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ACRC announces countermeasures against medical rebates

  • Date2015-01-08
  • Hit1,335
July 15, 2014

ACRC recommended revision to the Code of Conduct for Public Health & Medical Institutions

The ACRC recommended the revision of the Code of Conduct for Public Health and Medical Institutions in order to prevent the staff of public health and medical institutions, such as national university hospitals and regional medical centers, from taking rebates from pharmaceutical firms in return for prescribing or purchasing their products.

According to the Integrity Assessment for public medical institutions that the ACRC conducted last year, 28.1% of those surveyed said that they have experienced the medical rebates, thus revealing the extent of the practice despite the introduction of the "dual punishment" system in November 2010.

The ACRC suggested measures to improve the Code of Conduct for Public Health and Medical Institutions to 201 public medical institutions in order to eradicate medical rebates and enhance the ethics and integrity of medical staff.

As specified in its suggestions, the ACRC recommended that the Code of Conduct for Public Health and Medical Institutions should be revised to specify the businesses prohibited from offering medical rebates as "duty-related parties" and provide a clear definition of "rebates."

The ACRC also recommended revising the provisions on the reporting of external lectures or conferences under the Code of Conduct so that every external lecture for which outside institutions like pharmaceutical companies pay the fees must be reported. It recommended that public medical institutions make it mandatory to penalize rebate receivers and to monitor the implementation of the Code of Conduct regarding medical rebates.

In addition, the ACRC proposed that a training program against taking rebates should be included in implementing training programs for the Code of Conduct, that the Committee for Proprietary Medicinal Products should be established with a proper quota of civilian committee members, and that people with a track record of corruption such as taking rebates should be ruled out as possible committee candidates.