Massachusetts Publishes Comprehensive Payment Database
Stacy Borans, MD
In November 2010, Massachusetts health officials published the most comprehensive state database in the country listing payments drug companies and medical device makers made to health care providers in the state. The report lists $35.7 million in payments from hundreds of companies for the six months between July 1 and Dec. 31, 2009, for speaking, consulting, food, educational programs, marketing studies, as well as charitable donations. About half of that money ($16 million) went to physicians.
Any drug or device company doing business in the state was required to begin reporting certain payments over $50, under a law passed two years ago that also bans the companies from providing gifts to physicians. Companies don’t have to disclose funding for research aimed at answering a legitimate scientific question, but do have to report payments for marketing studies that are designed to promote a product.
Industry payments to physicians have come under increasing scrutiny because of critics’ concerns that the money influences doctors to prescribe newer and more expensive medications, helping to drive up the cost of health care. But the companies and many doctors say that physicians should work closely with drug and device companies to help develop new treatments and educate their colleagues—and that it’s only fair they be paid for their time.
The physician receiving the most during the six-month period is Dr. Mary Ann Asbell (Family Practice) in Cambridge, who was paid $194,275 by Genzyme Corp.for unspecified “bona fide services.” However, she is not listed currently as a licensed doctor in Massachusetts, according to the Board of Registration in Medicine as well as the ABMS. The top-paid individual was not a physician but a psychologist: Carole C. Upshur of Worcester earned $250,000 from Allergan. The database can be found at mass.gov/dph/pharmamed.
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