On the heels of Tuesday’s post I came to realize that every time I write about anything to do with healthcare I find more stuff that makes me want to scream and throw a tantrum. Rather than doing that (it upsets my cats and neighbors) I thought I’d let the steam off here.

I’ll start with a Forbes article (mentioned Monday on Project Management 411) focusing on the effect of corporate salespeople on healthcare costs.

No surprise if you think of cause and effect—I sell you equipment and to justify the cost you push the service that it performs, which enables me to sell you a replacement version more quickly. Here’s the example Forbes gave.

“Radiologist David Gruen used to spend millions of dollars to replace his General Electric (it could just as well have been Siemens or Phillips) MRI and CT scanners every three years. It was money well spent because the machines were always busy…” but now he waits five years and the poor doctor had to take a 20% salary cut.

What happened?

“A year ago Medicare cut the price it pays for imaging, so Gruen gets paid 15% to 50% less for each order, depending on the type of scan. Health insurers got wise, too, and started imposing a 48-hour review on imaging orders. The doctor hired clerks to battle the HMOs, but his office volume was flat last year, down from 10% growth in prior years.“

Granted “Imaging accounts for only 5% of the $2 trillion in U.S. medical spending, but it has been the fastest-growing component of health care inflation in recent years, climbing 20% annually until last year,” but everybody wants one. Scanning businesses offer specials and run sales just as other consumer products do.

Of course, the drug companies are doing the same thing, “Today drugs are promoted in much the same way as other products. Drug companies devote forty percent of their advertising expenditures — over $4 billion per year — to DTC [direct-to-consumer] ads. The average American views as many as 16 hours of prescription drug ads per year…”

DTC ads are under Congressional review and has been framed as a free speech issue by the drug companies.

I understand that medical products and drugs are businesses and that as businesses they focus on profit in order to keep Wall Street happy—happy Wall Street = rising stock = happy investors—but at what cost to the future of this country?

Come back tomorrow for my take on the dirtiest little secret in medicine.

What are your views on DTC drug and medical procedure ads?

Your comments—priceless

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 6th, 2008 at 12:15 am and is filed under About Leadership, Ethics, Healthcare, Leading Factors, Politics, What Do You Think?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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