Ohio group tells drug reps: We'll listen -- if you pay

A physician group is putting a price on the time spent with pharmaceutical salespeople.

By Cheryl Jackson, AMNews staff. Aug. 20, 2001.

Leaders at the Queen City Physicians group in Cincinnati figured that if drug company representatives wanted to lavish their doctors with gifts, why not instead have the reps give something that would help the practice and its patients?

Hence, the thought process that led to the 56-physician multispecialty group's plan to charge $65 for a 10-minute visit to listen to a pitch from a drug company sales rep.

"There are some doctors who would like to have access to that information who don't want to give up two hours of their time to go to dinner," said Queen City internist G. Stephen Cleves, MD. "Rather than getting a free ham or a free turkey from a pharmaceutical rep, I would rather see that money put to use to directly benefit the patient."

Under the plan, drug reps or their companies sign up for appointments through a for-profit company, Physician Access Management Ltd., set up by the practice. Doctors sign up with the company to participate in the $65 visit plan; so far 45 of 56 have done so.

The separate organization is there "so [doctors] have no profit in that organization," said Pamela Coyle-Toerner, Queen City's president and chief operating officer, who also is an owner of Physician Access Management. "It's one of appearance. Trying to isolate them from any chance that it looks like drug companies are buying visits."

Queen City is so confident its plan will work that last month it went ahead with plans to buy a $1 million computerized medical records system, underwritten by the $50 per visit that Physician Access Management will send to the physician group (the other $15 goes for the company's administrative costs). [...]