I apologize for this post being a little bit long but I want to share it with you guys and girls my personal experience and share some information that a lot of doctors have kept hidden from their patients. The information that I discovered may help some of you to understand why many may be leaving the doctor's office with prescriptions for medications they don't need.

I'll start by telling you that, last Spring, I got into a very heated argument with my family physician over him prescribing Lipitor "to prevent me from getting high cholesterol." How lame is that?! I had just had extensive lab work done because it was for my annual physical and my cholesterol level was 92 which was normal. I asked him why I should take a medication that can damage my liver and kidneys and cause horrible muscle and joint pains when he couldn't give me a legitimate reason for doing it.

I had the physical because I was getting ready to move away from TN to my house in AL and wanted to make sure that everything was okay with my health. He had access to my Medco Mail Order Pharmacy insurance information and ordered a 90 day supply of Lipitor which cost my insurance company and me $468. I was more than a little bit upset when I received the unexpected order in the mail and it couldn't be returned.

There was something about that incident that kept bothering me and I discussed it with my husband. We decided that there must have been some kind of financial incentive between this doctor and the pharmaceutical companies for him to have forced the prescription upon me but we had no proof. It's no wonder that insurance companies are limiting benefits.

My cousin and his wife are doctors here and I went to him and discussed the incident. He did another lab test and told me to discard the Lipitor because I didn't need it. Today there is an article in the newspaper and it provided this address for patients to check up on their doctors and hospitals to see if their names are on the list receiving money from the pharmaceutical companies. If you are interested in looking up the information on doctors and hospitals in your area, here is the address:

http://projects.propublica.org/docdollars/