Drug companies have made payments to doctors for promoting their drugs for many years. Do you know if your medical experts or even the treating doctors in litigated cases have accepted these heretofore secret payments? Are any of these payments related to a drug or medical device at the heart of your case?

Currently, at least 15 drug companies have voluntarily disclosed such payments. The good news is that ProPublica’s Dollars for Docs’ database is easy to search and available to the public. While contributing drug companies may report different data, Dollars for Docs offers one more tool to help determine if the treating clinicians or your medical experts are free of any conflicts of interest!

Have a look for yourself, at https://propublica.org/docdollars

Looking ahead in 2014, the Affordable Care Act requires all pharmaceutical and medical device companies to begin publicly reporting this data (not including payments for research studies or providing continuing medical education). Stay tuned for updates about drug company money and ACA’s mandated government sponsored databases.

As a former Hospital Administrator, Rick Litzky, VP of Business Development at Medical Legal Spider, brings a unique perspective to our changing healthcare delivery system and effects on medical injury litigation. Please contact Rick directly to answer questions, request future research on a topic of your interest or to learn more about Medical Legal Spider’s innovative solutions for improving the medical review experience. He may be reached at 855-677-4337 or rlitzky@medicallegalspider.com