Can MDs Dispense....And Should They?

What do you think and if they can, do you think they should...?

My neighbor told me that every time she goes to her doctor (and he
writes her a prescription) he tells her to get it filled at the
pharmacy in the building where his office is located. There are several
other doctors in the same building who, I am told, also tell their
patients to fill the prescription in the building. pharmacy.

I suggested that she ask him the next time: "Doctor, do you have any
financial connection with the pharmacy?" She is a timid soul and thinks
she would offend him and would never question him about his scripts.

I am told that such a practice is against the law in some states.

Anyone know anything about this practice? It seems to be a dishonest
and especially greedy thing to do. (And dangerous). Why not write
prescriptions that are not really needed just to gain another buck from
the drugstore?

Consider one simple calculation. In 2000, according to the Kaiser
Family Foundation, Americans paid for 45 million prescriptions of the
anti-inflammatory drugs Celebrex and Vioxx, even though nearly all
patients could be treated just as well with over-the-counter ibuprofen.
The Celebrex and Vioxx cost $3.7 billion, whereas 45 million bottles of
ibuprofen at $3.99 a shot would have cost $180 million. In other words,
dumb prescriptions for just two drugs cost the economy more than $3
billion.

The industry is already corrupt enough.

The Enron factor in health care explains why costs are going through
the roof, with nasty consequences for everybody. Insurance premiums are
shooting up; firms will respond by holding down wages or cutting
insurance coverage in order to stay even; the ranks of the uninsured
will swell beyond their already shameful numbers. Containing this
problem will take a national campaign, and happily the first signs of
one are visible. A new coalition of businesses and state governments is
pushing the cause of cheap generic drugs, and the American Association
of Retired Persons has thrown its considerable weight behind this
effort. Without reform, the health care system is "like Venice, sinking
into the sea," says William Novelli, the AARP's boss. Last week,
perhaps sensing the coming groundswell of outrage, the drug industry
cooked up a voluntary code that may perhaps temper the worst of its
marketing abuses.

Washington Post
By Sebastian Mallaby

SEE Gangsters in Medicine

Gangsters In Medicine By Thomas Smith Valley@healingmatters.com ... For
a time, these changes actually improved the practice of medicine in the
United ...
http://www.rense.com/general33/gang.htm

"The person most likely to kill you is not a relative or a friend, or a
mugger or a burglar or a drunken driver. The person most likely to kill
you is your doctor. This book will show you how to look after yourself
and to protect yourself from this serious threat to your life and good
health."

HOW TO STOP YOUR DOCTOR KILLING YOU
The person most likely to kill you is your doctor.' ... In this brand
new edition of How To Stop Your Doctor Killing You, you'll discover
many truths about ...
http://www.vernoncoleman.com/htsydky.htm
-----------------------

Raymond wrote:
Yeah, there should be a law against it as it is EXTREMELY unethical.
The situation is identical to the law I remember reading about that
prohibited doctors from referring tests to labs they had a financial
interest in or anyone they had a financial interest with personally
had a financial interest in the lab. It's amazing there needs to be
a law against something so obviously unethical. You need to
publicize this in your community, write your representatives and
immediately inform the local papers that you contacted Sen. Buttfuck's
office and are waiting to hear what he planst to do about it. Find
out the names of who owns the shares of the pharmacy and include them
in a letter to the editor. What state are you in anyway?

It may also be against current ethical codes within the medical community.

C//

"Raymond" <Bluerhymer@aol.com> wrote:
End

George Lagergren wrote:

At 'Patient First' they do and the prescription price was actually less
then what the Wal-Mart Pharmacy was charging.

"Courageous" <courageous@procusion.com> wrote...
From what I hear about U.S. doctors, I've come to the conclusion
that they are nothing but prescription mills who write scrips
for anything you ask, and if you don't ask write scrips for the
drugs they get kickbacks from the drug companies for prescribing.

While on the bipolar newsgroup a few years ago, I heard horror
stories about people who had been on other drugs with no problems
then were suddenly prescribed the newest drug for that condition
with no real explanation from the doctor (the doctor couldn't
know it was better because it just came on the market). Zyprexa
and Paxil come to mind as examples, and one guy's evil HMO put
him on Paxil, within a few weeks it made him start going psychotic,
he actually told the doctor it was causing him to have fantasies
about killing him, and the doctor just smiled and doubled his dose
of Paxil. Other people reported having Paxil crammed down their
throats by doctors for conditions practically including stubbed
toes, not just clinical depression. And lots of Rispderal and
Seroquel users were forcibly switched to Zyprexa the second it hit
the market, now many suffer from diabetes related to the damage
Zyprexa did to their pancreas gland.

So it is not only unethical for a doctor to own the pharmacy
dispensing the drugs he prescribes, it is also unethical to
accept bribes (oooh, excuuuse me, "marketing incentives") in
exchange for prescribing a drug that might not be in the
patient's best interests.

George Lagergren wrote:


It's scary to think that Harris can actually prescribe toxins to
people.

chronic hydroponic wrote:

Western medicine is no longer about healing people, but about keeping
them well enough to earn a living but sick enough to keep needing drugs.

Get people well and they won't need to spent money on health care.

If a new drug makes someone diabetic, that's not a problem to the
doctor and drug industry, now they get to sell that person a lifetime
supply if insulin too!

banmilk@hotmail.com wrote:
Yes, legally prescribed legally used prescription drugs kill over
200,000 people a year in USA.

Alternative such as nutritional supplements kill about 6.

Which is toxic?

"Quasin" <liz_brown67@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:42D57576.9010809@yahoo.com...
Prescription drugs are toxic. Nutritional supplements don't cure anything
and are useless. Avoid drugs used to treat disease and use supplements and
count the dead.
It is a idiotic statement that say alternative nutritional supplements kill
6.

"Robert" <Robertitsme@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:zoSdneaZkpCM5kjfRVn-qQ@got.net...
http://1stholistic.com/Nutrition/hol...on-dosages.htm



Avoid drugs used to treat disease and use supplements and

banmilk@hotmail.com wrote:

COMMENT:

Harris understands that it's the dose that makes the toxin. People who
can't get even THAT far in understanding, such as yourself, can't be
trusted with anything that doesn't come with a nipple on it. Just as
well. You can be expected to wail and cry and blubber, even then.
"Mommy fed me milk! I'm crying! I'm dying! Waaaaaah."

What you really need, Cohen, is a pacifier. You were weened too soon.
Most of the time you seem to have one thumb in your mouth, and the
other up your rear. When we hear the fussing from your direction, we
know you're trading thumbs.

SBH

Mr-Natural-Health wrote:
COMMENT:

Nevertheless, although it's legal, it's an extremely bad idea.

SBH

"....it is also unethical to
accept bribes (oooh, excuuuse me, "marketing incentives") in
exchange for prescribing a drug that might not be in the
patient's best interests."

Here's a must-read article for anyone interested in learning how the
pharmaceutical industry really operates. It's a case of aggressive
marketing gone bad, with a mixture of corrupt physicians, underhanded
payola and a near-total disregard for patient health. And yet it's
business as usual in the pharmaceutical industry: drug maker
Schering-Plough, one of the largest drug companies in the world, has
been outright bribing physicians to prescribe drugs and operate sham
clinical trials.

Massive medical fraud exposed: pharmaceutical company paid doctors to
prescribe drugs and run sham clinical trials:

Thousands of doctors participated in this criminal scam, collecting
untold sums of money in exchange for hyping Schering-Plough's
pharmaceuticals to patients. (Medical ethics, anyone?)

Doctors were paid even more money to conduct fraudulent clinical trials
that would require patients to take the drugs for twelve months at a
time, which of course rang up even more drug profits for the
manufacturer and resulted in more kickbacks to the doctors. That's
right: they're literally playing doctor with your life while pocketing
the drug money

More?
SEE:
http://www.newstarget.com/001298.html

If all this sounds outrageous, think again: this is precisely the kind
of criminal activity that now typifies the pharmaceutical industry and
organized medicine in general. These companies will do anything to make
a buck, including outright bribing doctors with lavish meals, free
gifts and even trips to Hawaii and other exotic destinations, all under
the guise of "continuing medical education" (CME) courses. It's all a
scam, and the vast majority of physicians just go right along with it,
pocketing the benefits and dosing up their patients with whatever drug
they've been told to prescribe.

Also:
Fraud In Medicare
Defrauding Medicare And Medicaid With Ease

One estimate states that fraud and abuse cost Medicare and Medicaid
about $33 billion each year. Worse, it's ridiculously easy to cheat the
federal government and taxpayers out of millions of Medicare and
Medicaid dollars, according to three convicted felons appearing
yesterday before a Senate panel.

http://www.ncpa.org/~ncpa/health/pdh5.html

Medicaid Fraud In Florida
Ripping off the $6.7 billion Medicaid program in Florida is far too
easy, reports a grand jury there after an eight-month investigation of
the federal-state health program for the poor.

The statewide grand jury indicted six doctors and 44 others on criminal
fraud charges.

Insurance Fraud and Abuse:
A Very Serious Problem
Stephen Barrett, M.D.

Some physicians charge insured patients more than uninsured ones but
represent to the insurance companies that the higher fee is the usual
one. This practice is illegal. HA HA.

Fraud and abuse are widespread and very costly to America's health-care
system. Fraud involves intentional deception or misrepresentation
intended to result in an unauthorized benefit. An example would be
billing for services that are NOT rendered. Abuse involves charging for
services that are NOT medically necessary, do not conform to
professionally recognized standards, or are UNFAIRLY priced. An example
would be performing a laboratory test on large numbers of patients when
only a few should have it. Abuse may be similar to fraud except that it
is not possible to establish that the abusive acts were done with an
intent to deceive the insurer.

http://www.quackwatch.org/02Consumer.../insfraud.html

Why aren't the politicians trying to create a heath-care system in
which:

Low-cost health insurance is available to virtually everyone --
including people with existing medical problems;

Doctors have the time to understand your problems and know you
personally -- and even make house calls;

A hospital stay costs only a few days' pay, rather than many months of
your income;

Charity hospitals are available to take care of families that can't
afford the low-cost hospitals; and

Free clinics take care of the everyday medical problems of people too
poor to afford regular doctors.

If Members of Congress want to find ways to improve health care for all
Americans, they should examine the many roadblocks to quality care that
Medicare imposes on those who provide health care to senior citizens
and disabled Americans.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/BG1295.cfm

I think I just made myself sick thinking
about all of this.

"Hello Doctor, when can I see you. I'm sick.
Yes, of course I have insurance."

Raymond

Sbharris[atsign]ix.netcom.com wrote:


Settle down and prescribe yourself a pill Herr Doktor.

All those pills are made of toxins.

<banmilk@hotmail.com> wrote...
"And exactly what do those toxins look like?"
-- South Park (Cherokee Hair Tampons)

"chronic hydroponic" <chronic@hydroponic.sinsemilla.com> wrote in message
news:NwkBe.10005$aY6.2844@newsread1.news.atl.earth link.net...

banmilk@hotmail.com wrote:


COMMENT:

"Herr Doktor?" Ooooh, like now I'm the Nazi and you're the persecuted,
eh?

Maybe a nice shrink can TALK you out of your paranoia, Cohen. But I
doubt it. Some meshugana is forever.

SBH