Pharmacies programs are now making direct contact with our patients causing confusion and questions their personal physician’s (frequently referred to with the derogatory PCP designation) competence. Although these letters, which are shared with the patients, do state that they obviously do not have the entire patient’s record, and the “PCP” is in a better position to determine if the pharmaceutical management company’s recommendations are valid, they do cause questioning of their  “PCP’s” competence. This becomes obvious when the patient becomes irate on the phone, states that we’ve made a mistake and please order what the “pharmacy” recommends.

This may cause a serious disruption in the physicians work flow. He may be involved in direct patient care and it creates an unkind problem with the patient he’s currently seeing if he reviews the pharmaceutical letter, the patient’s medical record, gets on the phone to explain that he had an adverse reaction of another ACE inhibitor and to use the recommended pharmaceutical that was recommended by a reviewing agency would more likely than not produce the same adverse reaction.

The constant policing of physicians does not improve the Quality of Care (QOC).
But it does diminish physicians, and destroys much of the doctor/patient relationship,
which in turn decreases the QOC.

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