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Doctors Paid to Prescribe Generic Drugs

Health insurers have provided doctors with financial incentives to prescribe generic medications, according to an article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal:

Health plans are drawing scrutiny for offering financial incentives to entice doctors to prescribe cheaper generic medicines, including paying doctors $100 each time they switch a patient from a brand-name drug.

Pharmaceutical companies have long gone to great lengths to try to get doctors to prescribe their brand-name pills. They spend billions of dollars, plying physicians with samples, educational lunches and speaker fees. But as the patents for a growing number of blockbuster medicines expire, some health insurers are trying to trump those perks with bonuses or higher reimbursements for writing more generic prescriptions.

The idea, health plans say, is to save everyone — patients, employers and insurers — money. And many doctors argue that it’s only right to reimburse them for spending time evaluating whether a cheaper generic alternative is better or as good for a patient.

Thanks to Dr. Christina Peterson of Migraine Survival for the heads up.