Tennessee Family Medicine, PLLC

Sep 2024

Each time I visit the office the staff has been fantastic. Everyone treats you with respect handling each patient's information with respect and care. I really enjoyed Dr. Leavitt's staff members.

May 2023

The following information and review could not have been accomplished without the creation and implementation of the Physician Payment Sunshine Act, a part of the 2010 Affordable Care Act. The investigation involving Pharma-doctor relationships started by an award-winning journalistic entity known as ProPublica, which was first opened in 2010. At first, financial ties between two specific medical entities (drug company & doctor) were sort of a cloak-and-dagger relationship, inadvertently resulting in reluctant payment reports that revealed certain drug companies and their financial relationship(s) with doctors--as a result of legal settlements with the federal government. Fresques (2019) published an investigative report that disclosed doctor prescribe that drug more heavily than doctors without such financial mutuality. The financial interactions and contingencies include payments for delivering promotional talks, consulting, and receiving sponsored meals and travel. And don't forget cash kickbacks in the form of U.S. currency. Often, such legal settlements were related to whistleblower lawsuits alleging improper/illegal marketing or kickbacks by the companies to doctors. Contemporary investigations by proficient journalists regarding the relationship between Pharma companies and doctors have unambiguously shown that doctors prescribe more of a drug if they receive money from a Pharma company tied to it (Tigas, Jones, Ornstein, & Groeger, 2019). Look at the attached ProPublica snapshot article. There are certainly instances of Pharma companies clearly going against the best interests of patient welfare. Doctors receiving ANY sort of compensation (i.e., food and beverage(s), cash, education, travel, etc.) from a Pharma company sometimes aggrandize this malevolent pertinency. Physician(s) accepting cash monetary kickbacks (as well as other forms of compensation) from Pharma companies have shown an increased pattern for prescribing those certain drugs from that company (in many cases prescribed without medical necessity). A perfect real-world example is involving the brand name prescription drug Myrbetriq. This drug, whose manufacturer is shown to have financial ties with Dr. Leavitt, is a perfectly crafted example of this dual physician-Pharma company vile relationship. Dr. Leavitt's financial ties with the drug company Astellas Pharma US Inc., which makes the drug Myrbetriq that treats overactive bladder(s), were exposed in an award-winning ProPublica investigation involving the financial ties between Pharma companies and doctors. The conclusion of the investigation was that physicians who received financial compensation from Myrbetriq's manufacturer (Astellas Pharma US Inc.) wrote 64% more prescriptions for the drug than those who did not receive compensation in 2016. I have attached proof in the form of a snapshot image. For example, Dr. Leavitt received several drug-related payments in 2016 from Astellas Pharma US Inc. involving Myrbetriq's listed in publicly available reports. I have attached snapshots to this review of publicly available data, obtainable by anyone that can access the internet, that show the disturbing monetary correlation. To succinctly pinpoint this Pharma-doctor correlation, a few documented instances show Dr. Leavitt received financial remittance from Astellas Pharma US Inc. on August 29, 2016, September 26, 2016, November 28, 2016, and December 05, 2016. This is only partially accounting for payments to Leavitt for the year 2016. If Dr. Leavitt prescribed anyone reading this the brand-name drug Myrbetriq in 2016, being inconsistent with its approved use for an overactive bladder, one might want to go back and scrutinize their medical records during that year contrived by Dr. Leavitt. It may contain clinically significant information that may need amended/corrected in one's medical records. For example, did Dr. Leavitt ignore certain drug interactions that Myrbetriq had with a patient's known list of active medications? It is important to note that Dr. Leavit

Jun 2022

Dr. Leavitt has been my primary care doctor since 2008. I have always been more than happy with my care. He genuinely cares for my health and well being. He is always happy to answer my questions in depth at my appointments. His nurse and staff are caring, professional and they take care of everything I need right away. Whether I need prescription refills, referrals, or help scheduling an appointment, I can always count on them to take the best care of me. I highly recommend Dr. Leavitt and his team to anyone looking for a pcp.