NEWS TRENDS

As companies await the passage of the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, some might reevaluate their compliance management systems. Multiple systems are often used to track the different types of payments, which can lead to confusion. Consulting firm BearingPoint Inc. (McLean, VA) is trying to help firms organize payments so they can make good business decisions.

“As a part of the marketing effort for medical devices, there's a legitimate need to gain input from practitioners in the field,” says Kurt Conger, senior manager at BearingPoint's life sciences practice. “There has always been a partnership between medical device companies and physicians who use their products, and there's an increased scrutiny on that [relationship].”

Many companies want their R&D and marketing departments to be involved with a product's end-users. However, there is concern that while company personnel are collaborating with doctors to collect information, they're also taking them out to lunch, playing golf, and paying for speaking arrangements that might not be necessary, says Conger.

BearingPoint developed its Relationship Management Compliance software after seeing its clients challenged with collecting payment data, because many of them were using up to 10 different systems to manage transactions. The new tool collects and reports information about spending related to healthcare providers and can be integrated into a company's existing software.

“We recognize that there are [many] systems and processes in place [at companies], and a lot of those have merit. We're not recommending that you pull those out and replace them,” says Conger. “But we want the data needed for collecting that total aggregate spend information [so that we can] make it available for both internal analysis and for reporting to states and to be prepared for the Sunshine Act.”

Although having such technology isn't yet a necessity for device firms, it could be soon. Vermont and Minnesota, for example, require drug companies to report physician payments to the federal government each year, but do not require such reporting from device companies. Passage of the Sunshine Act could change this, because it would require both medical device and drug companies to detail payments to doctors.

“One of the objectives is to meet state reporting requirements. But another aspect is to be able to manage internal compliance as well as mandated state requirements,” says Susan Wright, managing director at BearingPoint. The company is educating its clients about how to use its system in the areas of compliance, sales and marketing, and finance.

Although Conger suspects the Sunshine Act won't be passed until after the presidential election, he says the need for device firms to understand payments to customers is present today and growing.

At press time, a new draft of the Sunshine Act was being considered in Congress. It contains several changes suggested by AdvaMed. These include preemption of state disclosure laws to ensure consistency; requiring compliance by physician-owned manufacturers, distributors, and group purchasing organizations; and requiring disclosure information to be displayed in an easy-to-understand manner. AdvaMed said it would also like to see an exemption for firms that pay less than $250,000 per year to physicians.

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