Should Docs’ Prescribing Habits Be for Sale?


Published On: December 12th, 2009

PillSelling information about which doctors prescribe which drugs is big business; IMS Health, one of the big players in the field, just got bought for $4 billion. But a proposed amendment to the Senate health-care bill could take a big bite out of the market.

The amendment, backed by Democratic Sens. Herb Kohl and Dick Durbin, would ban the sale of doctors’ prescribing records “for marketing purposes,” the Associated Press reports. (We’d link straight to the amendment, but it doesn’t look like it’s online yet.)

Companies like IMS buy the information from pharmacies, crunch it, and sell it to drug companies, which use it to guide the way they market drugs to individual doctors (the records identify doctors but not patients). Doctors can choose to have their data remain private.

The senators say the amendment would combat “harassing sales practices” and “restrain undue influence” of drug sales reps, according to the AP.

A few states have passed laws restricting the sale of prescription data; IMS and others in the business have sued, arguing that the laws violate the First Amendment. Court rulings have been mixed; a federal appeals court upheld New Hampshire’s prescription data-mining law, and the Supreme Court refused to hear the case.

Health Blog Question of the Day: Is it appropriate for the government to limit the sale of information about doctors’ prescribing habits?

Image: iStockphoto

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Should Docs’ Prescribing Habits Be for Sale?

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