Question:
Explain how a doctor makes more money by prescribing meds that he makes no
money from rather than charging the patient for therapy?
Answer:
A GP does not do therapy, however the drug firms track every prescription
which doctors write, that actually are filled by a patient. There are non
monetary rewards for desired behavior, like cruises, free lunch for the
office, and flights to resorts for educational seminars. An enhanced reward
is received for physician behavior compliant with corporate goals. It's the drug company that makes the big bucks. Research is very expensive,
almost as expensive as promotion! Once the research is done the actual
production of drugs is quite cheep. $150-200 a month is not an unusual
price for modern anti depressants, so even if the price doubles at the
pharmacy from wholesale, and the jobber takes 20% the pharmaceutical
manufacturer gets $60-80 a month. Drugs, mass marketed mass produced drugs
sold to a very wide market are very inexpensive to make, a few cents each
pill/tablet. For an example look at how the price for Prozac has gone down
since the patent expired. That's why there will soon be statistics from
some study which show that 75% of the population is depressed, LOL!
