Full article reprinted from "The Gray Sheet" - June 23, 2008
As device makers ready themselves for stricter oversight of their relationships with doctors, the Medical Device Manufacturers Association has signed a partnership with a compliance consulting firm that will give MDMA members special access and discounts on compliance software tools and services.
Under the multi-year deal, announced June 13 at MDMA's annual meeting in Washington, D.C., New Jersey-based R-Squared Services and Solutions will offer members a reduced price on consulting services and a "complete compliance system," due out by the end of the year, designed to foster best practices for tracking financial relationships with physicians.
Members will also have "special access" to currently available systems including Arrangements Keeper, which merges internal controls and data to demonstrate that physician and manufacturer relationships are compliant, and SpendTracker, which tracks, sorts, trends and reports on aggregate spending.
Speaking at the MDMA meeting, R-Squared managing member Michael Bell warned that in an anonymous survey of physicians, more than three dozen admitted to gathering evidence for federal investigators focusing on fraud and abuse.
To avoid being subject to "veiled ultimatums" from doctors who threaten to switch allegiances to other firms if they don't become paid consultants, Bell advised device manufacturers to have formal systems in place defining their needs from physician consultants and determining in advance what criteria they will use to select doctors to fill those needs.
