Medicine is a service industry, the product of which is health care, and its practitioners deserve remuneration. But to some, the notion of medicine as a road to personal wealth is an example of free-market economics gone awry.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(8):780-786. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.8.msoc1-1508.
Explanation of the Medicare and Medicaid Antikickback statute and Stark Law and their restrictions on physicians' financial interests in ancillary services.
Medical malpractice pits the legal system's ethics of client advocacy against the medical profession's ethics of patient advocacy. Fear of liability may lead to defensive medicine, an aberration of both professions' intent.
A physicians urges practitioners to use cost-effective alternatives to dispensing samples to patients who cannot afford to pay for their prescriptions.