Today’s Managing Health Care Costs Indicator is 3.99 billion
Physicians wrote 3.99 billion prescriptions in 2010 , a rich database that can be used to increase the value of the health care system, or to market increased use of high margin medications.
I don’t have a lot to say about the constitutional issues posed by this legislation, but I’ve been thinking about the practical implications. When I was in full-time clinical practice, I was always surprised that the drug representatives who visited our practice knew which drugs I used and which I didn’t. Frankly, I didn’t much like it. However, I certainly learned that my prescription practices were being watched.
The pharmaceutical companies use this data to focus on which physicians are more likely to be persuaded to prescribe the drugs that they were targeting –which were often high-priced high-margin brand name medications. The legislators in northern New England saw a powerful public policy reason to restrict use of this data. They saw physicians prescribing unnecessarily expensive medicines, impoverishing patients, raising the cost of health insurance, and increasing the cost of state Medicaid programs. Further, they also explicitly allowed use of this data for purposes felt to be socially beneficial, such as research or quality reporting.
The pharmas, the data aggregators, and the American Medical Association have lined up in opposition to these state efforts to restrict data mining. The AMA is concerned that physicians might be inappropriately profiled, and also incidentally makes more money from licensing physician lists than it does from member dues each year.
I hope that the Supreme Court does not uphold the states’ rights to restrict the use of this data . I think there is a good public policy reason to let the pharmas use this data – even while knowing that their intent is to increase profits, which will drive up the cost of health care.
I fear that if the pharmas are not allowed to use this data in a way that they find commercially viable, it’s highly likely this data will not end up being developed. It’s fine in theory to restrict the use of this data to “socially valuable” purposes like research, physician quality profiles, and counter-detailing. But there are large costs involved in sorting through this data, and lack of an “anchor customer” to underwrite the cost makes it more likely that this data will never see the light of day.
Transparency can help decrease variation, and can be used to develop profiles in which physicians are most cost-effective. I imagine a future where patients will be able to have robust information about the practice patterns and quality of their physicians. Open databases are more likely to lead to accountability and systematic improvement than databases subject to large restrictions on their use. I support the open availability of this data, even when it will be sometimes be used in ways that don’t make me happy.
