Top 50 Psychiatrists Paid by Pharmaceutical Companies

by John M Grohol, PsyD – Who were the top 50 psychiatrists in the U.S. paid by the top seven pharmaceutical companies? This past week, ProPublica, an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest, recently decided to answer that question by compiling a list of 384 physicians and health care providers who earned more than $100,000 total from one or more of the seven companies that have disclosed payments in 2009 and early 2010. We combed that list and found the top 50 psychiatry earners for the past two years (2009-2010).

Jury took little more than three hours to decide antipsychotic drug maker sent out false & misleading information

“Under Louisiana’s Medical Assistance Program Integrity Law (MAPIL), anyone who attempted to defraud or cause false and misleading information to disseminate, you are subject to civil monetary fine,” says Morrow. According to the evidence, Janssen made some 27,000 phone sales calls to doctors and sent hundreds of “dear doctor letters” downplaying the diabetes link to Risperdal.

Psychiatrists Dominate “Doctor-Dollars” Database Listing Big Pharma Payments

Dollar Value of Psychiatric Drugs Is Enormous— The preponderance of psychiatrists on the ProPublica list may reflect the proportion of prescription activity involving psychiatric drugs. In 2009, the dollar value of antipsychotic drugs came to $14.6 billion, topping all other therapeutic classes, according to research firm IMS Health. Antidepressants occupied the number 4 spot on the list, valued at $9.9 billion. IMS Health put the total US prescription market in 2009 at $300.3 billion.
Carol Bernstein, MD, president of the American Psychiatric Association, told Medscape Medical News that the thorny issue of pharmaceutical industry compensation went beyond her specialty.

Mental health clinics targeted in Medicare fraud crackdown

Even by Miami-Dade’s reputation for Medicare fraud, the indictment was a shocker: American Therapeutic’s patients could not feed themselves or control their own bodily waste. Many lacked the mental capacity to respond to counseling; instead they simply stared at walls or watched TV. An employee complained that those patients should be ineligible for Medicare since they could not benefit from treatment.She got fired. That launched whistle-blower and criminal investigations that led to the Justice Department’s takedown Thursday of Miami-based American Therapeutic Corp., the nation’s largest chain of mental health clinics.

Miami Psychiatrist Who Wrote 96,685 Prescriptions for Psychiatric Drugs in 21 Months Prompts Calls for Federal Investigation

Based on the huge numbers of prescriptions written by a Miami psychiatrist, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, is continuing to pressure federal officials to investigate why some doctors write stunning numbers of scripts for tax-funded Medicare and Medicaid programs. In his latest volley, a letter sent Wednesday to Kathleen Sebelius, secretary for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Grassley demanded exact answers to three pointed questions about what her department is doing to address the problem. “The federal government has an obligation to figure out what’s going on here,” Grassley said in a statement e-mailed to The Miami Herald Wednesday. “The taxpayers are footing the bill, and Medicare and Medicaid are already strained to the limit. These programs can’t spare a dollar for prescription drugs that aren’t properly prescribed.