rebates for doctors precribing Neulasta, etc.

[fauxgypsy]

http://members.forbes.com/forbes/2006/1030/126.html

I don't know if this particular article has been posted here or not. I went through months of chemo without ever having been given Neulasta. My counts dropped but I did fine. I am on Medicaid. My thought here is for you to question the doctors. If you have good insurance, I have to wonder if you get it even if you don't need it. Other women on the same regimen were given Neulasta from the beginning, before their counts dropped. If the doctor benefits substantially from giving you a particular medicine, isn't that a conflict of interest?

You ( or your insurance company):

are billed for your doctor's visit
are billed for the chemotherapy

and then the doctors make a huge profit and get rebates from the pharmaceutical companies. I have no problem with doctors having a high standard of living, and I know that many of them are caring and committed but I am not comfortable that my standard of care is so influenced by the contributions of pharmaceutical companies.

Leslie

[dhealey]

I was one of those who recieved the neulasta and the anarsap. Neither drug really helped my counts. My white count was always down to .6 until the day before chemo then it would only rise to 3. Same with the hgb it would get down to 6 even with the injection. Now I wonder what the point of getting these meds since they didn't really help and now the anarsap is getting such a bad rap. I believe the cancer center got a kick back from the drug company. The neulasta was $6,000 per shot and the anarsap was $3,000 per shot, my insurance would pay half of each. Somebody had to be making money on this somewhere.