Hey Roberto,

Good question. I think although it is too restricted, it is necessary. In my opinion, if two people are out to discuss business, then only the individuals involved should be there. There is no reason to invite a spouse or family member in such meetings, as they are work related and not social events. I think the point of these restrictions and rules is to prevent unnecessary spending and greed (as Dr. Simon mentioned) of certain individuals. Doctors should have no business using money to go vacation or take gifts from corporations. At the end of the day, this is the same as bribing someone, which may hinder the patient's health in the long run. This is especially true if the product is not as good as better products out there and the doctor is promoting it because he got to vacation at a nice resort or attended a fancy dinner. These regulations are there for the protection of patients, while still allowing business transactions to be done between the physician and corporation.

Hello Roberto,

The gift restrictions are established by the Sunshine Act that came into effect in 2010. I had to personally abide by the restrictions of the Sunshine Act before. We were conducting a clinical study at one of the hospitals. when the study was completed with successful results. The company thought that inviting the Physicians and their team to dinner, just as a thank you for their efforts. When we ran that idea by our legal department, they informed us that we have to make sure that we abide by the Sunshine act. Therefore, we decided to invite the team for MODEST dinner to present the study findings after the company issued a press release of the study results.

Best,
Fady

Roberto,
Fady provides a great example. In my case, whenever dealing with business meetings, it is only the person that is part of the project itself would be eligible to receive the set gifts. Within the industry, these are aspects that are part of the employee training in order to understand the difference from holding an event for educational purpose to holding an event that looks like the company is bribery the physicians in order to get more publicity for their product. And it is something that is kept in check to make sure wherever an event is being held that the necessary guidelines are being followed to prevent bribery.

Hi All,

Thank you very much for the very interesting topic. I would agree that the restrictions in theory seem to be very strict. However I would agree with the level that they are set at. This is due to the fact that bribery can take many forms and can greatly influence people. Thus, having these restrictions avoids situations that can compromise the decisions made. In the medical device and drug industry this is extremely important. If a device or drug is chosen over another it should be for medical purposes, not simply due to the bribery of the doctors.

-Andrew Nashed

Hello everyone,

Although I understand Roberto's perspective, I also agree that the restrictions are important and necessary. Effective January 2012, the Sunshine Act required that pharmaceutical companies and durable medical equipments suppliers report gifts to physicians in excess of $25. I think this is a fair amount, since like Andrew and others have stated, if one was to splurge or spend money on those who are not part of the business project, it would be difficult to prevent bias potentially to the consumer.

-Nicole

Hello Roberto,

Very interesting topic. Although the example you mentioned might be humanely absurd, but I agree with my classmates. The restrictions are highly important. I come from a country where these kind of gift are not restricted at all and people go out of limit with them. When you give someone a really expensive gift or treat them in a delicate way, the greed become limitless and it becomes hard to say no to the person who gave you something like that. The medical field can effect millions of peoples' lives, and if such laws and limits don't exist, the whole world will live in a chaos.

- Lamiaa Abdelaziz

Excellent question; I think it’s very restricted, but the whole process is wrong. Why do the physicians have to take his wife to the business meeting anyway? I agree with the second comment, there is no reason for a spouse or family member to in be in such meeting. I think it can cause problems in the long run in my opinion. The bribing that is done for physicians should be removed, because at the end the doctor job is to make sure the patients are safe. Doesn’t make sense why you have to offer them a money or vacation just to verify they will do a great job. A suggestion I have instead of hiring one physician maybe hire more than one so that we have more than one we can truly ensure patients safety. A question I propose is are companies aware of the intense bribery that occurs?

Almost all companies have an ethics/gift-giving policy in place. In these policies some of them allow you to take a client to a business dinner as long as it clearly business and not personal. These policies are in place to protect the company from a bribery law suit. Take for example a renowned doctor, you can take him to dinner to discuss your product and see if he would be willing to endorse your product. However, you can’t just hand him a check to endorse you. When and if you do this, you are required to file an expense report detailing the intent and reasoning for the meeting. this is rather difficult if these policies aren’t defined within accompany.

Hey Roberto,
The topic is very interesting. Lamiaa has a good example why it is necessary.
I understand, it is very competitive to bring something new in the market, and it makes sense that owners or company considered every angle when it comes to promoting their businesses. Unfortunately, it does not work for healthcare marketing industry. I think restriction is necessary to preventing from any fraud activities and benefit patients since they are the one effecting from all this. And I believe any high cost gifts are intended based to achieve something that is hard to accept.

Hey Andrew,

I certainly agree with that point. Very recently, there have been many doctors from around my area that have gotten in trouble because of bribes. Although many people may think that this does not happen in the real world, it is much more common than people think. Unfortunately, money talks for a lot of people. Having these set limitations helps mitigate this. Although, even with these rules, people still bypass them ilegally.

-Murad

Hey Roberto,

I believe that those guidelines are a bit too restrictive, however they do serve a purpose. Basically, these guidelines are set in place so that a physician who is being pitched a product chooses that product only because it is a good product and not because the rep who sold it to him was courting him. Because of this, it would not make sense to allow the reps to pay for the wife's meal or discuss other things that are not business related. That being said, I'm not sure if these same rules apply to the pharmaceutical industry. My friend works as a pharmaceutical sales rep and tells me all the time that he takes doctors to lunches and they don't always only talk about business. Perhaps this is just one of those rules that is out there but is not strictly enforced. Realistically, who will be doing an audit of an hour long lunch between a sales rep and a physician.

- Saad Ali

The fact of the matter is that whether its done by the books or not, bribery can be done very easily. Paying for a spouse's dinner? That's the least that a company can bribe someone if they wanted to. Besides, this is just a part of business that frankly doesn't even bother to be investigated. People bring clients to baseball games, dinners, etc. Money talks and can usually be used for illegal purposes. Honestly, the best way to deal with something like that is to make it all illegal or make it all legal, because companies are going to push the limits on what they can get away with.

Hi Roberto,

In my opinion, I don’t think its too restrictive, you want to keep business within business, particularly with physicians, you don’t want to introduce bias to what your selling or attempt to bribe the physician. As Dr. Simon mentioned in his lecture and Fady as well, it should be kept modest and to the immediate team only. I’ve noticed whenever I go to the doctor’s they have, “ educational gifts” on display in the patient room from vendors whether it is plastic heart model with the vendor logo or even educational pamphlets for a particular condition, but with vendor logo with propaganda for a particular treatment or drug.

Chris

I'd like to add that criteria for giving and receiving gifts often applies to both sides in a lot of company policies. Specifically, my company's policy is that I am not allowed to receive gifts of any kind, no matter how small. For example, if a vendor sends me flowers to wish me well after an illness for example, I am not allowed to accept them, even though there is clearly no intent of bribery.

As others have mentioned, these strict policies are crucial for companies to avoid lawsuits by eliminating even the appearance of any bribery occurring.