NEJM Perspective Examines Sales Of Physicians' Prescribing Data

"For Sale: Physicians' Prescribing Data," New England Journal of Medicine: In a perspective piece for NEJM, Robert Steinbrook, a doctor and NEJM correspondent, discusses how physicians' prescribing data are sold to pharmaceutical manufacturers and examines several issues surrounding the practice. According to Steinbrook, the American Medical Association's "best practice guidelines" include warnings that the pharmaceutical industry should keep prescribing data confidential and that sales representatives should not use a physicians' prescribing data to pressure them into prescribing a certain drug. However, the practice continues despite the warnings, and physicians increasingly are growing concerned, Steinbrook writes. He notes that AMA recently implemented a Prescribing Data Restriction Program that allows physicians to deny sales representative access to their prescribing data, and some states are considering enacting legislation banning the use and sale for most commercial purposes of prescribing data that identifies the prescriber. Steinbrook concludes that many physicians still are unaware they can restrict access to their prescribing data, and programs allowing physicians to compare their data to that of other physicians -- along with educational materials -- are not currently available, so the controversy "is likely to remain uncertain for at least several years" (Steinbrook, NEJM, 6/29).

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