Practice Fusion, Once Backed By Top VCs, Pushed Doctors To Prescribe Opioids in Kickback Scheme (techcrunch.com) 39
Practice Fusion, a medical records startup that attracted more than $150 million from VCs, including at Founders Fund, Kleiner Perkins, and Artis Ventures, has received its share of negative press since selling to its older, publicly traded rival Allscripts in a $100 million cash deal in early 2018. Yet it appears that Practice Fusion, founded in 2005, was run even more poorly than has been previously reported. TechCrunch: In fact, the company was just tied to the drug overdose epidemic that has killed tens of thousands of Americans in just the last few years alone. How is it possible that a seemingly boring, venture-backed, San Francisco-based medical records startup could have that kind of impact? In a word: kickbacks. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Practice Fusion solicited and received pay from an (unnamed for now) major opioid company in exchange for using its EHR software to influence doctors in the act of prescribing opioid pain medications. Specifically, according to court documents released earlier today by federal prosecutors in Vermont, Practice Fusion solicited a nearly $1 million payment from the opioid company, promising that in exchange it would create alerts in its software that would cause physicians to write more prescriptions for extended release opioids than were medically needed. Practice Fusion has agreed to pay $145 million to resolve the DOJ's criminal and civil investigations, including a $26 million criminal fine and a $118.6 million civil settlement that "also resolves allegations of kickbacks relating to thirteen other CDS arrangements where Practice Fusion agreed with pharmaceutical companies to implement CDS alerts intended to increase sales of their products."
I dunno, maybe they should be charged with murder (Score:5, Insightful)
in addition to just paying a fine.
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Move fast. Break things. Millennials.
Little hard to tell the guy's age (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh I'm sorry, when something goes right we credit management & investors, but when it goes pear shaped that's the employees. See, I had it backwards. Silly me. Too much avocado toast I guess.
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Too much avocado toast I guess.
Millennial's and their cartels [latimes.com]...
Re:Little hard to tell the guy's age (Score:4, Insightful)
Practice Fusion was the company. The VCs were Founders Fund and are definitely Millennials. Ironic beards and horned rimmed glasses and all. I know you think the new generation is noble or something, but you have a big surprise coming.
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There is nothing about the statement "here, take this money to grow your business" that sounds like "break the law and kill people while you're doing it."
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Apparently, if you're a corporation, the going rate for manslaughter is about 14K/head and no time served.
Algorithm (Score:3)
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Too much money involved (Score:3, Insightful)
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CONTRIBUTIONS $362,885 LOBBYING $240,000 (2019)
Mostly to Democrats, but quite a lot to Republicans too.
That is how you get away with committing crimes. If you don't like it, buy your own Senators.
Why are any involved companies still around? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Because they are the biggest VCs in San Francisco. Think Peter Thiel.
Re:Why are any involved companies still around? (Score:4, Insightful)
Bonus!
Because they're members of the ruling class (Score:2)
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They were criminally working to misdiagnose patients to get them addicted to opiods to profit an opiod manufacturer. That is a crime, no according to law, all consequences for breaking the law become associated with the initial crime. So drug addiction from a false diagnosis leading to an overdose is, tah dah, murder. So now the US criminal injustice system has put a price on your murder and corporations can now calculate whether it is more profitable to kill you or leave you alone, insanity.
Where is the c
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Where is the class action law suit,
The lawyers would get millions, the plaintiffs would get a coupon for 50 cents off their next purchase of opioids.
Clearly we need to deregulate the industry (Score:1)
The free hand of the market will solve all this, right?
Those who were truly affected will get (Score:1)
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nothing.
Those most deeply affected don't need to get anything. They're dead.
Bribing the doctors directly wasn't enough? (Score:5, Informative)
Drug companies already bribe doctors directly through their sales force, sponsoring "educational conferences" that just happen to be in resort destinations, etc. I guess (the unnamed company) thought they could spend a little less on steak dinners and sales reps and just go right for the tools the doctors use.
Even that sized fine is a drop in the bucket when EHR outfits are involved. I guess when you're a startup, a $1M bribe might be useful though. But, EHR platforms are the ultimate lock-in application and once they have a medical practice/hospital system, there's no easy way to switch. So, given that it's medicine and a small playing field, I imagine these companies just have money flowing in by the truckload. Should be couch-cushion change for Allscripts.
Cycling between stupidity and stupidity (Score:3)
This "opioid" thing keeps cycling between "Let people dying in agony from terminal cancer suffer, because God Forbid they might get addicted" and "Give the pills out freely, the more the merrier, whoopee!!!"
Now, it's swung more to the "Suffering from intractable pain? Tough cookies, suck it up, buttercup, we won't let you have anything stronger than Tylenol" side.
It seems weird that there's enough money in it for bribery to pay off; opioids (the old standard ones, anyway) are pretty dang cheap.
It is a class of drugs you have to be really careful with. People react differently to them. Some (like me and my wife) it just helps with pain, and we have no motivation to take them otherwise. Some, like my Grandmother, it makes feel unpleasantly groggy and doped up. Some get sick and just can't take them.
And some... it's "Oh, wow, WHERE have you BEEN all my life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Those people probably can't take them, at least, not without extreme care. (Thinking about a story told by a cartoonist who took Lortabs after shoulder surgery; got hooked almost immediately, painfully got off them as soon as he found out he was hooked, but had serious cravings for them for a year afterwards.)
That's not even getting into the ultra-scary high-potency synthetics like Fentynl, and the even stronger ones.
But pending some new class of drugs that relieve pain by a different mechanism that doesn't risk addiction ... What's the alternative?
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That's the thing though. Opiods can do good, but they're the next big thing for the drug addicted set. It's why some places have mandated that opiods are stored in time lock safes - to unlock them, you have to wait 15 minutes from when you enter the unlock code to when the door actually unlocks. This is to prevent theft.
And many doctors won't prescribe them unless they're your family doctor and can monitor your reaction.
But what's most galling is they were touted as the new hotness with incredible pain kill
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This "opioid" thing keeps cycling between "Let people dying in agony from terminal cancer suffer, because God Forbid they might get addicted" and "Give the pills out freely, the more the merrier, whoopee!!!"
Now, it's swung more to the "Suffering from intractable pain? Tough cookies, suck it up, buttercup, we won't let you have anything stronger than Tylenol" side.
I only hope the polis that act so high and mighty get something fun like bone cancer.
While I have no dog in the fight, since I am allergic to opioids, I do have a good bit of chronic pain from sports injuries, and acetominiphen just doesn't cut it, being toxic as well.
There simply needs to be some more pain relievers developed, without tolerance effects if possible.
My plan is when the pain gets too bad and if no recourse. I'll simply use the Smith and Wesson pain relief method to take myself out.
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I have been taking opioid pain medicine for years and I am not addicted.
Uh, huh. Reminds me of the cigarette smoker: "I can quit anytime I want; I just don't want to quit."
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I have been taking opioid pain medicine for years and I am not addicted.
Uh, huh. Reminds me of the cigarette smoker: "I can quit anytime I want; I just don't want to quit."
Oh, I hope karma is real. Because you certainly deserve it.
If it's named "* fusion *" and not nuclear... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Practice Fusion". "GPS Fusion". ...
New rule of thumb:
If the name of the company contains "Fusion" and its core business doesn't involve nuclear reactions, assume it's a shady operation.
Former Physician Here (Score:1)
I quit my practice in 2014 but let me tell you first hand, kickbacks are definitely real. On the one side you have to envelopes of cash, but there's a whole other side of it.
That side is the "medical conference." Medical conferences are almost always held in lavishly-appointed, tropical paradises where the liquor and women flow freely - and yes - a medical conference is a hotbed of alcohol and sex, and physicians are strongly encouraged to leave their wives at home. I never did, and I know many others, but
Eli Lilly? Merck? (Score:2)
Who was it? A real journalist would mention THAT, of all things!
Oh well, what does it matter... ALL of them are legalized drug dealers and mass-murderers-for-profit.