November 2001 • POST-ASSEMBLY EDITION
Physician gifts draw HHS scrutiny
Tucked in amidst other action items in the HHS Office of Inspector General's work plan for fiscal year 2002 is an innocuous-appearing item announcing that OIG officials intend to "evaluate the extent of gifts and payments to physicians from pharmaceutical companies."
"We just wanted to get a sense of what's going on right now," said HHS/OIG spokesperson Katherine Harris.
Citing the nearly $12 billion spent annually on pharmaceutical marketing to physicians, the HHS document notes, "Some of these gifts may present an inherent conflict of interest between the legitimate business goals of manufacturers and the ethical obligation of providers to prescribe drugs in the most rational way."
AAFP has already taken decisive steps to address this and related issues through its creation of the "Principles for Cooperation" initiative, a voluntary agreement between the Academy and 16 pharmaceutical firms in which all parties pledge to honor the AMA Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs guidelines on gifts to physicians from industry.
Further information about this initiative can be found at http://www.aafp.org/cooperation on AAFP's Web site.
The OIG work plan notes, "Gifts may also violate the Federal anti-kickback statute if they are intended to induce referrals," a reference to the AMA guidelines stipulation that there must be "no strings attached" to gifts given to physicians.
"We want to see how well those sort of regulations and guidelines are being followed," Harris said. "The system has made a lot of people upset. We believe there are a lot of people who want to talk about this."
Although work on the OIG investigations has not yet begun, it could soon, given that the federal fiscal year runs from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30.
Past investigations, Harris noted, have included activities ranging from visits to physicians' offices to reviews of financial records, although she could not speculate about precisely what tack would be taken in this series of investigations.
Once the investigations are completed, results will be posted on the HHS/OIG Web site at http://www.os.dhhs.gov/oig/.
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department.
Copyright © 2001 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
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