Hospitals’ ownership and location are major predictors of how many of their doctors accept industry cash, according to an investigation from ProPublica.
The South leads other regions of the country in the proportion of hospital-affiliated doctors who accept meals, consulting and promotional payments from phamaceutical and medical device companies, according to the publication. Doctors affiliated with for-profit providers took such payments in greater percentages than counterparts at government and nonprofit providers, the article noted.
Despite the greater proportions in the South, New Jersey doctors led the other states in industry interactions, with nearly 80 percent of Garden State hospital doctors taking payments in 2014 compared to a national rate of 66 percent. However, ProPublica noted, the states with the next five highest rates--Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, South Carolina and Alabama--were all in the South. Vermont had the lowest rate of industry interactions at 19 percent.
Doctors receiving such payments have an obligation to their patients to be transparent about them, critics say. “Maybe they’re prescribing or treating you as a patient not based on evidence but rather based on markets or industry gain or personal gain,” Kelly Thibert, M.D., president of the American Medical Student Association, the body that assesses medical schools and teaching hospitals on their conflict-of-interest policies, told ProPublica. Patients must “be aware that this could potentially be an issue and they need to speak up for themselves and their loved ones who may be in those hospitals,” Thibert said.
The report also found hospitals with tighter controls on potential conflicts of interest, such as prohibitions on industry rep meals, had fewer payments to doctors.
- read the ProPublica piece