The groundbreaking legal spat pitting Vermont against drug makers and data providers is being argued in a federal court in New York and, so far, the toughest questions have been directed at Vermont's Assistant Attorney General, according toThe Pink Sheet's Brenda Sandburg.
You may recall that Vermont passed a law restricting the sale of prescription drug info that identifies prescribers and patients for commercial marketing purposes. The effort is being challenged by IMS Health, Wolters Kluwer Health and SDI, with support from PhRMA, which contend the law hurts public access to healthcare info (back story).
During oral arguments, a lawyer for IMS contended that Vermont's law is an "attempt to correct the balance of ideas" and "to shape the message of pharmaceutical companies."
Vermont's Bridget Asay was later asked by the judges if the state considered less restrictive measures, if there was precedent for regulating the flow of info to accomplish a goal and if the desire to level the marketplace of ideas is a constitutional basis for legislation, The Pink Sheet writes.
Judge John Koeltl wanted to know whether one purpose of the law is to level the playing field of ideas. If marketing has been overwhelmingly one-sided and that drives up medical costs "is that a constitutional basis for legislation?" he asked. "How can it be even-handed if the purpose of the legislation is to level the marketplace of ideas?"
Asay said the legislation is even-handed because it restricted use of data as a marketing tool by all drug makers. Asked if Vermont considered alternatives, such as counter-detailing, Asay said: "The test is not whether Vermont considered less restrictions but whether this particular marketing tool has influence on prescribing. The alternatives suggested don't get at that problem of undue influence on prescribers."
You can read more about the stated arguments in The Pink Sheet Daily (which requires a subscription. And full disclosure, Ed Silverman is an editor at The Pink Sheet).
5 Comments
Actually the use of Rx data by pharma essentially turns into a qui pro quo scenario. Marketing departments and sales reps armed with this data, disproportionately spend money (lunchs, snacks, breakfasts, etc) and give free samples to high volume MDs, often dropping lower volume MDs from their selling efforts.
Sounds good except, if the knowledge that pharma thinks is so valuable for better patient care is not getting to a large percentage of low volume writers, what about their patients?
By selectively giving most resources to high volume MDs, you are giving in order to get something in return, not something pharma is willing to do with low volume MDs.
Call it what you like, but it stinks. All rx data should be restricted from pharma.
Doc, there may be legitimate reasons to restrict the use of Rx data (although I don't buy them), but I'm not sure you've captured one. Any analogy to what you are saying would be to force doctors not to ask in advance what is wrong with patient so that they can schedule the proper amount of time for the appointment. Then every patient would get the same amount of time, no matter how serious or not the ailment is. That's a waste of resources and inefficient. By concentrating on high volume physician, all pharma is doing is optimizing resources.
Ok.. Now I get why your employer will let you focus on Pharma-not-alot... this is going to be a subtle advertising vehicle for the PinkSh1t. I think you should just focus on the pinkie... it's not quite what it used to be.
Atlex, No it is more like a doctor reviewing his patient records, finding those that generate few income dollars for him and not seeing them any longer, only seeing those that come to him frequently and can be billed for extended vists and expensive procedures. The others can go see someone else.
Or, like doctors who no longer take Medicare or Medicaid patients because the reimbursement (ie, sales) return makes them fiscally unviable.