Is You Doctor Using Epocrates?
Epocrates is a free smartphone app, that doctors can use to quickly determine the best medication to prescribe – during your appointment. 320,000 out of the 600,000 doctors in the USA use it.
Sounds great!
Except, before the doctor gets to see the info, they see an ad for a product related to their search – a drug they now might prescribe because they were influenced by advertising. Not great at all.
Of the $60 billion spent each year on marketing, according to former Epocrates CEO, Kirk Loevner, $16 billion is spent trying to directly influence doctors. That’s $23,333 per doctor per year, and the industry is planning to increase that figure. They do it for one reason alone: it works.