."

I havea buddy at Glaxo who is a regional manager. They haven't hired a guy sales rep in his region since the late 90s.

http://www.exceptionalmediocrity.com/20 ... s-hot.html

The article highlighted Cassie Napier, a 26 year old drug rep for TAP Pharmaceutical Products whose previous claim to fame was a star cheerleader on the University of Kentucky cheerleading squad. This was no accident as Ms. Napier, like 24 other members of Kentucky’s squad, were specifically recruited by drug companies. A school staff member employed within the cheerleading program explained that he frequently gets call from pharmaceutical company recruiters who want the names of recently graduated cheerleaders. “They don’t ask what the major is,” he admitted.

Cassie’s story is not unique; First Horizon Pharmaceuticals employs Cristin Duren, who was given a special leave of absence to compete in the Miss America pageant. A spokesperson for the Washington Redskins admitted that several members of their cheerleading squad were currently employed as drug reps; some other notable pharmaceutical beauties include Mia Heaston (a former Miss Illinois), Cameron Haven (a model for Playboy), and Diana Chiafair (professional swimsuit model and Miss FHM 2007.) The trend has become so blatant that entire businesses have been formed for the singular purpose of matching cheerleaders with pharmaceutical companies looking for “pharma babes.”

One of the most successful examples of this is Spirited Sales Leaders, a Memphis-based corporation founded in 2003 that charges a $2,500 fee once you successfully land a pharmaceutical sales job. Owner Gregory C. Webb got the idea for the business after observing “several hundred” former cheerleaders being hired as drug reps. Their site even displays a success wall that lists former clients who have been matched with a pharmaceutical company.
How is this possible you ask? Isn’t this a form of discrimination? The answer tends to be a bit more complicated as there are currently no laws that prohibit hiring attractive candidates. As long the company does not refuse to hire based on religion, race, or gender; they are not violating any Federal statutes. In other words, a sign outside of Pfizer might read:

We are an equal opportunity employer (as long as you are smokin’)

So what do the drug companies say about selecting the more esthetically pleasing populace to represent their wares? Pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb, in response to the New York Times article, claims that industry hiring practices are based on “personality” and not looks. They claim that the inordinate number of cheerleaders in their ranks is due to their tendency to be “extroverts, good conversationalists, and pleasant to talk to.” And men read Playboy for the hard hitting journalism….
Former Prozac rep Shahram Ahari, testified before a senate committee that the drug companies may be interested in cheerleaders and ex-models for more than their “personalities.” He revealed that while working for pharmaceutical giant Eli Lily, new employees were trained in the art of fostering “quid pro quo” relationships and exploiting sexual tension with doctors. On the first day of “sales class” Ahari learned that he was the only one in the room (including 21 other trainees and 2 instructors) that had received any college-level science education.

How can they afford to pay $60,000 dollars to former cheerleaders with no science background? The answer is simple; they are worth every penny in the revenue that they generate. In 2007, AstraZeneca fired a sales executive Mike Zubillaga after his interview in an internal company newsletter went public. In the interview, Mr. Zubillaga offered the following advice to his sales reps when they visited a doctor:

“There is a big bucket of money sitting in every office. Every time you go in, you reach your hand in the bucket and grab a handful. The more times you are in, the more money goes in your pocket. Every time you make a call, you are looking to make more money.”

The remarks became especially infuriating when it was revealed that Zubillaga and his sales staff dealt exclusively with cancer medication. Once an employee posted the interview on the Internet, AstraZeneca quickly fired the executive because his viewpoint “violates a core value of serving patients.” The company did not explain why such offensive sales advice would be published and distributed to their employees in the first place as part of the official company newsletter.

This mindset is not unique to AstraZeneca, former Parke-Davis pharmaceutical rep David Franklin sued his former employer for forcing him to market drugs off-label (other than their approved uses) and making false claims. He cited a senior sales executive at the company who told him:

"I want you out there every day selling Neurotonin. Neurotonin is more profitable than Accupril, so we need to focus on Neurotonin. Pain management, now that's money…. I don't want to see a single patient coming off Neurotonin before they've been up to at least 4,800 milligrams a day. I don't want to hear that safety crap, either."
The problem is that Neurotonin was only approved for use in seizure patients at the time but the sales staff was pushing doctors to prescribe it for everything from migraines to bi-polar disorder. In 2004, the company was ordered to pay $430 million in fines for their marketing practices of the drug, which many felt was an ineffective slap on the wrist considering the company’s proceeds from the medication exceeded $3 billion.

How do such practices go unregulated? Why is the Neurotonin case the exception rather than the rule? Well, when you make a lot of money you can afford to spend a lot of money. In a recent report from the Center for Responsive Politics, it was revealed that pharmaceutical companies spent over $900 million on government lobbying between 1998 and 2005. This was more than any other industry in the same time period, and almost 90 million of that went directly to federal candidates and committee members and nearly three-fourths of the cash went to Republican candidates.

That is not to say Republicans are the only ones taking incentives, in the 2004 presidential race the pharmaceutical companies donated significant amounts to both Bush and Kerry’s campaigns and I would imagine that any congressional donations tend to lean toward the current majority. In an interview with The Washington Post, Republican Senator Charles Grassley admitted, "You can hardly swing a cat by the tail in Washington without hitting a pharmaceutical lobbyist.” Although the comment was meant in jest, it reveals a simple truth: there are currently 2 drug lobbyists for every member of Congress.

So is there any hope for oversight and responsible prescription marketing practices? In 2001 the American Medical Association launched a campaign to educate doctors about the ethical perils of pharmaceutical gifts. The program was funded by pharmaceutical companies.

[Big Orange Junky]

In another example of just how corrupt Obama is, in the new ACA act if a rep buys a doctor lunch it has to be reported in a national searchable public database. It applies to anything over 10 bucks or even less if the total adds up to 100 bucks during the year. If a rep buys Pizza for the office and it comes to 30 bucks then they have to divide that up evenly among all that got a slice.

Of course that is going to eat up 6 hours yearly of staff and physician time to do to book keeping for this (gubment estimate so you know that is likely exponentially low), plus if it isn't accurate they are not going to fix it in the database because "they don't have the resources to do so". As a physician you have 45 days to dispute it and get it right before it goes on the website and after that no corrections. I mean after all doctors don't have anything better to do than to do paperwork for the gubment about an ink pen they got from Bayer.

Are they going to track all the blowjobs MDs try to get from hot pharmaceutical reps? What about all of the "conferences" Big Pharm sends y'all to, free of charge? My very close relative (medical director for a chain of dialysis units) has been to Spain, Portugal, Greece and Brazil in the past two years, all on the dime of Big Pharm under the guise of "medical directors conferences," as well as several trips to Torrey Pines and Pebble Beach for "conferences."

I havea buddy at Glaxo who is a regional manager. They haven't hired a guy sales rep in his region since the late 90s.

http://www.exceptionalmediocrity.com/20 ... s-hot.html

The article highlighted Cassie Napier, a 26 year old drug rep for TAP Pharmaceutical Products whose previous claim to fame was a star cheerleader on the University of Kentucky cheerleading squad. This was no accident as Ms. Napier, like 24 other members of Kentucky’s squad, were specifically recruited by drug companies. A school staff member employed within the cheerleading program explained that he frequently gets call from pharmaceutical company recruiters who want the names of recently graduated cheerleaders. “They don’t ask what the major is,” he admitted.

Cassie’s story is not unique; First Horizon Pharmaceuticals employs Cristin Duren, who was given a special leave of absence to compete in the Miss America pageant. A spokesperson for the Washington Redskins admitted that several members of their cheerleading squad were currently employed as drug reps; some other notable pharmaceutical beauties include Mia Heaston (a former Miss Illinois), Cameron Haven (a model for Playboy), and Diana Chiafair (professional swimsuit model and Miss FHM 2007.) The trend has become so blatant that entire businesses have been formed for the singular purpose of matching cheerleaders with pharmaceutical companies looking for “pharma babes.”

One of the most successful examples of this is Spirited Sales Leaders, a Memphis-based corporation founded in 2003 that charges a $2,500 fee once you successfully land a pharmaceutical sales job. Owner Gregory C. Webb got the idea for the business after observing “several hundred” former cheerleaders being hired as drug reps. Their site even displays a success wall that lists former clients who have been matched with a pharmaceutical company.
How is this possible you ask? Isn’t this a form of discrimination? The answer tends to be a bit more complicated as there are currently no laws that prohibit hiring attractive candidates. As long the company does not refuse to hire based on religion, race, or gender; they are not violating any Federal statutes. In other words, a sign outside of Pfizer might read:

We are an equal opportunity employer (as long as you are smokin’)

So what do the drug companies say about selecting the more esthetically pleasing populace to represent their wares? Pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb, in response to the New York Times article, claims that industry hiring practices are based on “personality” and not looks. They claim that the inordinate number of cheerleaders in their ranks is due to their tendency to be “extroverts, good conversationalists, and pleasant to talk to.” And men read Playboy for the hard hitting journalism….
Former Prozac rep Shahram Ahari, testified before a senate committee that the drug companies may be interested in cheerleaders and ex-models for more than their “personalities.” He revealed that while working for pharmaceutical giant Eli Lily, new employees were trained in the art of fostering “quid pro quo” relationships and exploiting sexual tension with doctors. On the first day of “sales class” Ahari learned that he was the only one in the room (including 21 other trainees and 2 instructors) that had received any college-level science education.

How can they afford to pay $60,000 dollars to former cheerleaders with no science background? The answer is simple; they are worth every penny in the revenue that they generate. In 2007, AstraZeneca fired a sales executive Mike Zubillaga after his interview in an internal company newsletter went public. In the interview, Mr. Zubillaga offered the following advice to his sales reps when they visited a doctor:

“There is a big bucket of money sitting in every office. Every time you go in, you reach your hand in the bucket and grab a handful. The more times you are in, the more money goes in your pocket. Every time you make a call, you are looking to make more money.”

The remarks became especially infuriating when it was revealed that Zubillaga and his sales staff dealt exclusively with cancer medication. Once an employee posted the interview on the Internet, AstraZeneca quickly fired the executive because his viewpoint “violates a core value of serving patients.” The company did not explain why such offensive sales advice would be published and distributed to their employees in the first place as part of the official company newsletter.

This mindset is not unique to AstraZeneca, former Parke-Davis pharmaceutical rep David Franklin sued his former employer for forcing him to market drugs off-label (other than their approved uses) and making false claims. He cited a senior sales executive at the company who told him:

"I want you out there every day selling Neurotonin. Neurotonin is more profitable than Accupril, so we need to focus on Neurotonin. Pain management, now that's money…. I don't want to see a single patient coming off Neurotonin before they've been up to at least 4,800 milligrams a day. I don't want to hear that safety crap, either."
The problem is that Neurotonin was only approved for use in seizure patients at the time but the sales staff was pushing doctors to prescribe it for everything from migraines to bi-polar disorder. In 2004, the company was ordered to pay $430 million in fines for their marketing practices of the drug, which many felt was an ineffective slap on the wrist considering the company’s proceeds from the medication exceeded $3 billion.

How do such practices go unregulated? Why is the Neurotonin case the exception rather than the rule? Well, when you make a lot of money you can afford to spend a lot of money. In a recent report from the Center for Responsive Politics, it was revealed that pharmaceutical companies spent over $900 million on government lobbying between 1998 and 2005. This was more than any other industry in the same time period, and almost 90 million of that went directly to federal candidates and committee members and nearly three-fourths of the cash went to Republican candidates.

That is not to say Republicans are the only ones taking incentives, in the 2004 presidential race the pharmaceutical companies donated significant amounts to both Bush and Kerry’s campaigns and I would imagine that any congressional donations tend to lean toward the current majority. In an interview with The Washington Post, Republican Senator Charles Grassley admitted, "You can hardly swing a cat by the tail in Washington without hitting a pharmaceutical lobbyist.” Although the comment was meant in jest, it reveals a simple truth: there are currently 2 drug lobbyists for every member of Congress.

So is there any hope for oversight and responsible prescription marketing practices? In 2001 the American Medical Association launched a campaign to educate doctors about the ethical perils of pharmaceutical gifts. The program was funded by pharmaceutical companies.

And this has what to do with the corruption of the Obama administration regulating 10 bucks to doctors but 900 million to him is OK? Big pharma doesn't send doctors to conferences, we have to pay for our conferences. Now gubment officials, that's a different story.

Evidently they are like most people, convinced everyone else is just as bad or good as they are. Liars are convinced everybody else lies to them, thieves are convinced everyone else would steal if they could and politicians are so used to being bribed they think that an ink pen is too much of a "bribe" for doctors.

It just shows where his true thoughts are, he doesn't care about the patients, he only cares about hurting physicians by more regulation, decreased autonomy, decreased revenue, decreased quality of life. I mean every doc I know just has an extra 6 hours per year to try and make sure this is accurate. That 6 hours couldn't help anybody.......oh wait in 6 hours I could see 6 or so more new patients who are suffering......nah it's clearly more important for me to try and oversee the info that is sent to the gubment on me...that's what I spent all that time and effort to do...so I could be the gubment informant and send in all your private health information to them as I am also required by obamacare to do. Yep, your diagnoses, your medicines, your weight and BMI all go to the gubment now. But don't worry, big brother loves you and just wants that info to go after the big bad insurance companies.

If they really wanted to help the uninsured they would allow physicians to deduct all the free care they give per year, oh yeah that would make it easier for physicians to give free care and might make people less likely to want gubment run healthcare, can't do anything that would acutally help uninsured or poor people.

[Johnette's Daddy]

And this has what to do with the corruption of the Obama administration regulating 10 bucks to doctors but 900 million to him is OK? Big pharma doesn't send doctors to conferences, we have to pay for our conferences. Now gubment officials, that's a different story.

1 - MDs are THE most entitled group in America.
2 - If you're paying for your own conferences, you're either doing it wrong or you're not high up enough on the org. chart. MY B-I-L is in Dallas now at a medical director's conference. The pharma. company covered the entire trip PLUS gifted a plane ticket to my sister (who goes on all his sponsored trips, presumably to keep him from screwing the pharma babes).

It just shows where his true thoughts are, he doesn't care about the patients, he only cares about hurting physicians by more regulation, decreased autonomy, decreased revenue, decreased quality of life.

Bull - you just don't want to admit that many MDs prescribe based on what the pharma rep is pushing rather than what the FDA recommends. I've been at the pharmacy and heard pharmacists arguing with MDs about prescribing drugs for uses other than for what they were cleared (like Neurotonin), and I heard (along with 5 other people in line) an MD scream over the phone at the pharmacist "I don't care what the FDA says, I'm the doctor, not you, and I want my patient on XXX." After the call, we heard the pharmacist tell his colleague that the drug reps must be pushing that drug for other uses to increase sales.

I mean every doc I know just has an extra 6 hours per year to try and make sure this is accurate. That 6 hours couldn't help anybody.......oh wait in 6 hours I could see 6 or so more new patients who are suffering......nah it's clearly more important for me to try and oversee the info that is sent to the gubment on me...that's what I spent all that time and effort to do...so I could be the gubment informant and send in all your private health information to them as I am also required by obamacare to do. Yep, your diagnoses, your medicines, your weight and BMI all go to the gubment now. But don't worry, big brother loves you and just wants that info to go after the big bad insurance companies.

6 hours per year . . . if you work 48 weeks per year that comes out to 90 seconds per work day . . . when I go to the MD, it takes the receptionist 90 seconds to get off of her personal phone call or shut down her Angry Birds game before she can log me in and get my co-pay. I'm sure she can find the time to check a box on a form.

If they really wanted to help the uninsured they would allow physicians to deduct all the free care they give per year, oh yeah that would make it easier for physicians to give free care and might make people less likely to want gubment run healthcare, can't do anything that would acutally help uninsured or poor people.

This I agree with - but it would have to be tracked, lest you deduct the time you spend at PNN giving out free medical advice.

[Johnette's Daddy]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterubel/2 ... ay-stupid/

It's Physician Pay, Stupid!

In 2006, health-care expenditures in the U.S. rose 6%, a rate of growth significantly higher than inflation and one that, if sustained, would lead to a doubling in health-care spending in a mere dozen years. Some of that extra spending was a function of more doctors doing more things to more people—an increasing number of hip replacements, for example, for senior citizens hobbled by degenerative joints; more diabetes and blood pressure treatments too, for all the increasingly obese people in the country whose health is threatened by cardiovascular disease.

But according to a Price Waterhouse Coopers analysis, 75% of that growth was a result not of an increase in the volume of medical interventions but, instead, an increase in their price.

People like me who obsess about our nation’s crippling medical expenses often focus on reducing unnecessary medical tests and procedures. The folks at Dartmouth, who run the Dartmouth Atlas, correctly worry about unjustifiable variations in the use of medical procedures, with some regions of the country two or three times more likely to, say, perform C-sections than other areas. This medically unjustifiable variation in the intensity of care, we are told, points us toward potentially vast savings. If we can figure out how to identify unnecessary C-sections for example—or tonsillectomies or hip replacements—we can dramatically reduce health-care spending.

But overlooked in all this talk about unnecessary procedures is the unnecessarily high cost of most procedures.

Why does hip replacement in the United States cost $4,000, while costing less than half that amount in Australia, hardly a medical backwater? Why does such an operation cost six times as much in the United States as it does in Canada?

The price of medical services is significantly higher in the United States than other parts of the world. Primary care physicians in the United States make $186,000 per year on average versus $131,000 in Germany. Orthopedic surgeon pay ranges from a high of $442,000 in the United States, to $324,000 in the UK, to a relatively parsimonious $187,000 per year in Australia, that according to analysis by the United Health Group Foundation.

I realize that questioning physician income will raise the ire of many physicians. As a primary care physician myself, I have long felt that we non-proceduralists are underpaid, in comparison to our sub-specialty peers. And no doubt, buried in the average primary care income of $186,000 per year in the U.S. are way too many hard working general pediatricians making closer to $80,000 per year. But even highly paid doctors won’t like what I’m saying. I expect my orthopedic surgeon colleagues will recoil at the thought that they, with all their advanced training, aren’t worth what we pay them.

But the fact remains that U.S. health-care expenses are bankrupting our country. And there is no way to control these expenses without limiting physician pay.

[hedge]

"Primary care physicians in the United States make $186,000 per year"

Damn, at $9 an hour, those guys are working 20,000 hours a year. Right, BOJ? To make that kind of money, they have to work 54 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Tough gig...

[Johnette's Daddy]

"Primary care physicians in the United States make $186,000 per year"

Damn, at $9 an hour, those guys are working 20,000 hours a year. Right, BOJ? To make that kind of money, they have to work 54 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Tough gig...

Amazingly enough, the highest paid MDs aren't in NY or Cali, but in the North-Central region (Iowa/Missouri/Kansas/Nebraska). Why? Lack of competition.

http://www.medscape.com/features/slides ... 012/public

As in Medscape's 2011 survey, the highest-earning physicians practice in the North Central region, comprising Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and South and North Dakota; the mean income of physicians there is $234,000. The next-highest earners were doctors in the Great Lakes region ($228,000). Physicians in the Northeast earned the least, at a mean of $204,000.

"There's less competition among physicians in smaller communities and rural areas," says Bohannon. "There isn't that same downward pressure on reimbursement that you have in metropolitan areas. Generally, smaller communities have to pay more to attract physicians."

[sardis]

There are extreme differences between states in malpractice insurance premiums because of the difference in laws. Some states have a cap on liability and their premiums can be as much as 20 % of other states. I know a lot of physicians move to Texas because of this.

There is one profession that feels more entitled than doctors, and that is attorneys. Both are causes of our high med costs. I refuse to bring on a client that is an attorney or doctor. They are the biggest complainers of fees. They don't like the fact I charge as much as they do because I am in an inferior profession in their eyes.

[Big Orange Junky]

And this has what to do with the corruption of the Obama administration regulating 10 bucks to doctors but 900 million to him is OK? Big pharma doesn't send doctors to conferences, we have to pay for our conferences. Now gubment officials, that's a different story.

1 - MDs are THE most entitled group in America.
2 - If you're paying for your own conferences, you're either doing it wrong or you're not high up enough on the org. chart. MY B-I-L is in Dallas now at a medical director's conference. The pharma. company covered the entire trip PLUS gifted a plane ticket to my sister (who goes on all his sponsored trips, presumably to keep him from screwing the pharma babes).

It just shows where his true thoughts are, he doesn't care about the patients, he only cares about hurting physicians by more regulation, decreased autonomy, decreased revenue, decreased quality of life.

Bull - you just don't want to admit that many MDs prescribe based on what the pharma rep is pushing rather than what the FDA recommends. I've been at the pharmacy and heard pharmacists arguing with MDs about prescribing drugs for uses other than for what they were cleared (like Neurotonin), and I heard (along with 5 other people in line) an MD scream over the phone at the pharmacist "I don't care what the FDA says, I'm the doctor, not you, and I want my patient on XXX." After the call, we heard the pharmacist tell his colleague that the drug reps must be pushing that drug for other uses to increase sales.

I mean every doc I know just has an extra 6 hours per year to try and make sure this is accurate. That 6 hours couldn't help anybody.......oh wait in 6 hours I could see 6 or so more new patients who are suffering......nah it's clearly more important for me to try and oversee the info that is sent to the gubment on me...that's what I spent all that time and effort to do...so I could be the gubment informant and send in all your private health information to them as I am also required by obamacare to do. Yep, your diagnoses, your medicines, your weight and BMI all go to the gubment now. But don't worry, big brother loves you and just wants that info to go after the big bad insurance companies.

6 hours per year . . . if you work 48 weeks per year that comes out to 90 seconds per work day . . . when I go to the MD, it takes the receptionist 90 seconds to get off of her personal phone call or shut down her Angry Birds game before she can log me in and get my co-pay. I'm sure she can find the time to check a box on a form.

If they really wanted to help the uninsured they would allow physicians to deduct all the free care they give per year, oh yeah that would make it easier for physicians to give free care and might make people less likely to want gubment run healthcare, can't do anything that would acutally help uninsured or poor people.

This I agree with - but it would have to be tracked, lest you deduct the time you spend at PNN giving out free medical advice.

You don't know what you are talking about those things happened in the past but not now. Doctors have to pay for their conferences. Administration and doctor are not the same and yes physicians, myself included prescribe off lable indications all the time. It's called medicine and really it doesn't matter what the FDA says if the drug works it works that's what you don't understand. There are tons and tons of drugs that are used off label due to the fact that after the drug was out for a while we found out it worked better for something else than what it was approved for. Not a big deal and yes he is the doctor, not the pharmacist. Many times the doc is much more up to date on newer indcations that have been shown in research, sometimes the pharmacist does that just depends on the individual arguement at the time.

As for me being high enough on the food chain, yes I most certianly am high enough, but pharma doesn't pay for conferences. I have to pay for it myself just like the rest of the docs do. Sometimes we get a break on tuition for the course but we have to pay for the trip, the stay, and the tuition. If you speak for them or do something in an official capacity then you can get a break on tuition, sometimes even get the trip paid for, but in general just as a physician not working for them no. I think they can send you to learn how to use one of their devices as well, but that's a company specific training program such as learning how to use a specific stapler etc. I bet even then it would be at the very least taxes at some obscene rate.

You are mistaking preference (Ford vs Chevy) for which advertising works, and changing what is prescribed even in spite of efficacy. There is evidence that people prescribe the APPROPRIATE drug that they think of first, but there is no evidence that they prescribe a drug that isn't indicated or that is detrimental because of advertising/reps. Huge difference.

And physician compensation is LESS THAN 10% of healthcare spending. You could cut it down to zero and it wouldn't help much at all with healthcare spending that is just another lie propagated by the left.

Again I am sayig they are worried about a doctor getting an ink pen (anything 10 bucks or more) while they accept cold hard cash, straight cash every day as a bribe for their vote. That's the hypocricy.

[Big Orange Junky]

"Primary care physicians in the United States make $186,000 per year"

Damn, at $9 an hour, those guys are working 20,000 hours a year. Right, BOJ? To make that kind of money, they have to work 54 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Tough gig...

Hedge, my intern year, 2006 I worked 4000 hours and made 9.95 per hour. It's documented fact. So did almost every other intern (first year MD or DO) in the US. Very little difference in salary and many made less as lots of programs don't follow the 80 hour per week limit.

By the time I finished I was up around 12 or 13 per hour but that's what I made per hour for the first 5 years I was a doctor, and that's the same for every other doctor in the US for their first 3-10 years depending on which specialty they go into.

I worked 4000 hours per year for the first 5 years as a doctor, now I work more hours than that.

[Johnette's Daddy]

You don't know what you are talking about those things happened in the past but not now.

I don't know where you live or what you practice, but it very much happens out here. My BIL is an MD, my best friend works for Glaxo and my SIL works for Pfizer after working for Baxter.

Administration and doctor are not the same and yes physicians, myself included prescribe off lable indications all the time. It's called medicine and really it doesn't matter what the FDA says if the drug works it works that's what you don't understand. There are tons and tons of drugs that are used off label due to the fact that after the drug was out for a while we found out it worked better for something else than what it was approved for. Not a big deal and yes he is the doctor, not the pharmacist. Many times the doc is much more up to date on newer indcations that have been shown in research, sometimes the pharmacist does that just depends on the individual arguement at the time.

And how do you know it works off label? Because the cutie from Big Pharm with the nice rack and tight butt tells you so.

[hedge]

That's still not the 20,000 hours it would take you to make the average. Clearly you're not working enough. You must not want it badly enough. Slacker...

[hedge]

I'm still LMAO at BOJ's lifelong pursuit of trying to convince us that the medical field is a path towards poverty for all who choose it. That is seriously his position...

[Big Orange Junky]

You don't know what you are talking about those things happened in the past but not now.

I don't know where you live or what you practice, but it very much happens out here. My BIL is an MD, my best friend works for Glaxo and my SIL works for Pfizer after working for Baxter.

Administration and doctor are not the same and yes physicians, myself included prescribe off lable indications all the time. It's called medicine and really it doesn't matter what the FDA says if the drug works it works that's what you don't understand. There are tons and tons of drugs that are used off label due to the fact that after the drug was out for a while we found out it worked better for something else than what it was approved for. Not a big deal and yes he is the doctor, not the pharmacist. Many times the doc is much more up to date on newer indcations that have been shown in research, sometimes the pharmacist does that just depends on the individual arguement at the time.

And how do you know it works off label? Because the cutie from Big Pharm with the nice rack and tight butt tells you so.

Um no it's called medicine and it's part of the reason we take pharmacology in med school so we can use drugs to better benifit our patients regardless of what it happened to be approved for. It is very common practice to prescribe off label. Welbutrin for smoking? Ever hear of that? How about Doxycycline for Acne? Here's one liberals love, Methotrexate for abortion and BCP for acne, or how about Erythromycin for nausea, On and on and on and on. Happens every single day. Some of them eventually get indications on the label such as doxycycline but it started out off label and good doctors noticed that it helped their patients with other things and started using it and it became standard and accepted practice. Some of them have studies performed but they eventualy make their way into common practice one way or the other and they may or may not ever get that indication on their label.

[Big Orange Junky]

I'm still LMAO at BOJ's lifelong pursuit of trying to convince us that the medical field is a path towards poverty for all who choose it. That is seriously his position...

No, you missed how it started. It started out with some liberal that didn't know any better claiming something about the "average rich doctor". I then mentioned that the "average" doctor didn't make as much PER HOUR as a UAW worker and that doctors didn't make as much as people thought they did. The study I provided included the benifits in the hourly wage for the UAW worker because doctors have to pay for thier own insurance and things and the average UAW worker did indeed make more per hour than the AVERAGE doctor (that was another thing, they were quoting specilist pay when the average doctor is a FP/Internist who make much less).

It escalated from there when I said something along the lines of some doctors made the least amount of money per hour than anyone in the hospital (because I knew I made 9.95 per hour and even the janitors at our facility made more than that). Well the knee jerk and WRONG response was there was no way that was true.

I then posted my work schedule and the offical salary for residents at our institution which proved 100% that indeed my intern year I made 9.95 per hour my first year as a doctor and that indeed MD's were paid the least of anyone in the hospital per hour.

It's kind of like hacks ass, it stuck around.

Mainly because I love the reaction it gets from the liberals LMBO.

During Owl Man's time residents made less than minimum wage, in the 80's they made like 1.50 to 2 bucks per hour when min wage was like 3.50.

People never talk about that though, doesn't fit well with the envy agenda.

[Professor Tiger]

1. Was there a big global warming conference in the northeast this weekend? This kind of weather usually happens during that kind of meeting.

2. Al Gore, who despises oil, just sold his tv network to a media company owned by one of the world's largest producers of oil.

3. Obama's DOJ says he can kill American citizens with hellfires launched from drones, but we can't pour water in their face or tap their phone calls without a warrant.

4. Two Torrance CA cops just just shot an elderly Asian woman and her daughter because they were driving a car similar to the one driven by that fugitive ex-cop black male.

It's getting weird out there.

[Johnette's Daddy]

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-575 ... o-warning/

Christopher Dorner manhunt: Two innocent women shot by LAPD officers had "no warning"

Three HUGE problems:

1 - the cops were awful shots
2 - the truck the ladies were in was a different make/model/color/year and had different plates than Dorner's
3 - apparently the cops just opened fire on the women without issuing a warning.

No one died, so if the older woman wasn't crippled in the shooting, the City of L.A. ought to get out of this for less than ten million dollars. Good job, guys.

[10ac]

it seems to me that those who feed on the misery of others (lawyers, doctors, funeral directors), seem to make the most money. I guess I can now add CPAs to that list.

[Big Orange Junky]

it seems to me that those who feed on the misery of others (lawyers, doctors, funeral directors), seem to make the most money. I guess I can now add CPAs to that list.

heh

[Big Orange Junky]

1. Was there a big global warming conference in the northeast this weekend? This kind of weather usually happens during that kind of meeting.

2. Al Gore, who despises oil, just sold his tv network to a media company owned by one of the world's largest producers of oil.

3. Obama's DOJ says he can kill American citizens with hellfires launched from drones, but we can't pour water in their face or tap their phone calls without a warrant.

4. Two Torrance CA cops just just shot an elderly Asian woman and her daughter because they were driving a car similar to the one driven by that fugitive ex-cop black male.

It's getting weird out there.

The most sad thing about that Al Gore thing is the media and other liberals are more upset that he sold to a country that is oil producing than they are that he sold it to people that support and provide propaganda for the terrorists.