Traveling Medicine Show

Have you ever been in an office surrounded by people who appear like they just arrived from an inbound flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport? They are young, very well-dressed people toting roll-around carry-on type bags.

There usually is a cell phone glued to one ear with a pen and pad attached firmly to the other appendage. Reality – you are not in an airport. Rather, you are in your physician’s office.

These people are the hip upwardly mobile drug pushers of today. In a recent visit to my urologist’s office, there were four patients and three drug representatives (hereby known as drug reps). The doctor was an hour late, and all four patients claimed the same 9 a.m. appointment. We all had our flow checked and filled the required specimen cups, while the drug reps passed out donuts and chocolate to the staff.

On another occasion, I was one of two patients in my personal doctor’s office, while there were four drug reps waiting. What was amazing regarding this occurrence is the doctor chose to see two of the reps before the patients.

These drug reps push their wares utilizing a multitude of gimmicks, including pens, calendars, wall posters, pads of sticky notes and the biggest prize of all, “The Free Lunch” for physicians and staff members. The only benefit to the average patient is the free sample drugs which are left for trial purposes (saves some people hundreds of dollars).

The price of these over prescribed medicines is astronomic. Research proved that a 30-day supply of the drug Lipitor priced out at $203 - assuming you only take one pill per day. Some of these “wonder” drugs will cost you upwards of $400-$600 for a 90-day supply (the recommended way to have your prescription filled). A majority of health plans only allow the purchase of 100 pills at a time. Therefore, if your prescription calls for three a day, you must travel back and provide the co-pay every four weeks.

Understanding research and development on new medicine is an extremely time consuming and costly process. There is something wrong with the system – allowing these representatives an open expense account for the purpose to wine and dine doctors to use their products.

Of course, this is only just one of a multitude of issues with our current health care nightmare. In the coming months, I will examine several facets of the problem.

”And up through the veins came a bubbling crude – blood pressure that is!”