Abstract
Background: Sponsoring of medical meetings by life science companies has led to reduced participation fees for physicians but questions potential drawbacks. Ongoing discussions are proposing to ban such sponsoring which may increase participation fees. Objectives: To evaluate factors associated with general practitioners’ willingness to pay for medical meetings, their support of a binding legislation prohibiting sponsoring and their opinion on alternative financing options. Methods: An anonymous web-based questionnaire was sent to 447 general practitioners’ of one state in Switzerland, identified through their affiliation to a medical association. Results: Of the 115 physicians answering, 48% were willing to pay more than what they currently pay for medical meetings and 79% disagreed that sponsoring introduced a bias in their own prescription practices. In univariate analyses, factors most associated with physician’s willingness to pay were perception of a bias in peers prescription practices (OR=6.67; 95% CI: 1.60-27.74), group practice (OR=3.01; 95% CI: 0.94-9.65) and having <4 meetings with sales representatives per month (OR=2.39; 95% CI: 0.91-6.33). 78% did not support the introduction of a binding legislation and 56% were in favor of creating a general fund set up by life science companies and centrally administered by an independent body as an alternative financing option. Conclusions: Our results suggest that almost half of physicians surveyed were willing to pay more than what they currently pay for medical meetings and that an independent body that would centrally administer a general fund set up by life science companies might be better received by general practitioners’ than a legislation banning the sponsoring of medical meetings by life science companies.
Highlights
Life science companies are a very important sector of Switzerland’s economy with 2010 sales representing $57 billion [1]
Our results suggest that almost half of physicians surveyed were willing to pay more than what they currently pay for medical meetings and that an independent body that would centrally administer a general fund set up by life science companies might be better received by general practitioners’ than a legislation banning the sponsoring of medical meetings by life science companies
The majority (53%) of physicians working fulltime earned ≥EUR160’000 and 63% of physicians working part-time earned in between EUR80’000 and EUR159’999. Their practices were majorly located in small towns (41%) followed by rural villages (35%) and large cities (24%). 63% worked in group practices and 30% were member of a health maintenance organization. 56% of physicians met up with sales representatives ≥4 times per month and 64% spent 15 minutes or less per meeting. 35% of physicians did not attend any sponsored medical meetings in 2010 in comparison with 33% who attended 1 to 3 sponsored medical meetings and 34% who attended 4 sponsored medical meetings or more
Summary
Life science companies (e.g., pharmaceutical and health technology companies) are a very important sector of Switzerland’s economy with 2010 sales representing $57 billion [1]. Ongoing discussions in the medical literature are questioning whether this form of industrial marketing does not lead to potential drawbacks including conflict of interest as well as direct and indirect commercial products promotion through altered disease management and prescribing habits bias [7], possibly contributing to the rise of national health costs [8,9]. This question is even more relevant in Switzerland, a country with a health care system combining fee for service and universal health insurance coverage, and where. Ongoing discussions are proposing to ban such sponsoring which may increase participation fees
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