Draft US bill on payments to physicians imposes strict disclosure rules
This article was originally published in RAJ Devices
Executive Summary
Senators Charles Grassley (Republican - Iowa) and Herb Kohl (Democrat - Wisconsin) have reintroduced legislation that seeks to impose strict rules for disclosing financial relationships between medical device companies and doctors, including requiring the creation of a national registry of industry payments to physicians1. The Physician Payments Sunshine Act now has a lower payment disclosure threshold - namely requiring drug and device companies to publicly report the payments, consulting fees, honoraria and other “transfers” they give to doctors over $100 every year. In the previous version of the bill (S 2029), the threshold was $5002. The information would be posted on a federal website for public viewing in 2011.