Physician Payment Sunshine: DC Transparency Report, State Transparency Law Updates

ScienceDaily recently reported physician and hospital payments from pharmaceutical companies for the District of Columbia in 2011.  The data was reported by researchers at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS), which found that pharmaceutical companies spent nearly $84 million marketing pharmaceuticals in the DC, slightly less than 2010.    DC publishes their annual reports through a separate webpage hosted through it's Department of Health, dedicated to Prescription Drug Marketing Costs.  Here's the 2011 report, which for some reason was not published until early March 2013. The 2012 report was published in July of last year.  The reports date back to 2007.  In 2010, 132 pharmaceutical companies reported spending a total of $85.4 million on marketing activities in the DC, including $57.6 million on employee and contractor expenses, $21.0 million on gifts and payments, and $6.8 million on advertising.  Physicians received 76% of the gifts given by pharmaceutical companies, and these gifts accounted for 39% of the total value of all gifts. This included an outlay of nearly $19 million (22%) for gifts given to physicians, hospitals and other health care providers.  The gift category is deceiving, however, because it includes “grants, speaker’s fees and food.”    The reporting of such payments will soon be the national standard once the Physician Payment Sunshine Act goes into effect on August 1, 2013....
Source: Policy and Medicine - Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Source Type: blogs