Lawsuits Result in Online Database of Doctors on the Take

The FDA has already taken action after global sales of meta

After reviewing the results of a patient’s annual physical, a doctor writes a prescription for Lipitor to help lower the patient’s cholesterol. The doctor selects Lipitor out of dozens of cholesterol-lowering drugs, including some that are generic and much cheaper. Should the doctor be required to tell the patient that she receives a monthly free lunch from Pfizer, the maker of Lipitor?

Over the past few years, pharmaceutical companies have been hit with numerous whistleblower lawsuits alleging that doctors were given kickbacks.

A new federal law aims to make this information public. The Physician Payment Sunshine Act (the “Sunshine Act”), passed by Congress as part of the Obamacare legislation, will require doctors to disclose all forms of compensation valued at over $10 that they receive from drug companies. Under the Sunshine Act, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will create a public database on its website that will compile data regarding drug company compensation to doctors. The database is scheduled to go live in September of 2014.

In the meantime, the investigative journalism website Propublica.org has put together an online, searchable database called Dollars for Docs. This online tool allows the public to search for a doctor by name and see how much compensation the doctor has received from drug companies. The compensation information was made public in part because of whistleblower lawsuits filed by sales representatives against drug companies.

While it is illegal for doctors to receive compensation in exchange for writing prescriptions, it is not illegal for doctors to accept speaking fees, attend all-expense paid conferences, enjoy in-office catered lunches, and receive other freebies from the pharmaceutical industry. Drug companies would not bestow these gifts upon doctors if they weren’t getting something in return. Studies have shown that even small trinkets such as pens and notepads can influence a doctor’s decision-making process.

Over the past few years, pharmaceutical companies have been hit with numerous whistleblower lawsuits alleging that doctors were given kickbacks in the form of speaking fees and conference expenses in exchange for writing prescriptions for certain drugs. As a result of these lawsuits, pharmaceutical companies have paid billions of dollars in fines and settlements.

The whistleblower lawsuits revealed some of the unsavory business practices that pharmaceutical companies engage in to entice doctors to prescribe their drugs. For example, Forest Labs, the maker of popular antidepressants Lexapro and Celexa, paid millions of dollars to physicians to participate in so-called “preceptorships.” Under the program, each doctor received a grant of $1,000 to allow a Forest Labs salesperson to spend half a day with the doctor to observe how Celexa and Lexapro were used in practice. As alleged in the lawsuits, these $1,000 grants were nothing more than kickbacks to doctors who were frequent prescribers of the drugs. Forest Labs ultimately paid $313 million in criminal and civil fines in a lawsuit arising out of this business practice.

In a similar lawsuit, Allegran, the maker of the wrinkle-reducing injection Botox, was accused of creating fake “advisory boards” to reward hundreds of its top doctors. The company invited more than 200 advisory board doctors to its “Allergan Institute of Distinction.” The doctors were put up at an oceanfront resort in Newport Beach, California. In addition to the free hotel rooms, the doctors were paid $1,500 to listen to presentations. Allegran eventually settled the lawsuit and paid the federal government $600 million in fines.

As famously observed by Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants” to root out corruption. Public scrutiny of the financial relationships between physicians and drug companies may mean the end of free lunches for doctors, but it should lead to better healthcare for rest of us.

-on-metal devices plummeted following widely reported problems and lawsuits.