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.
Article explains the role of surveillance by public health epidemiologists in tracking and controlling infectious diseases in the US and around the world.
In a study of New York physicians' compliance with reporting of communicable diseases, surveyed physicians responded better to legal warnings than to requests that explained public health benefits.
A physicians urges practitioners to use cost-effective alternatives to dispensing samples to patients who cannot afford to pay for their prescriptions.