Governor Signs bill to Reform Rx Drug Marketing and Control Health Care
Costs
MASSPIRG praises House, Senate and the Governor
Governor Patrick signed the Health Care Cost Control Bill that
will begin to rein in aggressive and inappropriate marketing tactics by drug
companies and medical device companies.
Those excessive marketing tactics have resulted in excessive prescription
drug costs and compromised care. Direct-to-physician
industry marketing promotes the prescribing of expensive drugs in place of
equally safe and effective lower-cost drugs and the prescribing of newer brand
name drugs that have the least safety and efficacy information. The excessive
marketing of Vioxx, for example, led to the prescribing of a new drug that
ended up causing unforeseen heart problems that killed 40,000 people.
“The new law includes common sense consumer reforms which
will enhance health care quality and begin to control costs through efficiency
and transparency,” said Deirdre Cummings, Legislative Director for MASSPIRG. “The
law makes a giant step forward in shining the light rx drug marketing practices
by drug and medical devise companies through the disclosure of anything of more
than $50 value, giving the DPH authority to ban some gifts and issue fines for
non-compliance.”
“The Governor, Senate and House should be commended for
their leadership and determination to protect consumers and enhance our health
care system,” continues Cummings.
The final bill also included the following cost control
reforms:
RX Drug Marketing
Regulations: Requires pharmaceutical and medical device companies to
disclose payments to health care providers of $50 or above to DPH which will
make the disclosures publicly available. Directs DPH to establish regulations
on pharmaceutical and medical device marketing, using the industry’s own Code as a minimum standard, and
establishes a $5000 penalty for violation, enforceable by the Attorney General.
Creation of an
Academic Detailing Program: A much needed counterweight to the
industry’s commercial detailing and gift-giving marketing efforts. Academic detailing programs are
cost-effective ways to improve physician prescribing behavior and so reduce
health care costs: Based on other
states’ experiences with academic detailing programs, Massachusetts can
expect to save two to three dollars for every dollar we spend on academic
detailing.
Use of Uniform Claim
Codes: Currently, nearly one-third
of all dollars spent on health care go toward administrative costs – and much
of that is wasted on managing the tangle of bureaucratic claim codes created by
different insurance plans. Conservative
estimates project that the adoption of uniform claim codes will save Massachusetts
hospitals over $50 million annually in administrative costs.
Public Reporting of
Healthcare-Associated Infections and Serious Reportable Events: Requires facility-specific public reporting
of infections, as already required in twenty-two other states and the reporting
of, and allows for the nonpayment for, serious reportable events.
Taken together, these provisions will begin to contain the
cost of health care in the commonwealth helping Massachusetts
citizens continue to have access to affordable health care.
