Payment to Doctors by pharmaceutical companies in Texas raises conflict
As it is the practice in many countries around the world, Texas pays her public servants through taxpayer’s money; consequently, the public servants have to seek for other sources, which can add on their income. This happen because the government payments do not always satisfy the subject they have employed. Non-governmental payment has therefore been the most suitable refuge for these public servants with no exception of those working in the medicine department. From this, I found an interesting study involving the government payment and the non-governmental payment especially concentrating on pharmaceuticals in Texas.
The main professions involved in the pharmaceuticals are doctors, researchers and medical experts. In Texas, most of these people are employment by the state and hence receive payments from taxpayer’s dollars (Liff 2007). In their search for a better living, with adequate money, they sought for other drug companies not related to the government. The drug companies pay medical professionals for their activities ranging from the ethical issues to the legal issues related to the profession.
Doctors have a wide range of functions. Towards their main aim of restoring or maintaining human health, they care for the patients in many ways: they diagnose the patient; they provide treatment to the disease; they also provide essential advice to the patients regarding the disease they are suffering from. With the same income, government sees these activities as necessary ethical policies the doctors must meet in the course of their work. This therefore means that doctors have many fields work on than if they were to apply specialization outside the governmental work.
The researchers, in the field of medicine, are also involved in wide range of study in the course of study. They are required to study different types of diseases, their main causes, their transmission from one person to another and their ultimate treatment. Besides, they are also need to provide a detailed report and a talk about their study. The government with thirst of meeting her citizen’s requirement therefore ensures that an individual under the same income does all these. The workload is therefore high as compared to the amount of salaries they are getting from the governmental work. All these, are the ethical policies the researchers need to exhibit while working in the governmental firms without complain (Liff 2007).
Medical experts on the other hand also perform various important functions in the recovery of a patient. They help in providing appropriate clinical decisions; carrying out therapeutic interventions; they also need to assign the patient with the appropriate medicine; they also need to have communication with other health care providers in the community. All these they have to carry within the governmental healthcare settings and the patient’s preferences. This therefore provides the basis of ethical policies the medical expert have to comply with under the same little income in the governmental organization.
On the side of the non-governmental pharmaceuticals provides a good working environment for the medical professional provided they meet their legal policies: whether they meet the patient’s need. The pharmaceuticals pay for the specific activities done by the medical practitioners: be it speaking, or engagement in consultations. The drug companies pay in cash, research money, free meals, travel and other miscellaneous expenses (Ramshaw & Murphy 2011). Ramshaw and Murphy also review that pharmaceuticals manufacturers also pay the researchers on assessing a new product and pay them the fee for speaking in conferences and seminars. These therefore pose a greater dilemma on the side of the medical professional because the drug companies pay more on a less work done as compare with.
The payment in the drug companies therefore attracts more medical professionals in the governmental companies; consequently leading to less work done in the field of medical profession. This is because there will be less done in the governmental companies, which constitute the higher percentage in the management of medical attentions hence causing inefficiencies in this particular field.
The conflict between the governmental companies and the non-governmental companies mainly affects the public because of the inevitable option made by the medical professional: choice for the drug companies. This practice renders the life of the patients and the taxpayer’s money prone to loss (Ramshaw & Murphy 2011)
Solution to the conflict
This conflict can only get a solution if the three subjects, that is, government companies, medical professional, and the drug companies, embrace the proper business ethics. The government should be creating a good working environment for their employees. They can achieve this through paying a better salary and reducing the workload on the medical professionals. This makes the employees to develop a positive attitude towards their work. The medical professional should ensure that they meet their expectation in providing proper services to their clients.
Proper business ethics ensure that there is no shortfall of the needed attention to the patients because the medical professionals are aware of their services to the clients. The drug companies should also ensure that they create a good working relationship with the government such that they harmonize the income they give to the employees. This makes the employees to concentrate in one company hence maximum output in the services that they provide (Bredeson & Goree 2011).
References
Bredeson, D., Goree, K. (2011). Ethics in the Workplace. Mason, OH: South-Western/Cengage Learning.
Liff, S. (2007). Managing Government Employees: How to motivate your people, deal with difficult issues, and achieve tangible results. New York: American Management Association.
Ramshaw, E., Murphy, R., (2011). New York Times: Payments to Doctors by Pharmaceutical Companies Raise Issues of Conflicts. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/25/us/payments-to-doctors-by-pharmaceutical-companies- raise-issues-of- conflicts.html?scp=1&sq=Payments%20to%20Doctors%20by%20Pharmaceutical%20%20%09C ompanies%20Raise%20Issues%20of%20Conflicts.&st=cse
