{"id":1890,"date":"2013-03-06T05:41:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-06T00:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.policymed.com\/massachusetts-posts-2011-payments-to-healthcare-providers-3-drop-in-payments\/"},"modified":"2018-05-06T15:38:52","modified_gmt":"2018-05-06T10:38:52","slug":"massachusetts-posts-2011-payments-to-healthcare-providers-3-drop-in-payments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.policymed.com\/2013\/03\/massachusetts-posts-2011-payments-to-healthcare-providers-3-drop-in-payments.html","title":{"rendered":"Massachusetts Posts 2011 Payments to Healthcare Providers: 3% Drop in Payments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">As we have covered numerous times on this website, in 2009, the State of Massachusetts enacted the Massachusetts Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Manufacturer <a href=\"http:\/\/www.policymed.com\/2009\/03\/massachusetts-pharmaceutical-and-medical-device-manufacture-code-of-conduct-final-version.html\">Code of Conduct<\/a> (PCOC).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">After going into effect on July 1, 2009, the PCOC requires the reporting of payments of more than $50 made to any health care practitioner by industry.\u00a0 Payments for 2009 were <a href=\"http:\/\/www.policymed.com\/2010\/11\/physician-payment-sunshine-massachusetts-releases-2009-provider-payments.html\">then published<\/a> on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.policymed.com\/massachusetts-code-of-conduct\/\">states website<\/a> in late November, 2010.\u00a0 The legislation is very similar to the Physician Payment Sunshine Act.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">For a better understanding of Massachusetts\u2019s law and basic definitions of terms, click <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mass.gov\/eohhs\/provider\/licensing\/programs\/pharm-code-of-conduct\/information-for-consumers.html\">here<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">More recently, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health approved <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mass.gov\/eohhs\/docs\/dph\/legal\/pharma-final-regulations.doc\">final amendments<\/a> to the PCOC in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.policymed.com\/2012\/11\/massachusetts-pharmaceutical-and-device-manufacture-code-of-conduct-final-2012-revisions.html\">November of last year<\/a>.\u00a0 The amendments, among other things, allow companies to provide \u201cmodest meals\u201d for healthcare providers for product education (non-CME) outside of the office or hospital setting.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0You can find the current version of the law <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mass.gov\/eohhs\/docs\/dph\/regs\/105cmr970.pdf\">here<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><a class=\"asset-img-link\" style=\"display: inline;\" href=\"http:\/\/policymed.typepad.com\/.a\/6a00e5520572bb8834017c3757201f970b-pi\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e5520572bb8834017c3757201f970b\" title=\"Slide2\" src=\"http:\/\/policymed.typepad.com\/.a\/6a00e5520572bb8834017c3757201f970b-320wi\" alt=\"Slide2\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Consequently, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health recently posted its transparency data\u2014manufacturer payment data to physicians and hospitals\u2014<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mass.gov\/eohhs\/provider\/licensing\/programs\/pharm-code-of-conduct\/data\/prepared-reports.html#manufacturers\">for 2011<\/a>.\u00a0 You can download the full 2011 data <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mass.gov\/eohhs\/provider\/licensing\/programs\/pharm-code-of-conduct\/data\/data-download.html\">here<\/a>. \u00a0Between 2010 and 2011 payments decreased approximately 3%, from about $64.4 million to $62.4 million.\u00a0 The number of transactions between manufacturers and physicians, hospitals, and entities also decreased almost 10% (from 42,497 to just over 38,500).\u00a0 There were also a number of other significant changes:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Payments for charitable donations decreased 62% (over $1.8 million less)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Compensation for bona fide services decreased 7% (over $2.4 million less)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Payments for education and training remained unchanged<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Payments for food decreased 6%<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Payments for marketing studies decreased 42% ; and\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Payments for CME, third-party conferences or meetings increased 16% (over $1.2 million less) .\u00a0 This category includes payments to covered recipients for accredited CME activities and for sponsoring a covered recipient\u2019s scientific or professional conference\/meeting, where the sponsorship is promotional (e.g., booths\/exhibits).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Payments for grants\/educational gifts also increased, 2%. This category includes fellowships, scholarships grants for local events, and provision of anatomical models or other such practice-related items. \u00a0In addition \u201cother\u201d types of payments increased 60%, a little over $1.4 million.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><a class=\"asset-img-link\" style=\"display: inline;\" href=\"http:\/\/policymed.typepad.com\/.a\/6a00e5520572bb8834017c3757233d970b-pi\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e5520572bb8834017c3757233d970b\" title=\"Slide3\" src=\"http:\/\/policymed.typepad.com\/.a\/6a00e5520572bb8834017c3757233d970b-320wi\" alt=\"Slide3\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Payments to specific individuals and entities broke down as follows:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">46% of payments were to physicians (over $28.8 million) (28,844 payments)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">20% were for acute hospitals (over $12.6 million) (889 payments)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">11% to clinical laboratories (over $6.7 million) (949 payments)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">9% for stem cell research (over $5.7 million) (153 payments)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">6% to clinics (over $3.6 million) (134 payments)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">2% to dentists ($1.5 million) (494 payments)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">2% to registered nurses (under $1 million) (3,322 payments)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">2% to pharmacists (under $1 million (1,263 payments)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">1% clinical nurse specialist (~$312K) (302 payments)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Less than .05% to nurse practitioners (~$261K) (749 payments)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">~.3% to physician assistants (~$202K) (639 payments)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">~.15% to podiatrists (~$96K) (165 payments)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">~.05% to optometrists (~$34K) (18 payments)\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">The payment reports are in a similar format as those posted in previous years (see our story from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.policymed.com\/2012\/03\/physician-payment-sunshine-massachusetts-physician-payments-takes-two-months-for-anyone-to-notice.html\">2010 payments<\/a>). \u00a0Thus, the posted data includes:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mass.gov\/eohhs\/docs\/dph\/quality\/healthcare\/pcoc\/2011\/top-20-manufacturers-summary-2011.pdf\">Top 20 Manufacturers Summary<\/a> (2011), which includes <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mass.gov\/eohhs\/docs\/dph\/quality\/healthcare\/pcoc\/2011\/top-20-manufacturers-detail-2011.pdf\">509 pages<\/a> of payments.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mass.gov\/eohhs\/docs\/dph\/quality\/healthcare\/pcoc\/2011\/top-50-physicians-summary-2011.pdf\">Top 50 Physicians Summary<\/a>, including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mass.gov\/eohhs\/docs\/dph\/quality\/healthcare\/pcoc\/2011\/top-50-physicians-detail-2011.pdf\">17 pages<\/a> of payments<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mass.gov\/eohhs\/docs\/dph\/quality\/healthcare\/pcoc\/2011\/top-50-hospitals-summary-2011.pdf\">Top 50 Hospitals, Summary<\/a>, including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mass.gov\/eohhs\/docs\/dph\/quality\/healthcare\/pcoc\/2011\/top-50-hospitals-detail-2011.pdf\">29 pages<\/a> of payments<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mass.gov\/eohhs\/docs\/dph\/quality\/healthcare\/pcoc\/2011\/top-100-covered-recipients-non-hospital-summary-2011.pdf\">Top 100 Covered Recipients<\/a>, Non Hospital, Detail, including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mass.gov\/eohhs\/docs\/dph\/quality\/healthcare\/pcoc\/2011\/top-100-covered-recipients-non-hospital-detail-2011.pdf\">46 pages<\/a> of payments\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">In general, you can search for payments by category type:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Compensation for Bona Fide Services<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">CMEs, Third-party Conferences, or Meetings<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Grants\/Educational Gifts<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Food<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Education\/Training<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Marketing Studies<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Charitable Donation<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Other\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Given the immense expense that went into collecting this data, it is hard to imagine that less than $62 million was spent on compliance, which means that it was more expensive to collect the data than the actual dollars spent.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">States considering expanding transparency to NP\u2019s and PA\u2019s, should consider that in Massachusetts they amounted to less than 1.5% of all payments.\u00a0\u00a0 With state resources strapped for cash there are significantly better ways to control spending than to force companies to spend more on needless additional transparency.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As we have covered numerous times on this website, in 2009, the State of Massachusetts enacted the Massachusetts Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Manufacturer Code of Conduct (PCOC).\u00a0\u00a0 After going into effect on July 1, 2009, the PCOC requires the reporting of payments of more than $50 made to any health care practitioner by industry.\u00a0 Payments [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8920,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77,24],"tags":[1101],"class_list":["post-1890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-massachusetts-code-of-conduct","category-state-policy","tag-new"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.policymed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.policymed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.policymed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.policymed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.policymed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1890"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.policymed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8927,"href":"https:\/\/www.policymed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1890\/revisions\/8927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.policymed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.policymed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.policymed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.policymed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}