Healthy Skepticism Library item: 13960

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Chase M.
Pricey Drugs Put Squeeze on Doctors
The Wall Street Journal 2008 Jul 8
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121548254807634713.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Abstract:

SAN FRANCISCO — Long a burden for patients, hyperexpensive cancer drugs are causing economic havoc for another constituency in U.S. health care: doctors.

American doctors rarely used to let costs factor into their treatment decisions. But rising prices — some cancer drugs now cost more than $100,000 a year — are dramatically changing that ethos in the field of oncology. Money issues are now disrupting relationships with patients, causing doctors to go into debt and threatening to interfere with treatment options.

Unlike most physicians, who write patients prescriptions that they can fill at a pharmacy, oncologists must buy many drugs …