Pharmacies Sell Your Information for Marketing Purposes

We are bombarded by information coming from pharmaceutical companies and it turns out some tactics are more stealthy than others.

You know about the commercials on TV. Whether or not it's a prescription or an over-the-counter medication, you are encouraged to ask your doctor to provide a prescription. And why do we see those ads for prescription drugs? Because they work. They sell plenty of those drugs because we lemming-patients do just what they tell us -- we ask our doctors to write prescriptions.

Now we learn that because of a loophole in HIPAA regulations, pharmacies are selling their patient prescription data to pharmaceutical companies -- and those companies are then contacting individual patients to sell them something else!

Have you gotten one of those phone calls? Or have you received coupons or discounts in your mail encouraging you to purchase (or ask your doctor to prescribe) a drug that is similar to the one you take? If so -- this would explain it.

Wise patients know not to run off and ask their doctors to prescribe everything they see on TV, in magazines, or even by coupon or phone call. There are some ways to use that advertising to improve our own knowledge, but it requires a bit of time and analysis.

When drug companies give us incentives to jump -- we are NOT required to ask "how high?"

..............................................
Photo © Graça Victoria - Fotolia.com