Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine found that ophthalmologists and optometrists who received incentives from pharmaceutical companies are twice as likely to prescribe name-brand eye drops for glaucoma instead of generic, less expensive options.
The incentives could be presented in things as small as free food to as large as sponsoring physician travel, according to an Aug. 15 news release from the health system.
The study, published in late July in JAMA Ophthalmology, surveyed 26,038 vision care professionals who prescribed glaucoma eye drops in 2018.
Approximately 63 percent of participants did not receive payments from the makers of branded eye drops. However, the study showed pharmaceutical companies spent $5,060,346 on payments to optometrists.
Ninety-two percent of the funds were spent on just 25 percent of the study's participants. A total of 17,480 clinicians prescribed name-brand drops but did so less than half the time. However, 3,999 of the practitioners in the study prescribed name-brand eye drops to patients more than half the time, the release said.
Researchers concluded the practitioners receiving incentives were 1.8 times more likely to prescribe name-brand drops.
"While some vision care professionals may say that small payments will not influence their prescribing behavior, these data suggest otherwise," Gerard Anderson, PhD, professor of health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a co-author of the study, said in the release.