Drugs

HHS Speaker Program Fraud Alert

The HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) says it has significant concerns about companies offering or paying remuneration, and healthcare professionals (HCP) soliciting or receiving remuneration, in connection with speaker programs. “Based on our investigations and enforcement actions,” an OIG fraud alert says, “this remuneration is often offered or paid to induce, or solicited or received in return for, ordering or prescribing items paid for by federal healthcare programs. If the requisite intent is present, both the company and the HCP may be subject to criminal, civil, and administrative enforcement actions.”

The alert says the OIG and Justice Department have investigated and resolved numerous fraud cases involving allegations that remuneration offered and paid in connection with speaker programs violated the anti-kickback statute. It says that cases that have been pursued alleged that drug and medical device companies:

selected high-prescribing HCPs to be speakers and rewarded them with lucrative speaker deals, ranging to hundreds of thousands of dollars;
conditioned speaker remuneration on sales targets;
held speaker programs at entertainment venues or during recreational events or otherwise in a manner not conducive to an educational presentation;
held programs at high-end restaurants where expensive meals and alcohol were served; and
invited an audience of HCP attendees who had previously attended the same program or HCPs’ friends, significant others, or family members who did not have a legitimate business reason to attend the program.

The OIG says its alert is not intended to discourage meaningful HCP training and education. “Rather,” it says, “the purpose of this special fraud alert is to highlight certain inherent risks of remuneration related to speaker programs. Drug and device companies and HCPs should consider the risks when assessing whether to offer, pay, solicit, or receive remuneration related to speaker programs.”

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