Saint Francis Hospital in Bartlett has the highest percentage of doctors who accept industry payments, according to a ProPublica.org article.
The story covers U.S. hospitals with at least 50 affiliated doctors and the analysis uses 2014 data. It reports on doctors listed by Medicare as having primary affiliations to a particular hospital. At Saint Francis-Bartlett, ProPublica reported that 59 of 62 doctors took such payments, a rate of 95 percent.
The hospital’s response to this analysis mentioned support for transparency and disclosure.
“We supported the enactment of the Physician Payments Sunshine Act because we believe that transparency is important,” wrote spokesman Derek Venckus. “Patients should have the ability to access information about any relationship that might exist between their doctor and the companies who make the products that might be recommended for their care, so that they can discuss that information directly with their physician.”
The ProPublica analysis found that where a hospital is located and who owns it make a big difference in how many of its doctors take meals, consulting and promotional payments from pharmaceutical and medical device companies.
Another ProPublica article reported that accepting even one inexpensive meal from a company was associated with a higher rate of prescribing the product to which the meal was linked.
For more information, see the ProPublica article online at bit.ly/SFB_payments.
Search for how other hospitals ranked at bit.ly/HospitalLookUp.
