Physicians commonly receive marketing-related transfers from drug firms. We examine the impact of these relationships on the prescribing of physician-administered cancer drugs in Medicare. We find that prescribing of the associated drug increases 4\% in the twelve months after a payment is received, with the increase beginning sharply in the month of payment and fading out within a year. A marketing payment also leads physicians to begin treating cancer patients with lower expected mortality. While payments result in greater expenditure on cancer drugs, there are no associated improvements in patient mortality.
Authors
- Acknowledgements & Disclosure
- The authors thank Aaron Mitchell, Dennis Scanlon, and seminar participants at American Society of Health Economics, Electronic Health Economics Colloquium, and Bates White Life Sciences Symposium for helpful comments and Yaling Xu for excellent research assistance. Funding from the National Institute of Health Care Management and National Institute on Aging is graciously acknowledged. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3386/w32336
- Published in
- United States of America
