Dollars For Heart Docs: 2015 Edition

–Cardiologists received more than $200 million from industry in 2015. In 2015 cardiologists and other cardiovascular specialists received more than $200 million dollars from industry, according to new data released by Medicare. More than 30,000 physicians in cardiovascular medicine received industry payments in 2015, though many of these payments were relatively small amounts. But more…

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The Hidden Cost Of Free Lunch

–Brand name prescribing increases when industry pays for the meals Physicians who accept free meals from a drug company are more likely to prescribe that company’s brand name drugs, according to a new study in JAMA Internal Medicine. The authors compared data from the Open Payments Database listing industry payments to physicians with Medicare prescribing…

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$300 Million Dollars Of Cardiology Sunshine

$300 million dollars. That’s how much industry paid to cardiologists and other related healthcare professionals between August 2013 and December 2014… … Click here to read my entire story on MedPage Today….

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Continuing Medical Education Payments To Physicians Will Be Exposed To Sunshine

After a long and complicated struggle it now appears highly likely that industry will be required to disclose payments to physicians for continuing medical education (CME). This decision from CMS, which I am told by reliable sources is final, follows a long period in which CMS appeared to waver in its approach to incorporating CME into the…

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More Sunshine: CMS Wants Companies To Report Payments To Physicians For Medical Education

In a major reversal of policy, CMS wants industry to report payments to physicians for continuing medical education. The move would eliminate from the Physician Payment Sunshine Act the current exemption for CME. Initially CMS’s  proposal for implementation of the Sunshine Act required industry to report payments to physicians for CME programs. But after considerable debate and lobbying…

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No Sunshine For Continuing Medical Education

After many long delays, CMS today released the final details of the Sunshine Act. Starting next September all pharmaceutical and device companies will be required to publicly report payments made to US physicians.   However, there is at least one very major exception to this requirement. Although the initial draft of the rules stated that…

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