"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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"The Obama administration issued a new rule this month that requires the makers of prescription drugs and other medical products to disclose what they pay doctors for various purposes, like consulting or speaking on behalf of the manufacturer. This overdue rule adds much-needed weight to previous, more limited disclosure requirements."
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Allan Coukell, director of medical programs for The Pew Charitable Trusts, issued the following statement in response to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' final rule for implementing the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, which will bring transparency to the financial relationships between physicians and drug and medical device companies.
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"Harmonizing conflict-of-interest standards will depend on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services moving forward to implement the federal Sunshine law, which is now more than a year behind schedule. Industry, consumers and academic stakeholders are all waiting on CMS to issue a final rule."
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The Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a new paper, "Harmonizing Reporting on Potential Conflicts of Interest," which notes that "the current process of disclosure (of financial relationships between healthcare professionals and the medical industry) is fragmented and burdensome" and, as a result, the need for a harmonized system has become "urgent and compelling."
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During a session at the American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting on conflicts of interest, experts delved into the link between psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry. While several speakers at the session pointed out that other specialties are similarly entangled with industry, "everyone does it" is generally not a valid defense where conflicts of interest are concerned.
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"Big Pharma's image problem, fueled by numerous high-profile scandals, may have made doctors so skeptical of the industry that it's warping their judgment, a new survey suggests."
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Pew Prescription Project Director Daniel Carlat opines in the Philadelphia Inquirer: "Monetary relationships among doctors and drug and device companies are not inherently bad; in fact, they are crucial for advancing medical research and patient care. Yet they can also skew prescribing practices and research results. That's why transparency and education are such an elegant solution: They allow these often important relationships to exist, but only on the condition that other professionals and patients are fully informed about them."
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"Every five years, lawmakers, lobbyists, patient groups and agency regulators line up to take their shot at changing how things get done at the Food and Drug Administration."
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"It took longer than expected, but the Obama administration is finally poised to enact badly needed regulations requiring that the manufacturers of drugs, medical devices and medical supplies disclose all payments they make to doctors or teaching hospitals."
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To head off medical conflicts of interest, the Obama administration is poised to require drug companies to disclose the payments they make to doctors for research, consulting, speaking, travel and entertainment.
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"Two-and-a-half months after blowing a congressional deadline, federal officials have finally gotten around to rolling out the Physician Payments Sunshine Act -- a historic new law requiring medical device and pharmaceutical industries to disclose payments to doctors."
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"Proposed federal regulations requiring disclosure of payments by pharmaceutical companies to doctors for such activities as speaking, consulting and research were called a "good start" by an advocate for more accountability."
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On Thursday, December 15, Senate Special Committee on Aging Chairman Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) will convene a hearing entitled, “Parting the Clouds: Implementing the Physician Payments Sunshine Act.”
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Allan Coukell, director of medical programs at The Pew Charitable Trusts in Washington, explains how the Physician Payments Sunshine Act might work and its likely impact on physicians and patient care.
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Allan Coukell
Daniel Carlat
