New Jersey’s Division of Consumer Affairs recommended tight controls on data-mining, among other limits designed to prevent conflicts of interest in medicine. But health information organizations, it would seem, only have to worry about some of those proposed rules.
The data-mining proposals accompany the division’s Report on Physician Compensation Arrangements, which also covers areas such as gifts, financial disclosure and CME.
Attorney General Anne Milgram issued an endorsement.
However, in order to restrict the use and sale of prescriber-identifiable information for commercial purposes, the report recommends legislation, and this has little chance of advancing with Chris Christie, a Republican, set to replace Democrat John Corzine as governor.
The AG and other cabinet members are expected to tender resignations on inauguration day. Christie is pro-business and pro-pharma. As his chief of staff, he appointed Richard Bagger, a Pfizer executive and former state legislator.
Other data-related provisions could be enacted by the state’s Board of Medical Examiners after a six-month comment period, though.
One calls for notifying doctors, upon renewing their licenses, that they can use AMA’s opt-out program to prevent having Rx information sold by pharmacists. The Board of Pharmacy is also urged to amend its rules to require pharmacies to document doctors’ consent to the sale of data.
From the January 04, 2010 Issue of MM+M - Medical Marketing and Media
