Sunshine act

France is implementing the equivalent of the Sunshine act contained in the US affordable care act. Physicians will risk to be sued if they don’t disclose their links of interest with industry, would they work for medical research or continuous medical education. The spirit is US imported because French have been until now very reluctant to speak about money and revenues. In an earlier post entitled “Dollars for docs” we have discussed the way American deal with it: a total accountability.  But it is not a desperate case for the French touch: the law includes a welcomed exception:  ”normal working relationships” (relations normales de travail) should fall out of the scope of the law . Further more, last but not least, by which mean the disclosed links will be published is not fixed for the moment. The journalist of “Policy and Medicine” concludes his article with this wise sentence, reflecting his deep knowledge of France: “The French are not known for such drastic measures, it is almost certain that whatever they adopt will be changed to a form that works best in the French system. “

Image via Wikipedia

How the most powerful nation in the world intends to deal with the health gap between it’s poorest and richest citizens

USA is moving forward improving its social security with a National Prevention Strategy, and an affordable care act (ACA). The midyear congress of health services professionals is debating the issues with a typically american enthusiasm. A big deal indeed: 32 million american people have no health care access by lacking of insurance coverage. One important aspect of the ACA is to track and having no tolerance to social security fraud.