US Sunshine Act

[WASHINGTON, DC] – In a letter to Acting Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Eric D. Hargan, U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA), asked HHS to prioritize funding for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Center for Program Integrity (CPI), a program that enhances transparency in transactions between medical providers and pharmaceutical companies. The CPI’s Open Payments database, created under the bipartisan Physician Payments Sunshine Act, mandates disclosure of billions of dollars in payments from manufacturers to prescribers and hospitals. This is of particular concern at a time when over-prescribing of …

The same day President Donald Trump declared the opioid crisis a nationwide public health emergency, the federal government said it arrested a wealthy pharmaceutical company executive on charges of bribing doctors to needlessly prescribe his firm’s opioid painkiller. The Department of Justice arrested Insys Therapeutics founder John Kapoor, 74, in Phoenix, it said Thursday. Kapoor was charged with using bribes and fraud to prop up sales of a pain medication called Subsys, a fentanyl spray typically used to treat cancer patients suffering excruciating pain. Kapoor’s arrest comes nearly a year after former Insys CEO Michael Babich and five other onetime …

To explore Open Payments Data

On Tuesday, June 27, 2017, California Senate Bill 790 will be heard in the Assembly Committee on Health, with limited testimony allowed per side. We have previously written about the bill, noting that the bill passed the California Senate back in May 2017. The bill, if passed as written, would prohibit a manufacturer of a prescribed product from offering or giving a gift to a health care provider. The bill would further prohibit a manufacturer of a prescribed product or an entity on behalf of a manufacturer of a prescribed product from providing a fee, payment, subsidy, or other economic …

While endeavoring to protect the interests and well-being of their patients and maintain professional competence, physicians may develop secondary interests such as the competition for patients and trainees, extramural research funding, and high-profile publications. Financial and other rewards of medical practice can create conflicts of interest. This issue of JAMA features 23 Viewpoint articles on conflict of interest for physicians in settings such as academic medicine, biomedical research, medical education, guideline development, health care management, and medical publishing. Two Editorials discuss the pervasive opportunities for conflict of interest in health care and medical journalism. In This Issue of JAMA Highlights …

State Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg), who authored the bill, said that when drugmakers woo physicians with meals and other enticements they generate brand loyalty, which can raise health care costs and even compromise patient safety. McGuire’s bill would limit drug company payments to health care providers — including cash and gifts of food, travel or entertainment — mostly to educational and scientific purposes, such as seminars. To read the article by Pauline Bartolone, Kaiser Health News LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST Senate Bill 790, as amended, McGuire. Health care providers: gifts and benefits. The Sherman Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Law, administered by …