Who do patients trust with their healthcare choices ?

Nov/14/2007 05:35 Filed in: DTC Environment
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Amgen is pouring millions of dollars into a lobbying campaign to get Congress to change a Medicare rule that dealt a big blow to the company's lucrative anemia drugs. Amgen's argument: Federal guidelines limiting payments for anemia-fighting drugs could hurt cancer patients. So who knows better the FDA, pharma or physicians?



Off label use of prescription medications has been going on for quite a while. As I reported many times on this social media platform physicians are the primary drivers of off label use. Pharma cannot promote off label use although I am sure there are a lot of times when they are aware of what is going on and tend to turn their heads the other way to make the numbers. But rather than trush physicians judgement federal guidelines are trying to dictate how physicians use drugs by removing payment support for these medications. Lost in all this is the patient. Who is looking out for the patients needs and do patients trust the federal government to dictate what drugs should be administered and at what doses?


DTC advertising and the Internet have done much to make consumers more enpowered when it comes to their health care choices. This evolutionary approach is one in which the patient trusts the health care proffessional but also makes informed and educated choices along with their physician. Now imagine a scenario in which your choices are limited not because of what your physician believes but because of "federal guidelines". Talk about being pissed off !


Physicians who are against DTC do not understand the benefits of a more educated consumer or are afraid of being challenged by patients. Health insurers now want patients to score physicians and those with low grades will not get top dollar and maybe dropped from the network. Welcome to the new age of consumer enpowerment. After the last 5-7 years of government missteps do you think that patients trust the federal government more than their own doctors?


Amgen has the right to lobby Congress to try and get these guidelines changed and Congress should listen not because of the lobbying dollars but because it's in the patients best interests to let their doctors do what they do best and that should be between physicians and patients without anyone else interfering.
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