Dollars for Doctors
How Industry Money Reaches Physicians
ProPublica is tracking the financial ties between doctors and medical companies.
Error: You Have No Payments from Pharma
Doctors checking a soon-to-be-unveiled federal website that will publicly list drug company payments are encountering error messages if they have not accepted industry money.
Leaders of Teaching Hospitals Have Close Ties to Drug Companies, Study Shows
Nearly every large drug maker based in the United States had at least one academic medical center official on its board, raising questions about their independence.
Reporting Recipe: Dollars for Docs
With more data on relationships between doctors and drug companies soon to be released, here are some ways journalists can use this information.
Double Dip: Doctors Paid to Advise, Promote Drug Companies That Fund Their Research
Research has been seen as less objectionable than other forms of interactions with drug companies, but 10 percent of researchers have multiple ties among the nine companies ProPublica analyzed. That raises questions about doctors’ impartiality.
Doctor Payments on the Decline
Pharmaceutical company payments to health care professionals dropped between 2011 and 2012 among most of the companies and categories ProPublica tracks, driven in part by increased transparency as well as blockbuster drugs losing patent protection. Research payments, however, have increased among that group.
As Full Disclosure Nears, Doctors’ Pay for Drug Talks Plummets
As transparency increases and blockbuster drugs lose patent protection, drug companies have dramatically scaled back payments to doctors for promotional talks. This fall, all drug and medical device companies will be required to report payments to doctors.
Freed of Disclosure Requirement, Drug Maker Pulls Doctor Payments Offline
Drugmaker Cephalon had been required to post its payments to doctors online as part of a lawsuit settlement. After its agreement expired, it removed them from its website.
GlaxoSmithKline to Quit Paying Doctors for Promotional Talks
The sixth-largest drug maker already had begun cutting back on paid speaking, ProPublica’s Dollars for Docs database shows.
Pay to Prescribe? Two Dozen Doctors Named in Novartis Kickback Case
The drug maker denies wrongdoing, but the Justice Department and a whistleblower say Novartis used cash and meals to get doctors to prescribe its drugs.
Heart of Nerd Darkness: Why Updating Dollars for Docs Was So Difficult
We updated Dollars for Docs last week. Why is updating it so difficult?
Dollars for Docs Mints a Millionaire
New data show drugmakers’ payments to hundreds of thousands of doctors, and some have made well over $500,000.
About the Dollars for Docs Data
Details behind our drug company money database.
Feds to Publicize Drug and Device Company Payments to Doctors Next Year
After a long delay, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services published final rules for the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, which would bring transparency to financial relationships between physicians and industry.
Chatting With the Reporters Behind Dollars for Docs
Charlie Ornstein and Tracy Weber talk about the money docs get from drug companies, and why it matters.
American Pain Foundation Shuts Down as Senators Launch Investigation of Prescription Narcotics
Sens. Baucus and Grassley demand evidence of financial support from the drug industry to nonprofit groups that advocate use of opioid painkillers, including the newly defunct American Pain Foundation.
Allergan Erases Doctor Payment Records
You can still find some older Allergan payments in ProPublica's Dollars for Docs database, along with data from 11 other drug companies.
Senate Watchdog Targets High-Prescribing Medicaid Docs
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, wants to know why an Ohio doctor wrote 54 prescriptions per weekday for the antipsychotic Abilify, while the biggest prescriber of Seroquel wrote an average nine prescriptions per hour.
Drug Companies Reduce Payments to Doctors as Scrutiny Mounts
Continued reporting on the influence of pharmaceutical money on medicine spurred tighter rules at medical schools across the nation.
The Champion of Painkillers
The annual death toll from overdoses of painkillers has reached almost 15,000, prompting the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to term it an "epidemic." But the American Pain Foundation continues to claim the risks are overblown. The advocacy group's biggest supporter? The drug industry.
Two Leaders in Pain Treatment Have Long Ties to Drug Industry
American Pain Foundation board members Scott Fishman and Perry Fine, both physicians, have lectured and authored publications funded by makers of narcotic painkillers. They say the support doesn’t bias them.
