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Letters to the Editor
Published Online: 6 April 2007

Response from Edward Gordon, M.D., chair of APA's Medicare Advisory Corresponding Committee and a corresponding member of the Committee on RBRVS, Codes, and Reimbursements.

Publication: Psychiatric News
Volume 42, Number 7
https://doi.org/10.1176/pn.42.7.0026a
The Medco response to the article in which I was quoted in the November 17, 2006, issue is both disingenous and self-serving. Several days ago, I received a letter from Medco asking me to review a patient's prescription and consider changing the prescribed medication to another, less-expensive alternative. Medco claimed that the patient would save money if I changed to Medco's suggestion.
Do any of the thousands of physicians who have received similar letters believe that Medco is only interested in saving money for my patient? Clearly, its interest is its bottom line—decreasing its costs and increasing its net profits by getting me to switch to a medication that costs Medco less.
To achieve this financial goal, Medco is asking me and thousands of other prescribing physicians to devote their time, unpaid and not required by any clinical considerations, to review its patients' medications for no real reason other than Medco's bottom line.
Most prior approval requirements and other similar impediments to access to medically necessary treatment are motivated by the same goal—increasing corporate profits. Should we be grateful that Medco has developed policies that require uncompensated physician time to fatten its bottom line? I don't think so.

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Psychiatric News
Volume 42 • Number 7 • April 6, 2007
Pages: 26

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Published online: 6 April 2007
Published in print: April 6, 2007

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