US physician acquiescence to patient demands for brand-name drugs, slammed in JAMA article

Prescribing brand-name drugs when generic drugs are available generates unnecessary medical expenditures for the USA, the costs of which are borne by the public in the form of higher co-payments, increased health insurance costs, and higher Medicare and Medicaid expenses, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Pharmaceutical companies aim to stimulate patients' requests for brand-name medications and increase the likelihood physicians will honor such requests. Presently, little is known about how frequently physicians comply with such a request or the factors predicting this behavior.

The data come from a national survey of 3,500 randomly sampled physicians in seven specialties. Additional information on the sampling, survey administration, and analyses for this study are described at length in several other published articles. Of the 3,500 physicians in the original sample, 2,938 were eligible for the survey (others were ineligible because they were on leave, not actively practicing, practicing in a non-sampled specialty, out of the country, or deceased). Of the remaining eligible physicians, 1,891 participated in the survey, representing a 64% overall response rate.