RI Physicians Received $24M in Payments for Speaking, Travel, Food & Beverages, and More
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Federal data shows that over a three and a half year period, some 3,542 physicians in Rhode Island received over $24 million in payments from drug and medical device companies.
The 50 physicians receiving the largest amount of payments received over half of the $24 million, pulling in more than $12.8 million.
The payments from the companies include millions for speaking, travel, education and food and beverages.
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The physician who received the most in payments is Michael Bradley. In the time period between 2013 to 2016, he received $771,000 in payments.
Travel payments topped $39,800 and food and beverage exceeded $7,500 but these numbers are dwarfed by the more than $280,000 he received in consulting fees and hundreds of thousands in speaking fees. Bradley is the chief of orthopedic surgery at South County Hospital.
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He did not respond to requests for comments on the story.
The physician who received the fourth highest amount of payments did speak with GoLocal.
Rizvi Says the Activities Are Critical
Dr. Syed Rizvi, the Director of the Rhode Island Hospital Multiple Sclerosis Center and Associate Professor of Clinical Neurosciences at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, spoke to the more than half million dollars in payments he received in three and half years for consulting and promotional speaking on drugs such as Betaseron (Bayer Healthcare), Gilenya (Novartis Pharmaceuticals), Tecfidera (Biogen, Inc.) and more.
“I’m a MS specialist,” said Rizvi, who is board certified in psychiatry and neurology, and is the chairman of the Clinical Advisory Committee of the Rhode Island chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. “[Some of] the programs involve patient education programs. The consulting agreements are different, [those] might be an advisory board. I have one next month that’s regarding a product that’s in the pipeline. They invite specialists to get what the feeling is [for the product] and that’s opinion based, and they pay you for your time.”
“Then there are speaking programs that are FDA approved,” said Rizvi. “[For example], take a patient education program in Fall River. I would go and there will be 20-30 patients — one could be a disease-state program [about] understanding MS and presenting a topic about MS and the patients will ask you all kinds of questions. Once in a while, you have peer programs, practitioners who want to learn more about the product.”
Rizvi said his speaking and consulting work does not interfere with his practice — and spoke to how the proliferation of MS treatments makes his position unique.
“There’s no interference with my practice, I’m there five days a week,” said Rizvi. “These programs are dinner meetings, usually later in the day after you're done. Look at the numbers of other MS specialists in the country — I think I’d be on the low side [of payments]."
"The treatment of MS is relatively new in the last 15 years. If you look at it since 1993, there are 15, 16 new products. And there may be pre-products, and the need for patient support. I don’t have to, but I have the opportunity to do it. It’s all transparent.” Rizvi said that if he brings up drugs he has gotten money for consulting or speaking, he is legally required to tell patients. “The first thing I tell them I’m being paid and sponsored by this company. You [literally] have to speak it out,” said Rizvi. “And if it’s off label, I can’t answer those questions.”
More than 1,400 Payments
Dermatologist Ellen Frankel — the physician who received the fifth highest amount in payments -- received 1,407 payments totaling $480,000. Pharmaceutical and medical device companies are required by law to release details of their payments to a variety of doctors and U.S. teaching hospitals for promotional talks, research and consulting, among other categories. The data was collected from the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare by ProPublica.
Related Slideshow: RI Doctors Receiving the Most Money from Drug Companies - Total Payments
The following information was compiled by ProPublica for industry payments between August 2013 and December 2016.
