AMA: That American Marketing Association?

I recently posted about a marketing scam called the National Honor Roll, and how my daughter was scammed into giving them her personal information through a school-based “college survey.” I was outraged, my daughter was outraged, and her school was outraged.

Turns out I’ve been scammed by the American Medical Association in pretty much the same way for over 20 years.

Last year, I became aware that Big Pharma tracks every prescription I write. Apparently, marketing companies obtain prescription data (absent patient identifiers) from large drug store chains and insurers. They then sell that information to pharmaceutical companies, who use it to target their marketing and sales force efforts.

What I did not understand until I read this article in the NY Times last week was that this information is fairly useless until it becomes merged with my corresponding personal information collected by the AMA. The AMA keeps something called the Physician Masterfile, a longitudinal tracking database on every doc in the US. You physicians know this – the AMA sends you the update forms and we all diligently fill them out, year after year, and send them in.

I never officially joined the AMA, having become a doc around the same time that it became known that the AMA got rid of the tobacco stocks in their portfolio only after their holdings were exposed by the press. But I have faithfully sent in my updated physician information to the AMA every year, thinking that somehow it was part of something bigger than myself.

And in many cases, it is. That database is used by academics, health departments and others for research, medical licensing and public health activities. And that’s just fine with me. What I object to is the fact that the Physician Masterfile is also licensed for marketing use.

I guess I should have realized it years ago. I must get 20 pieces of junk mail at my office a day, all of it selling me something. How else would all these companies know I existed? Truth be told, the AMA is quite open about the Physician Masterfile and it’s uses on their web site:

For more than half a century, the AMA has made the AMA Physician Masterfile available to the health care community to serve the public good and medical industry. Today, the AMA has contractual arrangements with Database Licensees who specialize in direct mail, marketing services, the management of complex pharmaceutical call reporting systems, data integration services, and other health-related and research activities. These sophisticated organizations offer high tech computer processing and file maintenance, as well as the development of new types of information products and state-of-the-art techniques for direct marketing. Users of the AMA Masterfile include: large pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, medical colleges and universities, medical equipment and supply companies, consultants, market research and investment firms, insurance companies, and commercial organizations.

The NY Times says that the Physician Masterfile nets 40 million dollars annually for the AMA. It is no surprise, then, that the AMA is doing their best to protect its licensing agreements from legislation aimed at restricting Big Phama’s access to presciption information. They’ve created something called the Prescription Data Restriction Program, with which they hope to appease legislators and doctors who are trying to control the flow of personal information. Again, from the AMA website:

The Prescribing Data Restriction Program (PDRP) will take data away from reps and their direct supervisors, but leave it available to the company for marketing, compensation, and research. The rules allow the industry to retain access to prescribing data for most purposes, but they require companies to police their own sales forces. If they succeed, legislators will turn their attention elsewhere, and the industry can hang onto one of its most valuable data sources.

I have my doubts about the PDRP. I don’t trust Big Pharma one bit to police itself or limit the use of the Masterfile information. And I really resent the sale of my personal information by the AMA. The AMA claims that physicians could always opt out of sharing information for marketing by phone, mail or fax. But not to sharing their Masterfile data with Big Pharma.

As of July 1, bowing to pressure from physicians and groups such as the American Academy of Physicians, the AMA will give also me the option to prevent my information from being shared with pharmaceutical reps. But that’s not enough. Because they will still be allowed to share my information with pharmaceutical companies for marketing research and other internal uses. I don’t have an opt out for that. And that’s just not right.

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Here’s how to do a limited opt-out of the the AMA Masterfile:

By E-mail
nocontact@ama-assn.org Do Not Release: norelease@ama-assn.org

By Phone
Call (800) 621-8335 Fax* (312) 464-4042

By Mail (requires signature and professional letterhead)
Department of Data Quality and Measurement
American Medical Association
515 N. State St.
Chicago, IL 60610

By Web
No Contact: www.ama-assn.org/go/nocontactform
Do Not Release: www.ama-assn.org/go/noreleaseform

Category: Second Opinions