Behind the Examining Room Door

A Consumer Guide for Navigating Healthcare

By: Dan Mariani

Narrated by: Vena Dee

Length: 4 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

Are you getting the best drug for your medical condition? Are doctors infallible and totally unbiased when making important decisions for you, as a patient? Do drug representatives have an impact on healthcare providers’ decision making?

You’ve probably often wondered what happens behind closed doors in doctors’ offices, how you’re really perceived by the healthcare community, and how drug selection actually works.

Retired pharmaceutical market account manager Dan Mariani provides a fascinating view of how the healthcare system works. Described within are surprising behind-the-scenes machinations with detailed insights into how you, as a consumer, can make better choices to bolster your health.

This honest, inside look at the pharmaceutical-doctor-academia medical triad at work reveals just how it affects the delivery of consumer care.

How can we identify our best options when shopping for medical care? Can you really trust hospitals to provide optimal care? Are doctors totally treating cases without their self-interests in mind?

Some of the benefits you will receive by purchasing this book:

• Gives a behind-the-scenes look at how drug reps are trained and molded to become selling pros and how doctor messaging is customized to relay the benefits of a drug and minimize its disadvantages.
• Provides insights on how to assess drugs, understand side effects and contraindications, and ask insightful questions about prescribed drug therapy.
• Learn to understand physicians, what drives and motivates them, how to talk with them and decipher confusing medical jargon.
• Become more of an educated consumer of prescription medicines; are they all the same? What makes one better than another? How are they marketed? Can they be trusted to be as efficacious as they’re advertised?
• How to assess the competency of your physician, what to look for, what to question and be skeptical of, what signs indicate you might not be getting the best care.
• Advice on how to empower yourself to change behavior that’s detrimental to your health.
• Tips on how to assess hospitals and doctors’ offices, who can be your advocates, and the warning signs you need to know to access quality healthcare.
• Testing Mills: what to look for, how to avoid them, and making the best decisions for your family in finding appropriate treatment centers.
• Humorous stories of encounters the writer experienced as he toured many different types of physician specialties that are also revealing from a patient point of view.

As a person who worked in healthcare for 30 years, the author possesses the background qualifications to write this book. First, he labored in the field for many years as a Pharmaceutical Rep. eventually rising to the level of a Field Sales Trainer where he worked both in the field as well as at the corporate office. He was then promoted to a Hospital Specialist where he called on key medical teaching institutions on Long Island, New York such as Stony Brook University Hospital as well as the Northwell Health Group. Dan became one of six people nationally selected to be part of a team that worked in the Managed Care area of Long-Term Care in a strategic role. He was responsible for a large group of accounts that serviced the nursing homes on the East Coast.

Dan also was a top performer, having won numerous awards, including twice named the Top Representative in the Northeast Region, which was a national accolade.

©2022 Dan Mariani (P)2023 Dan Mariani