N.H.'s Bill on Hearing Aids & Latest news on Dr's getting paid by Pharma Co's

The State of New Hampshire is looking at covering the cost of Hearing Aids for their State Residents.  In doing a little research on this, I found that there was a feasibility study done by a company up in Minnesota for them on the topic.  I found it interesting to see their take on some of the facts and figures.  For those of you interested, here's the link:  http://www.nh.gov/insurance/legal/documents/impact_sb159.pdf

Here's the press release on the Bill as it stands now.  It is now in the process of going to the House for debate and a vote.  http://www.examiner.com/a-2406274~NH_House_approves_mandating_hearing_aid_coverage.html

On a side note, for those of you interested in finding out if your doctor is getting any money from the major drugmakers for advocation of their medical products, there are now 'reports' on some of the major drug makers sites that list the payments made to physicians by quarter.  For example, if you go to the GlaxoSmithKline website and click on the 'responsibility' link, you can download a pdf file by quarter that lists the doctors by last name and see how much they were paid by GSK.  To get you started, here's the link to an article about it:  http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/12/15/which-doctors-are-getting-paid-by-glaxo-lilly-and-merck/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wsj%2Fhealth%2Ffeed+%28WSJ.com%3A+Health+Blog%29&mod=smallbusiness

With the advent of the Healthcare Reform Bill, the major Pharmaceutical Companies have now addressed the transparency issues by posting via their websites exactly how much they are paying doctors here in the U.S.  Might be useful information to have so that you can question your physician as to why they are now promoting a certain medication.  I was shocked at some of the amounts paid out in our area. 

The Journal Sentinel did an article last year on how much some of the Researchers/Doctors in Madison were getting paid by these companies.  For those of you that missed it, here's the link:  http://www.jsonline.com/features/health/37397284.html

 But, it would have been nice to have seen the local connections.  Another price that we all pay with the resources being diminished for our local news outlets.  The more reporters that they lay off, the less information we will be able to access that affects all of us here in the area. 

Have a great week!

Copyright 2009 Tami Klink