Federal authorities say that the health record software company Practice Fusion was paid by a major opioid manufacturer to promote the prescription of opioids to doctors who were attempting to view patients’ electronic records.
Bloomberg reports that the software firm Practice Fusion was paid by a major opioid manufacturer to design a pop-up system on patient health records that would encourage doctors to prescribe opioids to patients. It’s reported that the pop-up was accessed 230 million times from 2016 to 2019.
Bloomberg writes:
The tool existed thanks to a secret deal. Its maker, a software company called Practice Fusion, was paid by a major opioid manufacturer to design it in an effort to boost prescriptions for addictive pain pills — even though overdose deaths had almost tripled during the prior 15 years, creating a public-health disaster. The software was used by tens of thousands of doctors’ offices.
Its existence was revealed this week thanks to a government investigation. Practice Fusion agreed to pay $145 million to resolve civil and criminal cases, according to documents filed in a Vermont federal court. Practice Fusion admitted to the scheme with an unnamed opioid maker, though the details of the government case closely match a public research partnership between Practice Fusion and Purdue Pharma Inc., which makes OxyContin.
Representatives for Purdue Pharma and the Vermont U.S. attorney declined to comment. Health-software company Allscripts Healthcare Solutions Inc., which bought Practice Fusion for $100 million in 2018, said in a statement the conduct predated the deal and it has “further strengthened” compliance at Practice Fusion, but didn’t answer specific questions about the settlement.
Bertha Madras, a professor at Harvard Medical School who served on the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, commented on the rise in opioid use stating: “The pharmaceutical industry was egregious in advancing and propelling the access of opioids to a wider and wider population.”
Jamie Weisman, a dermatologist in the Atlanta area, commented on Practice Fusions partnership with the opioid maker stating: “It’s evil. There’s really no other word for it. If you want to model electronic health records as a for-profit system and not regulate them as such and force doctors to be on them, it’s almost inevitable that they’re going to be manipulated.”
Read the full report at Bloomberg here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com
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