The Challenge

In 1997, pharmaceutical companies were introduced to the very first legislative request for disclosure of payments and economic benefit provided to health care practitioners. What does this mean? Companies now had to report to the state of Minnesota, in this case, every payment, taxi ride and slice of pizza provided to a practitioner from anyone in their company, whether it was a Sales Representative, a Marketing Director, a Medical Director or their CEO. This was a huge shift for pharmaceutical companies, as these departments are often in silos and work independently from each other, often because of other regulatory restrictions.

The challenge was manageable until several more states started joining this demand for disclosure, and as these states developed their own legislation, they each created their own unique requirements regarding

1.) WHO they were interested in

2.) WHAT TYPES OF SPEND they were interested in knowing about and

3.) WHAT PIECES OF INFORMATION they wanted to know about each individual event.

Today these laws expand to pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device companies and the industry anxiously awaits the pending Federal Physician Payments Sunshine Act, which will demand disclosure of these activities to the public on a national level.

Can you start seeing the problem here? Companies have to move quickly and there are great penalties associated with not getting it right.

The Solution

After being introduced to the problem through a specialized consulting engagement, BEI recognized the challenge and saw opportunity in developing a defined path to achieving disclosure objectives that would enable a company to reach these critical goals in a time efficient and cost effective manner. Not having the mindset of a traditional “consulting firm”, BEI’s solution was designed to help clients get on and stay on the most direct path to a complete Aggregate Spend Program by utilizing client-tested tools and methodologies. The BEI team works with clients as subject matter advisors, to empower the client to build their own unique program while ensuring the inclusion of industry best practices.