Are sham consulting agreements, sham royalty agreements, and lavish trips to desirable locations influencing a surgeons decision to recommend the use of medical devices? Are large consulting fees paid to doctors for little or no work? When device companies are sending scores of doctors to nice resorts under the guise of training and education on products, do they stick to the limits of rules and regulations?
IIP > read on here > http://www.philly.com…
…a system of five-, six- and seven-figure payments to doctors in royalties, consulting deals and speaking fees.
Those financial arrangements, long an open secret in the medical community, have now come under intense scrutiny from federal prosecutors and members of Congress – who are considering legislation requiring disclosure.
Critics question whether the payments can present a conflict of interest by skewing doctors’ judgments on how best to treat their patients. At the same time, some concede that payments to pioneering surgeons who help design and patent artificial joints and other medical devices are legitimate.
Federal investigators who have examined the deals have in some cases found large consulting fees paid to doctors for little or no work, lavish trips disguised as medical seminars, and direct payments to surgeons that seemed aimed at convincing them to use a company’s products.
Last year, a U.S. attorney in New Jersey filed criminal complaints alleging that four of the largest artificial-joint makers conspired to violate a federal anti-kickback statute by making payments to surgeons as inducements to use their medical devices…
In 2006, device-maker Medtronic Inc. of Minneapolis agreed to pay $40 million to settle accusations that it paid kickbacks to spinal doctors. The company did not admit wrongdoing.
In the case, which began with a whistleblower complaint, the government alleged that “Medtronic paid kickbacks in a number of forms, including sham consulting agreements, sham royalty agreements, and lavish trips to desirable locations.”
In a 2003 e-mail to a whistle blower, a Medtronic lawyer said he would pay for golf and theme-park visits, but thought it would be a good idea to have the doctors kick in for the fishing, sailing and surfing…
Now, the cardiac-device industry is getting a close look as well.
Medtronic, in corporate filings, said it is cooperating with Philadelphia U.S. Attorney Patrick L. Meehan’s inquiry into payments to doctors who put in stents and other heart implants.
Meehan would not discuss the investigation. In general, he said, doctors should be giving feedback to device makers. But when financial ties don’t “pass the smell test . . . you begin to invite scrutiny,” he said.
Even if a doctor performs a real service, Meehan noted, a payment can still be a kickback if the goal is to sway the doctor to use the product.
Medtronic and several other heart-device makers also have been asked to supply information to investigators for the U.S. Senate.