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It should be common in most European countries that have national health systems.

edit: Source: https://blogs.mediapart.fr/emmanuel-kosadinos/blog/310818/no...

It actually most likely isn't common. In the past it was, but there was a serious crackdown on doctors improving their golf handicaps in luxury resorts on the dime of big pharma and all variations on that theme. Surprised to see this make a recurrence.

Sometimes that crackdown is because the big pharma companies are happy with their current positions, so they propose cutting all of these expenses across-the-Board.

Then they maintain their incumbency and reduce a lot of their costs without a huge hit to revenue.

And if you’re a new pharma company with a truly awesome product, good luck getting anyone to prescribe it when you didn’t buy them a round of golf a decade ago because you didn’t exist.

It's not a recurrence. It never really stopped.

Maybe, but this study is about GPs who worked exclusively in the private sector (the NHS just subsidized the prescriptions), not about NHS doctors.

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