Protecting the Patient-Physician Relationship

MISSION: The Coalition to Protect Patients' Rights (CPPR) believes that patients should be in control of their own medical decisions and able to determine, after consulting with their physician, the best course of treatment.  The decision reflects the unique medical condition and the illness and treatment history of the patient.  Our members will actively support policies that organize care to support the role of the physician and patient at the center of health care, and  oppose state and federal government policies that overrule shared patient-physician decisions solely to lower the cost of healthcare and without regard to the quality of care being provided.

For more than a year, CPPR members have been actively engaged in an important discussion about the future of our nation's healthcare system.  As an organization comprised primarily of physicians, our involvement has been focused on representing what we believe to be the best interests of the patients we have spent our professional lives serving.  Unfortunately, there continues to be a disturbing trend towards government policies that restrict a treating physician's ability to tailor the course of treatment to the patient.

Therapeutic Substitution
Coalition members recognize that every patient is unique and therefore a treatment or therapy that works well for one patient does not necessarily work well for all similarly situated patients.  We are concerned about efforts in some states to allow pharmacists to change a prescribing physicians' script, often times without the knowledge of the physician or the patient.  We recognize that drugs within the same therapeutic class may be equally efficacious in general; however, they might not be equally effective for an individual patient.  In order to provide the best medical care, physicians should be given the ability to choose the proper medicine for her patient.

"Academic” Detailing
Coalition members strongly support efforts to provide information to help educate patients and physicians on new treatments and best medical practices.  However, we are concerned about government funded programs that are primarily focused on cutting costs, and not on improving patient care.  As physicians, we have taken an oath to do what is best for our patients and we should be free to consider all available evidence as we decide the proper course of treatment.  We are particularly concerned about new efforts by state and federal governments to hire professionals to communicate "unbiased" information about research comparing drugs, medical devices, tests and ways to deliver health care.  For example, the Agency for Healthcare Research Quality (AHRQ) plans to launch a $30 million academic detailing program "with the intent of changing behavior in clinical practices."   We are concerned that this initiative may be biased towards a cost-cutting agenda without sufficient safeguards to ensure that its focus is on improving healthcare quality and providing balanced information that is in the best interest of patients.