Physicians and Pill Payouts

Physicians and Pill Payouts

Transparency in healthcare management may become clearer due to some stipulations in the Affordable Healthcare Act (AHA) regarding physicians and pharmaceutical companies.

According to the AHA drug companies and makers of medical devices will be forced to publicly divulge any money paid to doctors under new US regulations. The purpose of the regulation is to make patients aware of conflicts of interest that could affect their healthcare. There is also another stipulation within the AHA mandated through the centers for Medicare/Medicaid Services; companies will have to publish any payments made to doctors for research and/or consulting services.

The purpose of more discloser to narrow conflicts of interest between doctors recommending certain products based on their personal payoffs has been met with some slight concerns. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the foremost lobbying group for drugmakers supports most of the new disclosure regulations it feels the public should take ‘the importance of context in the publication of physician payment information’ into account when reviewing publications. PhRMA’s also stated ‘Ethical interactions between biopharmaceutical companies and health-care professionals are essential to maintaining patient trust.’ However for the most part PhRMA feels the provisions are ‘complementary to this belief and it has great potential for helping patients understand the ways in which collaboration (between companies and physicians) benefit their health and medical innovation.’

So it seems that this portion of the Affordable Healthcare Act has been met with the least amount of drama from all camps involved. It is not very often that lobbyist, healthcare management, physicians and healthcare companies agree with minimal conflict. Hopefully this trend will continue as the regulations take effect by the end of September 2013.

Share your Thoughts:

Do you want to know who is paying your healthcare management? Do you think the transparency between healthcare management and medical companies will benefit patients? Do you believe the transparency regulations will benefit the healthcare industry or hurt it?

Thank you to Baylor Healthcare MBA for sharing skills that builds a better healthcare management system for the future.

Sources:

http://www.motorola.com/web/Business/Solutions/Asset%20Management%20Solutions%20for%20Healthcare/_Image/Static%20files/Asset_Management_for_Healthcare_LG_US-EN.jpg

http://www.phrma.org/

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-24/drugmakers-prep-for-u-s-rules-on-disclosing-payments.html