In 2015 the government permitted what is called “Open Database” to be public without any limits for 2014 and now 2013 is also visible. One was able to search for specific doctors to see how much money they have accepted and for what services and from which pharmaceutical companies – of course in addition to their annual salaries. Searching this way, the most outrageous doctor we so far found was one who cashed in a whopping $300,000 dollars over his salary. At that time I thought “wow what a big fish in the net!”

Wrong!

There are bigger fishes by several magnitudes only last year’s search method was hard to do see since you had to search per doctor. Now the government changed all that.

First, it made it more difficult since now you have to sign in by creating an account. No problem; it takes a minute and they have your name and email in exchange. No problem with that–small price to pay.

Next they now have separate data-sets to look at. Online search yielded some amazing enough results that I felt the urge to download all tables. This is only visible to you once you log in. I saved all data in excel on my computer and here is one sample for you. Click on it to see the full size so you can read it and pay particular attention to the red column and the orange one!

Physician payoffs from Pharmaceuticals-2014

Here is a screen capture of my a little part of the excel sheet (I hid many of the unimportant columns to be able to show you the columns of importance). I highlighted certain columns. The amount accepted is red and in bold. Theses amount are all from 2014–note these are millions of dollars. Note also that over 99% of the doctors who accepted money are by Allopathic and Osteopathic doctors and not by MDs. There are MDs as well of course and many accepted in hundreds of thousands dollars but it appears that this group (General Payment Data – Detailed Dataset 2014 Reporting Year) mostly contains Allopathic and Osteopathic doctors, a few dentists and some others. Even PAs (Physician Assistants) are paid off by Pharmaceuticals to make sure they will use all services and medicines the particular pharmaceutical company provides.

Some of this money is used to offset the costs of insurance non-covered medicine to be sure that although alternate medicines exist, the doctor will still prescribe the brand not covered!

How is this sitting with your healthcare?

If I may recommend one thing let it be this:

Before you visit your doctor next time, do yourself a favor and run this search! See if your medical provider is selling you out for a bribe of money like a crook! Because what I see are bribes!

What happened to the oath of Do No Harm?

Good question! No idea!

Your best bet is to put your healthcare into your self-education as is done by hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of others! Do your research on each of your doctors; do your research on the possible causes of your problem before you visit a doctor as well! Do your research on the medicines you receive and most importantly, check in any online drug interaction checker (my favorite). Add all medicines AND vitamins AND supplements AND herbs you are taking and hit “check for interactions” and then faint.

Chances are you will have several major to moderate interactions, at which point print that result out and head back to your doctor and demand a change!

Hope you find this short article of my utmost disgust useful and that you will put its wisdom to good use!

Comments are welcome as always!

Angela