Alliance for CEHP Hosts Sunshine Act Webinar: Sunshine Effects on CME Left Open; Attendee Meals at CME Events Still Up for Interpretation
The Alliance for Continuing Education in the Health Professions (CEHP) hosted a webinar to discuss federal perspectives on the implementation of the Sunshine Act. Dr. Shantanu Argawal, Medical Director at the Center for Program Integrity at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), outlined the objectives of the Sunshine Act, and addressed specific questions with respect to the Act's exemption for accredited continuing medical education (CME) activities.
Dr. Argawal described the Sunshine Act as essentially a balance between the beneficial aspects of industry-physician relationships, which encourage discovery...
Source: Policy and Medicine - December 9, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
Physician Payment Sunshine Act: Open Payments 101 for Physicians
Conclusion
Policy and Medicine has created a convenient Open Payments: Quick Facts for Physicians one-pager that summarizes key Open Payments information for physician reference. If physicians are well-versed regarding the nature of Open Payments data, they will be in a position to educate patients and place physician-industry relationships in a positive light.
Although the recent QPharma Survey revealed that 41% of PCP's don't know whether informing patients about the meaning of the Open Payments data will give patients a positive understanding of the publicly reported information, another 16% of PCPs think it could ...
Source: Policy and Medicine - December 3, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
Global Database on CME Meetings and Providers
MedMeme LLC, a global leader in providing comprehensive integrated medical and scientific information database platforms to the top pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies recently launched its new MEPmemeTM (MEP) database that offers the latest information on medical education providers, according to a press release from the company.
"This robust product will help pharmaceutical and healthcare professionals such as medical affairs, personnel managers, researchers and pharmaceutical executives to easily filter through the massive amount of data on medical education providers and make the best possible decision on thei...
Source: Policy and Medicine - November 27, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
AAPA Will No Longer Accredit Boehringer Ingelheim (BI)-Supported CME Activities
In conclusion to his letter to the APPA member organizations, Mike stated: "No matter how it is rationalized, in today's environment, perception is reality and neither of our organizations can defend this practice that can easily be characterized as a proxy for content control."
Applications for Constituent Organization (CO) CME approval received prior to Jan. 1, 2014 will be considered under the old approval process.
Update 11/22/13 7:38am Eastern:
According to commenters, BI has taken off the faculty question from their grants system. Will the AAPA withdraw their accreditation exclusion of BI supported CME?
...
Source: Policy and Medicine - November 22, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
Physician Payment Sunshine Act: Open Payments May Cause Physicians to Change Company Interactions – Concerns about Accuracy Persist
Conclusion
Although a vast majority of patients will likely not seek out the CMS website to investigate their doctor's financial relationships with drug and device companies, physicians may want to proactively educate patients about Open Payments. Physicians may also want to be prepared to explain their relationships to various companies and emphasize that the relationships do not influence their treatment decisions.
We recently posted links to resources that may help physicians and practice managers seeking to plan for Open Payments reporting. In the coming days, CMS will host regional webinars to provide an overview ...
Source: Policy and Medicine - November 19, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
Physician Payment Sunshine Act: Congressman Calls for Meals Exemption for Accredited CME
The Physician Payment Sunshine Act (Open Payments) Final Rule has not clarified all of the expectations under the law. The language regarding meals at Continuing Medical Education (CME) events continues to create confusion, and Congressman Robert E. Andrews (D-1st District, New Jersey) is asking the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services to do something about it in a letter dated November 5, 2013.
Exemption Criteria for CME Programs
Congressman Andrews requested that CMS exempt from individual reporting the cost of all food served at CME events for CME speakers/faculty and for CME attendees. The rule already exempts...
Source: Policy and Medicine - November 14, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
Health Leaders Call for Reformation of the Physician Certification Process
A recent post at Health Affairs blog calls for reforming the physician certification process. It is authored by Dr. Alan Muney, Chief Medical Officer at Cigna, and Peter R. Orszag, former Director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Obama Administration and previously the Director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). We have discussed the certification process at length in previous posts.
Muney and Orszag make several arguments.
First: "Currently, doctors are recertified based exclusively on their book knowledge. Wouldn't it be better to base medical certification at least in part on how doctors actual...
Source: Policy and Medicine - November 11, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
University Researchers Are Seen as Enablers in Latest Major Drug Fraud
By Paul BaskenFederal prosecutors on Thursday concluded another multibillion-dollar settlement with a major pharmaceutical company accused of illegally marketing its drugs.In this case, the company was Johnson & Johnson, the total payment was $2.2-billion, and the key drug was Risperdal, which was approved by federal regulators to treat schizophrenia in adults but was being marketed for other patients, including children with behavioral problems.As with similar instances involving other major drug companies in recent years, the case file includes a list of academic researchers who wrote articles for medical journals th...
Source: PharmaGossip - November 8, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
The Bad Ad Program and Prescription Drug Promotion
FDA/Office of Prescription Drug Promotion (OPDP): Continuing Medical Education(CME)/Continuing Education (CE) e-learning course. The Bad Ad Program and Prescription Drug Promotion. This course is designed to increase awareness among practicing health care professionals about misleading drug advertising and promotion. http://bit.ly/17bkXtb (Source: BHIC)
Source: BHIC - November 7, 2013 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Monica Rogers Tags: Public Health Source Type: blogs
Media Outlets Embrace Conferences; Relevance for CME Activities
Sometimes continuing medical education (CME) seems to be a distant cousin of the healthcare industry and not always accorded the proper respect. However, it now seems that print and web media outlets like the NYT, Huffington Post, and Cosmopolitan have discovered conferences and are embracing them as a new source of revenue. Here's a link to the relevant story and below is an excerpt from it (see: Media Outlets Embrace Conferences as Profits Rise):
Financially struggling media companies are racing to add conferences, festivals and other live events to their business strategy, convinced they can provide a reliable reven...
Source: Lab Soft News - November 6, 2013 Category: Pathologists Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Laboratory Industry Trends Medical Education Pathology Informatics Source Type: blogs
Johnson and Johnson 2013 Settlement and Corporate Integrity Agreement
On November 4, 2013, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that Johnson & Johnson (J&J) and its pharmaceutical subsidiaries signed settlement agreements to pay more than $2.2 billion to resolve criminal and civil investigations into unapproved, or "off-label," promotion of three drugs and alleged kickbacks to physicians and nursing home pharmacies over a ten-year period. In 2012, we reported on the largest health care fraud settlement in U.S. history: $3 billion paid by GlaxoSmithKline.
According to the Associated Press, the J&J global settlement is the third-largest health care fraud settlement in U.S...
Source: Policy and Medicine - November 5, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
AAFP Postpones NP and PA Membership
The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) recently announced its intent to study whether nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) should -- or would want to -- become nonvoting members. AAFP's Congress of Delegates decided not to create a new dues-paying membership category for NPs and PAs.
According to Medpage Today, AAFP's Reference Committee on Organization and Finance believed the number of allied health professionals that belong to other primary care physician organizations is small and that "the implementation cost would be significant for the small number of members that join the AAFP." ...
Source: Policy and Medicine - November 4, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
Physician Payment Sunshine Act: CMS Open Payments - Posts Round 6 of Frequently Asked Questions
Now that the government is back at work, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) updated it's frequently asked questions (FAQ) page regarding the Open Payments program—formerly known as the Physician Payment Sunshine Act. This time, CMS labeled the updated FAQs with "NEW!" next to the questions, which are listed towards the bottom of the FAQ page. There are twenty (20) new FAQs.
We have previously provided updates and full-text versions of FAQs (particularly in event of future possible government shutdowns). The fact that CMS continues to issue FAQs makes it interesting to see how the agency will han...
Source: Policy and Medicine - October 30, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
Bias in Non Commercially Supported CME Programs Still Small
CONCLUSION
In summary, attendees comprehend a great deal more in the term commercial influence than simply the impact of industry support on a CME program. Asking attendees to rate bias per lecture and specify sources and manifestations of commercial bias clarifies their perceptions of commercial influence in CME. This study presents a thorough and measurable outline of sources and manifestations of commercial bias, as well as practical recommendations for measuring attendees' perceptions of commercial influence in future CME events. Caution should be taken with policy changes affecting CME funding as we continue to di...
Source: Policy and Medicine - October 28, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
CME Joint Sponsorship Requires Significant Cooperation
As continuing medical education (CME) stakeholders began addressing concerns from commercial supporters about reporting requirements under the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, one area may need particular attention: joint sponsorship.
We previously noted that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) finalized in a Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) that the list of five (5) accrediting bodies is exhaustive. Thus, payments to speakers at CME events that are not run by CME providers accredited or certified by one of these entities are reportable payments or other transfers of value for Open Payments.
Conseq...
Source: Policy and Medicine - October 25, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
