Supreme Court Weighs Whether To Limit Data Mining

Supreme Court Weighs Whether To Limit Data Mining

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Under federal and state law, pharmacies are required to keep records of every doctor's prescription, and while patient privacy is protected by federal law, doctor privacy is not.

Pharmacies can and do sell prescription information to data miners, who in turn aggregate it to show each doctor's name, the number of prescriptions written for each drug, prescriptions for similar drugs, and changes from one drug to another. The data miners then sell that information to drug manufacturers, to help sales representatives target doctors for sales pitches and try to get them to prescribe, for exampl

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The data miners claim any limitations placed on this practice would impede free speech. At issue is whether states have the right to bar the buying, selling, and profiling of doctor's prescription records for pharmaceutical companies' sales representatives.

Whereas a patient's privacy is protected by federal law the doctor's is not. The pharmaceutical companies profile doctors that prescribe generic formulas and target them for high-pressure sales approaches which can alter the way doctors typically have been treating their patients.

Should the privacy of the doctor-patient relationship be kept intact and free from influence?

Whatever the ruling, the results could extend into other businesses that also collect information about consumers.


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There are serious conflicts of interest when the pharmaceutical companies start becoming the watch dogs over the doctors. There is already a lot of undue influence placed on the doctors roles, adding to that targets and bonuses for increasing prescriptions results in over pricing and over medication for the patents.