Jan 07, 2013: The many advertisements and commercials we see promoting the latest brand name drug seems to be working. Researchers from Harvard Medical School and the Colorado School of Public Health found that 37% of the almost 1,900 randomly selected physicians they surveyed reported sometimes or often prescribing the specific drug a patient wants over an available generic option.

"Prescribing brand-name drugs when generic drugs are available generates unnecessary medical expenditures, the costs of which are borne by the public in the form of higher copayments, increased health insurance costs, and higher Medicare and Medicaid expenses," the authors wrote. "These numbers suggest that the unnecessary costs associated with this practice to the healthcare system could be substantial."

Outside link:
More than 1 in 3 docs accede on patient requests for brand-name drugs