Title: Prescription Drugs, Practicing Physicians, and the Elderly
Abstract: Prologue: A key element of the success of any medical regimen is the physician/patient relationship. Because of its potential impact on quality of care, policymakers retain a lively interest in this interaction. In this article, Risa Lavizzo-Mourey and John Eisenberg examine the impact of prescription drug policies on the physician/patient relationship, focusing on the elderly. “As clinicians and health services researchers, ” Eisenberg said, “we are interested in how public policy influences physicians' clinical decision making regarding their elderly patients—particularly policies that affect physicians' ability to prescribe or dispense pharmaceuticals.” As the nation forges a prescription drug policy, the authors urge that “drug benefits that are not neutral with regard to physicians' incentives to substitute medications for other therapies or to actually dispense medications should be implemented with caution because of the potentially negative impact on the doctor/patient relationship.” Lavizzo-Mourey and Eisenberg are both on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School and are senior fellows at the University of Pennsylvania's Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. Lavizzo-Mourey, a clinically active geriatrician, received a medical degree from Harvard Medical School and a master of business administration degree from the Wharton School. She is affiliated with the Section of General Internal Medicine and the Center for the Study of Aging at the University of Pennsylvania. Eisenberg, an internist, received his medical degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and holds a master of business administration degree from the Wharton School. He is chief of the Section of General Internal Medicine and Sol Katz Professor of General Internal Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and is a member of the Physician Payment Review Commission. Both Lavizzo-Mourey and Eisenberg are alumni of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program.
Publication Year: 1990
Publication Date: 1990-01-01
Language: en
Type: review
Indexed In: ['crossref', 'pubmed']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 15
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot