Just as the AMA was celebrating the vote in their favor against a reduction in the Medicare fee schedule, the doctors across the nation now have to cope with this.
What’s a doc got to do to get a pen around here?!
Small advantages like free pens and pads seem trivial, but they are part of the overall advantage physicians are awarded in the marketplace. Among less trivial freebies is the fact that pharmaceutical companies fund most continuing education for physicians. (That link leads to a good read in BMJ.)
It may seem like no big deal to require a certain amount of continuing education to maintain license when the courses are free…but for other healthcare providers, like physical therapists, (who are busy buying pens and paper on their own) the cost of continuing education courses can be overwhelming at $400 a piece. Pfizer’s recent decision to stop funding courses for docs is a pretty big deal.
And then one begins to ponder whether or not continuing education courses are all that effective…