For decades, drug companies kept the names of their speakers -- and how much they paid them -- secret. But over the past two years, companies have begun posting this information on their web sites, some as the result of legal settlements with the federal government. ProPublica took these disclosures and assembled them into a single, comprehensive database that allows patients to search for their physician. It was not easy. Some of the firms constructed their sites in a way that made it near impossible to analyze or, in some cases, even download their data. And each firm disclosed its data differently. Some, for example, simply included speaking. Others also detailed consulting. Sometimes, research, business travel costs and meals were listed, too. ProPublica will update the database from time to time as additional companies release their payment data. Federal law requires that all companies publicly report this data beginning in 2013. That information will be posted on a government web site.
Total payments to doctors for promoting pharmaceutical companies' products to their colleagues appear to be falling in Massachusetts, suggesting that new restrictions designed to distance doctors from industry are leading some to abandon the lucrative speaking circuit. Eli Lilly and Co., one of the nation's largest drug makers, paid healthcare providers here $866,919 in 2010 for speaking about their drugs, a 46% drop from 2009, according to an analysis by The Boston Globe and ProPublica, a nonprofit online investigative journalism organization. Payments from GlaxoSmithKline fell at least 29% to $884,850, and probably more because the company's 2009 data did not include the first quarter. The data also show that many Harvard-affiliated doctors have dropped out of company speakers bureaus, a sideline that has allowed many physicians to earn tens of thousands of dollars. In 2009 and the first half of 2010, doctors and researchers affiliated with Harvard Medical School—a brand prized by pharmaceutical companies as a powerful tool in promoting drugs—collected a large portion of the speaking fees paid by drug companies, according to a similar analysis the news organizations conducted a year ago. But new data for 2010 and the first quarter of 2011 reveal that many Harvard doctors have stopped giving promotional talks as new limits have been phased in.
The powerful new congressional panel assigned to tame the deficit will have to squeeze Medicare and Medicaid for any chance of success. But healthcare industries that depend on those programs have invested millions over the years to woo its members. Doctors, drugmakers, hospitals and health insurers have contributed $17 million since 1989 to the individual campaigns of lawmakers now on the debt supercommittee, a new analysis by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics finds. Health professionals—an industry category dominated by doctors—rank among the top 10 sources of campaign dollars for all but two of the 12 lawmakers. The findings reinforce expectations that the panel may tinker with the government's giant health care programs, but not revamp them. The center ranks contributions to lawmakers from political action committees and individuals associated with more than 80 industries, from defense contractors to energy to farming. The study of health care money was conducted for The Associated Press.
U.S. workers whose wages stagnated over the last decade also saw their health insurance degrade, even as medical costs gobbled up a growing share of their income, two new studies show. An estimated 29 million adults who had health insurance lacked adequate coverage in 2010, leaving them exposed to medical expenses such as high deductibles that they couldn't afford, according to a survey by the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund. That is up from 16 million underinsured people in 2003, the survey found, underscoring the rising burden that insurance plans are placing on consumers as the industry raises required co-pays and deductibles. "Underinsured families are at nearly as high risk as the uninsured because, while they have health insurance, holes or limits in their plans expose them to often unaffordable medical costs," said Commonwealth Fund Senior Vice President Cathy Schoen, lead author of the new report, which was published in the journal Health Affairs. More workers also simply lost coverage over the last decade, the survey found. Fifty-two million adults ages 19 to 64 did not have insurance at some point in 2010, up from 46 million in 2003.
An audit manager who served as a financial watchdog for cash-strapped Jackson Health System is accused of masterminding a payroll fraud plan that bilked $83,000 from the public hospitals using ?ghost employees,? prosecutors said Wednesday, adding that the investigation is continuing and more arrests are expected. In the latest accusation against an employee of Jackson, which has lost more than $400 million during the past three years, Tiffany Gordon-Smith was charged with participating in an organized scheme to defraud, grand theft and unlawful compensation. Her lawyer, Peter Raben, said Wednesday that Gordon-Smith has made arrangements to surrender ?and is eager to have her day in court.? The two ?ghost employees? were arrested Wednesday. Janet Lockwood and Kenneth Mitchell are charged with participating in an organized scheme to defraud and grand theft. They could not be immediately located for comment. The charges involve $83,000 in Jackson paychecks made out over eight months to Lockwood and Mitchell. According to a statement supporting the arrest warrant, Miami-Dade Detective Noel Varela said Lockwood was paid $17,000 by Jackson for four months ? at the same time that records show she was attending U.S. Navy boot camps in Michigan and Illinois.
Pretend you're a doctor. You're used to treating patients with a particular malady one way, but then a new technology comes on the market. It's unproven, but seems promising. So what do you do for your patients ? rely on the old way, or add the new? Many physicians, eager, to marshal the latest technology to help their patients, would opt for the new way. And patients would likely be eager to try it. That dynamic, however, makes it really difficult to conduct randomized trials of these new technologies to see if they actually do work. Doctors would have little incentive to participate in the trial rather than just start using the technology as they saw fit, and patients assigned to get standard treatment in a trial could simply go elsewhere to get the new treatment. That is, unless Medicare won't pay for it. That's exactly what happened in a study, the results of which were just published in the New England Journal of Medicine, comparing a beefed-up drug regimen to the drugs plus stenting to prevent a recurrence of stroke. The stents were placed in the arteries of the brain in an attempt to reduce blockages. And as it turned out, the study was stopped early after patients who received the stents experienced a higher risk of stroke and death after the procedure.