Want to find out if your doctor is getting money from drug companies? I started looking after a

[jberryhill]

7. I'll explain the food and beverage part

My doctor gets a free lunch just about every danged day.

The Pharma rep shows up, buys the office lunch, has a chat about this or that ailment, study or whatever, and leaves free samples.

Instead of chewing up patient time or personal time, it's a whole lot easier to buy lunch for the office while making a sales visit.

The thing is, one of them eventually did sell my doc on an in-house urinalysis unit, which has cut down on lab referrals and lowered costs. Since my doc can do the tests at a lower margin and still make a worthwhile return on the lease, it saves all of the patients time. Also, the huge freaking supply of free samples are enough for my doc to get an entire course of treatment for some stuff into the hands of patients who might not otherwise be able to buy it.

But, yeah, all of that stuff is available online now.