A health tech start-up company out of Silicon Valley agreed to pay $145 million in fines after admitting to working with a pharmaceutical company to drive opioid prescriptions. The company, called Practice Fusion, developed an electronic medical system they offered to doctors free of charge. Instead of charging for the system, the company generated revenue by advertising to doctors, and encouraging them to prescribe opioids.
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According to a news release by the Department of Justice, “As part of the criminal resolution, Practice Fusion admits that it solicited and received kickbacks from a major opioid company in exchange for utilizing its EHR (electronic health record) software to influence physician prescribing of opioid pain medications.”
The company was specifically at fault for soliciting a $1 million payment from an opioid company. Practice Fusion used the money to encourage doctors to prescribe more extended release opioids by creating an alert that went off when the doctor was in the room with a patient. According to a report by Reuters, Purdue Pharma was the company paying the kickback.
Christina E. Nolan, U.S. Attorney for the District of Vermont, explained, “The companies illegally conspired to allow the drug company to have its thumb on the scale at precisely the moment a doctor was making incredibly intimate, personal, and important decisions about a patient’s medical care, including the need for pain medication and prescription amounts.”
In recent years, the devastating effects of wanton opioid use have become unmistakable, with opioid overdoses killing 47,600 Americans in 2017 alone. As of June 2017, opioids became the leading cause of death among Americans under the age of 50, and President Trump declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency in October of that year.
While the opioid crisis was largely manufactured by drug companies hell-bent on maximizing profits, leading to exaggerated and even fraudulent claims about the drugs' safety profile, the increased availability of opioids isn't the sole cause. To learn more about the opioid epidemic and the causes behind it, read, “Opioid Crisis — A Result of Poverty, Availability and Pain.”