Quote:
Originally Posted by Simplicity
But the model has also changed. Outside of specialists, it's all about pumping pharmaceuticals. (...) free trips
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Specialists are just as much in this game is any other doctor. It is often easier for them to be targeted directly by pharmaceutical companies though, ie we are having a conference for all the specialists about the latest developments in the field you are treating. It happens to be occurring in some warm, sunny, beach resort in the middle of winter. Your costs are fully paid if you attend the timeshare style presentation on our latest drugs for this specific area. The costs for that five-start resort conference are then baked into the pharmaceutical company's budget as a "marketing expense" for the drug and included in the crazy cost that patients end up having to pay for non-generic drugs. There are actually some drug therapies which are covered by our tax dollars that approach people's entire salaries and we aren't talking end of life cancer type treatments but things that people could be on for years.
The whole pharmaceutical industry is really ugly when you start looking at the how they operate and most it has nothing to do with the consumer level pharmacists either.
That said, back to the Medical Arts issue. I think what happened is back in the day the building was running near full occupancy. As a new graduate if you weren't joining an established practice you then needed to find a place to operate, aka the suburbs. This lead to more of the younger patient group looking for doctors close to home and started fueling the trend away from centralized medical buildings. In terms of specialist, similar things have happened, just look at the Concordia Hip and Knee facility and Pan Am sports, two examples of specialists that would have traditionally been in the Medical Arts that are now in the suburbs.