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How much do the doc’s get back when they prescribe these pills for life-whatever they are.Doctor’s get a kickback.Walk in the office,get a handful of pills.Later on take your life.Without meds some families see their loved ones as fine.What is the Doctor kickback in money.

I have a feeling that with the advent of generic Prozac (fluoxetine -- available for $4 copay at Walmart) that the kickback is rather small, not that it ever existed.

I would ask a patient considering SSRI therapy to consider OTC SAM-e. Acts on both Seratonin and Dopamine pathways and therapeutic efficacy is at least equivalent to the SSRIs. Side effects are low or nonexistent. Drawback is cost is quite a bit higher than the $4 Prozac copayment.

"Compared to placebo, treatment with SAMe was associated with an improvement of approximately 6 points in the score of the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression measured at 3 weeks (95 percent CI [2.2, 9.0]). This degree of improvement is statistically as well as clinically significant and is equivalent to a partial response to treatment".

http://www.ahrq.gov/clinic/epcsums/samesum.htm