My DM bribed a doc in front of me

[Anonymous]

Well, maybe "bribed" is a strong word, but during a ride-along he offered to give $1000 to this Dr's pet project (a kids' hockey team-- nothing to do with disease states my company works with or research or anything remotely related.) Afterward, the Dr said "not that this has anything to do with what we just discussed [meaning exactly the opposite via his tone of voice and facial expression] but I think I'm going to write a lot of [my product] today!" I had no say in this transaction, just stood back in disbelief. We are a tiny (cheap) company and $1000 for a dinner program or educational event is only given very begrudgingly, so this is a big deal in context.

Granted, the Dr is quite shady. To begin with, he is an investor in our company, and when I took over the territory was writing over 40% of my territory's Rx volume for our product (97 out of 230 Rxes/month-- the #1 writer in the country). Suddenly he stopped writing new Rxes for our product, which obviously drained my territory's sales. In trying to find out what happened, I asked if there had been some managed care issues or specific patient types not responding to the drug. To this, he replied "well, I usually rotate between three drugs, and the [competitor] rep is really cute." This guy is a real piece of work, and my boss is infatuated with getting him back to writing those...questionable previous levels of Rxes for our product.

So, to anyone who has dealt with similar ethical issues:
a. what to do about the DM situation?-- I'm not comfortable going to HR as my company is VERY small and my DM has been with them since the beginning. I am interviewing, and hope it will be a non-issue soon, but...

b. how to cover my @$$ should any of this come to light and be questioned in the future?

c. is there any way to report this doc to an ethics committee or something with AMA or the State boards?

Thanks!

 

[Anonymous]

I understand. I recently quit my job at Zynex Medical because I didn't stand a chance to get the business off the ground because the previous sales rep was recruiting doctors to become investors in the company. After I was hired I was told by office managers in pain management offices that I wasn't welcome because of the company I worked for. I became close to another semi-local rep and she said that many of the 1099 reps are encouraged to engage physicians with company stock, expensive dinners, buying tickets Denver Bronco, Denver Nugget, Colorado Rockies (Luxury Suites) games. I've been in the medical sales game for 12 years and never been in a polluted culture like this before. I quit after 5 months on the job and decided to become a full-time mom until I can figure out what I'm going to do. I don't want to even put this last experience on my resume'. I understand how you feel. Zynex Medical offered me high dollars and I was blinded and continued to look the other way until I felt to dirty to stay with this company.