The law allows pharmaceutical companies to pay doctors for prescribing their drugs. Over a five-month period in 2013, doctors received some $380 million in speaking and consulting fees from drug companies and device makers. Some doctors pocketed over half a million dollars each, and others received millions of dollars in royalties from products they had a hand in developing. Doctors claim these payments have no effect on what they prescribe. But why would pharmaceutical companies shell out all this money if it did not provide them a healthy return on their investment?
