Senator ‘s Charles Grassley and Herb Kohl yesterday released a press release that included summary of the latest version of the Physician Payment Sunshine Act. Senators praise growing support for transparency in drug industry payments to physicians
At the same time they announced the support of Pharmaceutical Manufacture, Eli Lilly came out yesterday in support of the revised bill, along with several other endorsements including the AAMC.
The Bill:
Reporting: beginning 3/31/2011 any payment or transfer of value or ownership
Penalties: $1,000 to $5,000 per failure to report, with an annual cap of $50,000, and
$5,000 to $50,000 per knowing failure to report, with an annual cap of $250,000.
Website – posted on a website through HHS
Preemption – preempts state reporting requirements
Delayed reporting — for two year or until FDA Approval
Definitions — includes all drug, device and medical supply companies.
Covered recipient: a physician, medical practice or entity that receives payment on the request of or designated on behalf of a physician.
Expenses does not include anything under $25.00 in value, product samples, certain education materials and direct training, and equipment loans
In their press release the senators praised Eli Lilly for their letter of endorsement:
“Eli Lilly deserves credit for its endorsement of the Sunshine Act and the leadership role it is taking for greater transparency in the pharmaceutical industry. Eli Lilly has been posting online its payments to medical organizations and others. The company’s forward-looking endorsement of legislation to require reporting of financial relationships between drug and device makers and physicians will be valuable in building more support for this important reform,”
“Lilly…believes this legislation represents an important step in building public trust and confidence in the relationships between the pharmaceutical and device industries and physicians,”
John Lechleiter, Lilly’s new CEO, in a statement about this bill stated. “This will help provide the assurance that Lilly runs its business consistent not only with our principles, but with the principles that a healthcare provider or patient should expect from a pharmaceutical company.”
Another recent endorsement came from Association of American Medical Colleges letter of endorsement Grassley said. “I also appreciate the persuasive and principled support of the Association of American Medical Colleges. Transparency brings about accountability and benefits everyone, consumers most of all.”
Also as part of this they released a Side-by-side comparison of proposed legislation with existing state law
This bill is significantly more reasonable than the house version, already one group of radical state legislators, NLARX have come out against the proposed revision. NLARX PPSA release 51308
We are still evaluating the language of the bill and will post additional thoughts in the coming days.
Since this report in January 2009 Senators have introduced the 2009 version of the bill: Physician Payment Sunshine Act 2009 Introduced
In addition we will be posting comparisons of both the draft and the new bill.