why interested only about payements to your local doctor.
How about payments to the CEO of your local heath center, he or she is probably on the board of several drug companies, device makers and /or health insurance companies. How about payements to your local congressman by the all those folks.
I wonder who gets paid more by industry the local doc or the people who are in charge of healthcare today. Maybe the NYTimes can ask some of their advertisers and let us know.
How about payments to the CEO of your local heath center, he or she is probably on the board of several drug companies, device makers and /or health insurance companies. How about payements to your local congressman by the all those folks.
I wonder who gets paid more by industry the local doc or the people who are in charge of healthcare today. Maybe the NYTimes can ask some of their advertisers and let us know.
Accuracy ? In their kickbacks and other incentives to doctors? We should all assume that Big PhARma distorts and lies about such things. After all, they are the greediest of the greedy when it come to separating us from our money
This article is VOID of myriad correct facts. I counted multiple mistakes myself. Lantus does indeed come in a vial and Novo does have disease state ONLY discussions, a separate sales group to do this and solely this; it is not a factor of incorrect reporting.
More research necessary before spouting off facts. Did you inquire why the reporting a happen the way they do? It is apparent you did not. I give this article a C-.
Also, what was your objective in this piece?
More research necessary before spouting off facts. Did you inquire why the reporting a happen the way they do? It is apparent you did not. I give this article a C-.
Also, what was your objective in this piece?
Well Gee it would seem that the database is basically a worthless waste of money and effort. Individuals should investigate medications and decide for themselves which are appropriate for them. If doctors can be bribed I would not trust them to doctor me.
The complexity and difficulty of navigating the federal web site makes Dollars for Docs, the web site operated by ProPublica, the much preferred site for checking this information http://projects.propublica.org/docdollars/
The incompetence of the designers of the federal web site is one more example of horrible contracting for IT services by the federal government. I am suspicious that the entire contracting process of CMS & HHS for IT services is either idiotic or corrupt or both.
The incompetence of the designers of the federal web site is one more example of horrible contracting for IT services by the federal government. I am suspicious that the entire contracting process of CMS & HHS for IT services is either idiotic or corrupt or both.
1
The drug companies can't spell , the doctors can't write, no one can fill out a form accurately, and I'm taking a drug called "other"?
Excuse me, they didn't fill out the forms correctly? This is a database so why didn't they develop an online submission process? There were hundreds of thousands of submissions imagine the costs involved by the submitter and the government. I expect many of the payments were generated by electronic systems within the drug companies. It is likely that the costs making these additional reports electronically would be far less than writing them by hand. The government compounded the waste when they retained what would likely be dozens of data entry personnel to enter the reports into the system. Again the costs to accommodate online entry would be a fraction of the manual entry approach. The technology suggested is decades from state of the art. The size of the data base would easily fit on a typical business laptop.
As I was typing I realized that is likely that the folks performing the IT functions are likely to closely related to the incompetents who managed the ACA website. Say no more.
As I was typing I realized that is likely that the folks performing the IT functions are likely to closely related to the incompetents who managed the ACA website. Say no more.
4
The Open Payments database seems like a creative solution to a serious problem -- pervasive, unethical and profit-motivated collusion between physicians and the pharmaceutical industry. The hiccups described here are disappointing, but probably not insurmountable.
But can the idea work? It would be up to the public to actually monitor these data and, when necessary, to raise the proverbial stinks. And then up to the public and their elected officials to act -- to chase the miscreants through the maze of legal loop-holes and work-arounds. And catch them. Is that all going to happen?
I'm reminded of the analogous situation of campaign finance, where the public routinely meets equally egregious distortions of the public trust -- by Big Money -- with big collective yawns.
Sometimes Adam Smith's invisible hand just won't stay out of the cookie jar. Then, the only effective solution is to take away the cookie jar -- period. Why do we allow physicians to become highly-paid shills for the pharmaceutical industry? Some perverse allegiance to "free markets"? As if! What greater good can that possibly serve? No good at all, and much harm.
Effective legislation would smash this dangerous cookie jar once and for all; it would make other, well-intentioned but weaker solutions like the Open Payments database superfluous. And it would work. It's long past due.
But can the idea work? It would be up to the public to actually monitor these data and, when necessary, to raise the proverbial stinks. And then up to the public and their elected officials to act -- to chase the miscreants through the maze of legal loop-holes and work-arounds. And catch them. Is that all going to happen?
I'm reminded of the analogous situation of campaign finance, where the public routinely meets equally egregious distortions of the public trust -- by Big Money -- with big collective yawns.
Sometimes Adam Smith's invisible hand just won't stay out of the cookie jar. Then, the only effective solution is to take away the cookie jar -- period. Why do we allow physicians to become highly-paid shills for the pharmaceutical industry? Some perverse allegiance to "free markets"? As if! What greater good can that possibly serve? No good at all, and much harm.
Effective legislation would smash this dangerous cookie jar once and for all; it would make other, well-intentioned but weaker solutions like the Open Payments database superfluous. And it would work. It's long past due.
5
You're right. Medicine should be a profession first, a business second. But we're always in the position of having to hold onto our wallets.
Establishing regularities and concealing them in the name of profit is a well known game. Pharmaceutical companies and their shills are masters at this. Fortunately they now have to hide this activity from groups whom are just as committed to ferreting them out as they are to the rip-off. The NFL has denied the existence of concussion related long term injuries in much the same way as Big Pharm has played the consuming public for fools. The diagnosis and etiologies of concussion are as old as the hills. Lying and stealing have been on the lists of "do nots" for a long time including those which Moses is said to have brought down from the mountain.
Trade Groups and Lobbyists are well recognized enablers of wrongdoing. Lawmakers have their hands out and are scared witless of losing elections. Publicizing these wrongdoings and discussing them ad nauseam is the most effective way to change this currently accepted behavior. We may also think about reducing the incarceration rate of petty offenders. We will then have space for some real criminals.
Trade Groups and Lobbyists are well recognized enablers of wrongdoing. Lawmakers have their hands out and are scared witless of losing elections. Publicizing these wrongdoings and discussing them ad nauseam is the most effective way to change this currently accepted behavior. We may also think about reducing the incarceration rate of petty offenders. We will then have space for some real criminals.
6
I believe the "errors" were made on purpose or just because the corporations had no incentive to provide accurate information. They probably assigned the work to entry-level workers. I base this on my experience working in government reporting for an extremely large corporation directly out of college. I was provided with very little instruction and I realized later that they did not want the data submitted to reflect the truth and that there would be no repercussions to them. As soon as I realized that I transferred to a different part of the corporation where my work had meaning.
7
Did the authors really believe the companies making payments to doctors would provide a clear road map for lawyers searching for qui tam (whistle blower) lawsuits? "There's no indication that companies were being deliberately evasive". Duh! The data base wasn't intended for the general public, or journalists. It's intended for lawyers with time on their hands to mine it in order to identify potential defendants in qui tam lawsuits, in the hope that fear of being a defendant will discourage doctors from receiving, and companies from making, millions in questionable payments.
3
What potential qui tam cases are you talking about?
Doctor - patient trust is the core of the health care delivery system and such errors undermine that trust. The opacity in health care can lead to inflated costs---a problem industry-wide---but one that public institutions must work especially hard to alleviate in order to accomplish their mission of providing quality care as the steward of scarce public dollars.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services should address these problems quickly to strengthen the integrity of the doctor-patient relationship and the health care delivery system overall.
Ramanathan Raju, MD, MBA, FACS, FACHE
President & Chief Executive Officer
New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation