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Press Release
Pew Prescription Project Statement on the Physician Payments Sunshine Act
Washington, DC - Allan Coukell, director of the Pew Prescription Project, issued the following statement today, commending Congress for including provisions from the Physician Payments Sunshine Act in health care reform legislation. The provisions would require drug and device companies to publicly report the gifts and payments they make to doctors.
“Patients deserve to know if their doctors are receiving money from drug companies. Congress has added much needed transparency to the financial relationships between the pharmaceutical industry and physicians. The reporting requirements in the health care legislation will better protect patients and will help restore trust in our health care system.
“A study in the New England Journal of Medicine reported that more than 90 percent of physicians have some financial relationship with the pharmaceutical industry. We also know that companies spend at least $25 billion each year marketing to doctors. While many relationships between academic medicine and industry are necessary and beneficial, they create potential conflicts of interest that can influence prescribing and drive up costs.
“This new legislation will enhance the safety of consumers by increasing transparency while in no way restricting business or limiting innovation.”
Learn more about the Sunshine Act on the Pew Prescription Project's Web site.
The Pew Prescription Project is an initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts to promote consumer safety through reforms in the approval, manufacture and marketing of prescription drugs. For more information, please visit www.prescriptionproject.org.
"The legislation requiring public disclosure of the financial relationships between healthcare vendors and physicians has been widely discussed in policy circles for years. Critics claimed payments for speaking, consulting, research or even the small trinkets and meals delivered during routine sales calls unduly influenced physician choices and inflated healthcare costs. To combat those effects, Congress required public reporting of those payments in a publicly accessible database. The legislation, labeled the Physician Payment Sunshine Act, was included in the 2010 healthcare reform law."
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Prescription project director Danny Carlat identifies issues with the Physician Payments Sunshine Act requiring further clarification and guidance. Addressing those would ensure that manufacturers can appropriately implement the final rule, and enable consumers to benefit from transparency reports published by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
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The Pew Charitable Trusts is working to decrease the influence of pharmaceutical marketing on doctors’ practices. With a three-year grant from the Attorney General Consumer and Prescriber Education Grant Program, Pew is collaborating several partners to improve conflict-of-interest policies within the 158 medical schools and 400 major teaching hospitals in the United States.
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