Study Links Drug Maker Payments to Docs with Prescribing Patterns

A new report shows that doctors who received money from drug companies prescribed a higher percentage of brand-name medications to their Medicare patients. And while the report, published last week by nonprofit news organization ProPublica, might evoke images of pharmaceutical sales representatives lavishly wining and dining physicians, some say the analysis oversimplifies matters and there are legitimate reasons for drug companies to pay doctors. ProPublica matched data on payments from pharmaceutical and medical device makers in 2014 with doctors’ prescribing behavior in Medicare&rsq...