Senate Probe Is Just Another Day at the Office for Medtronic

(MoneyWatch)  It's been six years since the Senate Finance Committee began investigating Medtronic (MDT)'s payments to doctors, and there's no end in sight: Sen. Chuck Grassley has demanded that Medtronic reveal all its payments to 32 doctors named in a letter sent to the company in April. The existence of the letter was not previously reported. The company said it was cooperating with Grassley's probe in its annual 10-K disclosure (page 85), but describes it as an ongoing effort in place since 2007 that covers:

... financial ties between the medical device industry and physicians; the Company's decision to suspend distribution of its Fidelis family of defibrillation leads; financial ties between the Company and physicians who use INFUSE Bone Graft; the Cardiac Research Foundation and Columbia University; certain communications regarding INFUSE Bone Graft and the Company's clinical research projects with the U.S. military and compensation paid to physicians working for the U.S. military.

Medtronic lists 13 separate government investigations into the company's promotional practices for its medical devices. The company is under a permanent cloud of allegations that it pays doctors to use its products (and even "routinely" picked up the tab for doctors' visits to the Platinum Plus strip club in Memphis). It's also cooperating with a foreign bribery probe.

One of the more interesting names on the list is Dr. David W. Polly Jr. According to the N.Y. Times:

Dr. David W. Polly Jr., urged members of a Senate panel in 2006 to continue paying for Defense Department medical research into combat-related injuries. But Dr. Polly did not disclose during his testimony that he was a Medtronic consultant and was billing the company $6,000 for his appearance, according to documents released Tuesday.

... Between 2003 and 2007, Dr. Polly received more than $1.14 million in fees and expenses from Medtronic, those records show.

Bottom line: As Grassley notes in his letter, this year the Physicians Payment Sunshine Act became law, which means there are fewer places to hide for companies whose products won't sell unless they come coupled with incentives.

Related:

• The Price of Admission: 10 Medical Companies Suspected of Paying Bribes in Foreign Countries

Image by Flickr user Warrenski, CC.