A new study shows the significant impact that even a meal or two paid for by a pharmaceutical company can have on prescribing rates, despite a national decline of opioid prescribing rates. Researchers from Boston Medical Center’s Grayken Center for Addiction examined pharmaceutical payments from 2014, ranging from consulting fees to meals, and found that doctors who received any opioid pharmaceutical marketing increased their prescribing in 2015, writing nine percent more opioid prescriptions than doctors who received no marketing.
