Sunshine Acts Rays of Sunshine: Johnson & Johnson’s (JNJ) Ethicon Case Study
September 30, 2014
Well there appear to be some deceptions out of the gate with the Sunshine Act. It’s tough to say if the physician’s had a heads up as to how to enter larger numbers as to go unnoticed (tipped off by someone who either created the system or someone at CMS) or if there’s just a problem in the system (shocking a government computer system that might not doesn’t function properly!)
These are two different payments for two different Ethicon physicians-at quick glance it looks like they were paid in the hundreds and not thousands. That’s right if payment ends in a zero the system shifts. That appears to be a system glitch.
Again another expample at first glance 1,612.98 sticks out further than 3,687.50 making the larger payment number look smaller.
Next trick-no decimals at all make $4,000 look like $40.00 which makes someone on the outside looking in wonder if people were instructing doctors how to game the system:
If you’ve read this page at all and the concerns over physician payments Dr. Andrew Brill and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) has been mentioned regarding conflict of interest because Dr. Brill also sat on the FDA panel that was to evaluate the JNJ products in which he was a paid consultant for the company (JNJ).
Here’s the data so far-and I wasn’t able to locate Dr. Brill yet (JNJ changes names so it’s tough to tell where his data is stored-Ethicon, Gynecare or just Johnson & Johnson):
And I know it seems very nice that schools are “giving money” to teaching hospitals; but, there’s more on the dangers of that later.
Oddly Dr. Randall S. Hickle’s name is incorrect on the form (again done by mistake or to be deceptive?)
There’s a lot of data to get through and cross reference with other companies, so this page will be updated frequently.
And if anyone is interested in obtaining data on their doctor specifically, please let me know and I’ll do my best to get you the data or point you in the right direction.