Massachusetts Personal Injury Library
Senate measure to make gifts to doctors transparent-Andover-MA
Federal legislation has been introduced that will make transparent gifts from pharmaceutical companies to physicians. The Physician Payments Sunshine Act requires drug, biologic, and manufacturers of medical devices to report certain gifts and payments made to physicians. This information will be registered in a national and publicly accessible online database. Those companies who fail to report these expenses will have to pay a penalty. The legislation was introduced on January 22, 2009, by Sen. Grassley of Iowa and Senator Kohl of Wisconsin. A similar law has been introduced in the House of Representatives. Massachusetts attorney Thomas M. Kiley, http://www.tomkileylaw.com, concentrates on healthcare legal issues.
The public has been clamoring for regulation of the relationships between pharmaceutical companies and doctors. According to a report by Donohue, The New England Journal of Medicine, 2007, the pharmaceutical industry spends nearly $30 billion annually on marketing. And nationwide, this is reflected in a 500% increase in prescription drug spending between 2000 and 2005 (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2007). This legislation is intended to require disclosure of physician ownership or investment interest in an applicable manufacturer or distributor. In addition to manufacturers, groups purchasing organizations must report physician ownership interest.
According to an article by Barry Meier in The New York Times, this proposed legislation is a sign of an ethical makeover under way within the medical device industry, a field that has been troubled by federal investigations and bad publicity over the volatile issue of frequently undisclosed financial ties between companies and physicians.
Some major drug companies are already making ethical changes in their dealings with physicians. The federal proposed legislation, and the fact that some states, including Massachusetts, are passing their own legislation to make these transactions more transparent to the public signals a turning point in future relationships.
According to The New York Times articles, Edwards Lifesciences, a producer of heart valves and other devices, decided that Edwards would voluntarily disclose all its payments to doctors. The medical device industry's main trade group, the Advanced Medical Technology Association, supported the Senate measure when it was introduced two years ago. Even some hospital systems, including the big Kaiser Permanente network, bar physicians from taking industry money and now require device suppliers to compete on the same basis on which most medical products are purchased.
Some medical device makers are under investigation. According to The New York Times, the biggest hip and knee makers, including Smith & Nephew, Zimmer Holdings, DePuy and Biomet, are operating under Justice Department oversight as part of a deal to resolve allegations they gave doctors illegal inducements to use their products. Under their Justice Department agreements, the hip and knee makers are already being transparent about such payments on their corporate Web sites.
Other medical device makers face continuing federal inquiries or are voluntarily making ethical changes in this area. Much of these changes provide for the public disclosure of information that would be mandated under the Senate proposal — the names of the doctors who work for device manufacturers as consultants, lecturers, researchers or trainers, and how much each one is paid for those services.
Several medical device companies, including Boston Scientific and Edwards Lifesciences, recently announced they also will be disclosing any payments made to physicians or physicians they are using as consultants.
