The article in the url below describes legislation recently passed in Vermont requiring all firms that supply doctors with drugs or medical devices to declare all payments made to doctors in the state:
“The law, scheduled to take effect on July 1, is believed to be the most stringent state effort to regulate the marketing of medical products to doctors. It would also ban nearly all industry gifts, including meals, to doctors, nurses, medical staff, pharmacists, health plan administrators and health care facilities.”
Although other states, such as Minnesota and Massachusetts, restrict payments and gifts to some degree, the Vermont law is much more stringent. It requires the declaration of all payments (no matter how small) to all doctors with the authority to prescribe or administer a firm’s products:
“The law is also the first to ban all free meals, long a favorite gift in marketing to doctors. The law also closes a loophole in previous regulations that had allowed companies to keep specific expenses private by claiming them as trade secrets.”
The size of existing payments and gifts to doctors, in Vermont alone, is considerable:
“Makers of medical products spent about $2.9 million in fiscal year 2008 on marketing to health care professionals in Vermont … . Of Vermont's 4,573 licensed health practitioners, almost half received remuneration, including payments for lectures, meals or lodging from pharmaceutical companies.”
Although fairly widespread, it is the concentration of payments where the potential for corruption grows stronger:
“Of the $2.9 million spent in Vermont, for example, about $1.8 million went to only 100 health care providers. That meant only about 4 percent of doctors received 60 percent of the payments.”
Take care
David
Bill Werther & David Chandler
Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility
© Sage Publications, 2006
Doctor Gifts To Be Public In Vermont
By NATASHA SINGER
930 words
20 May 2009
Late Edition - Final
1
