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On August 1, 2013, the first reporting period under the Physician Payment Sunshine Act began. Part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka, “Obamacare”), it requires pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers to publicly report many types of payments made to physicians, which will be public. The Sunshine Act was intended to bring transparency to these relationships, to minimize manufacturers’ influence on physicians’ prescribing behavior.

Recent wins for pharmaceutical marketing research in Maine and DC leave only West Virginia and Vermont as the jurisdictions currently restricting or prohibiting research with physicians and healthcare professionals.

MRA testified this morning on legislation in the Vermont legislature, S. 104, which would legalize research with physicians.

MRA convinced a state legislator to exempt respondent incentives for marketing research from his legislation, which would have banned most payments from pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers to health care professionals.

The new U.S. healthcare law signed by President Obama today includes the Physician Payments Sunshine Act – and an important win for the survey and opinion research profession. Thanks to lobbying by the Marketing Research Association (MRA) and targeted outreach by MRA grassroots volunteers, the Sunshine Act excludes incentive payments for doctors who participate in marketing research projects.

The Minnesota Board of Pharmacy has revised the language of an important Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) to ensure that payments to Minnesota health care practitioners for participation in bona fide market research are NOT prohibited or restricted.

The U.S. survey and research profession testified today before a joint hearing in the Minnesota House and Senate. The Marketing Research Association’s (MRA) Director of Government Affairs, Howard Fienberg, PLC, defended the use of physician incentives in pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturing.

Today, the Marketing Research Association (MRA) announces victory in its lobbying and grassroots actions to protect research with health care practitioners in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Department of Health has issued official guidance exempting market research incentives from the application of the state’s new Marketing Code of Conduct for pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers.

Recent regulations passed in Massachusetts will severely hurt research with healthcare practitioners. The Marketing Research Association (MRA) is calling for all members of the research profession in Massachusetts to take action now.

MRA scored several recent victories in the ongoing fight against legislation to require public reporting of survey research incentives for health care practitioners or that ban them outright. MRA recently helped to convince legislators in Maryland and Rhode Island to withdraw their bills and helped to defeat legislation in Mississippi.