News in brief - May 2, 2005

Lawmakers work on measure to expand specialty hospital referral ban - Bill aims to ensure moral objections don't hurt prescription drug access - Federal judge dismisses lawsuit challenging reimportation ruling - Illinois physician group settles FTC price-fixing charges

Lawmakers work on measure to expand specialty hospital referral ban

Senate Finance Committee leaders have revealed that they are drafting legislation to extend a ban on physician referrals to specialty hospitals in which the doctors have an ownership interest.

Committee Chair Charles Grassley (R, Iowa) and Ranking Democrat Max Baucus (Mont.) aim to extend the 18-month moratorium on these so-called self-referrals before it expires June 8.

Supporters of the extension, which effectively has halted the construction of new specialty hospitals, say doctors might be sending healthier patients to these facilities to enrich their investments.

The debate pits community hospital organizations against the specialty hospitals and the American Medical Association, which says that the facilities foster healthy competition and provide good care alternatives for doctors and patients.

Bill aims to ensure moral objections don't hurt prescription drug access

Recently introduced congressional legislation is designed to ensure that patients can have prescriptions filled at local pharmacies despite any moral objection a pharmacist might have to the medication.

Pharmacists would not be forced to dispense prescription contraceptives or other drugs, but if they refused, another pharmacist would have to be available to do so. The bill also would require pharmacies that stock contraceptives to order emergency contraception immediately upon request.

"A pharmacist's personal beliefs should not come between a patient and their doctor," said Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D, N.J.), sponsor of the bill in the Senate.

Federal judge dismisses lawsuit challenging reimportation ruling

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by an Illinois couple challenging U.S. government policy against buying prescription drugs from Canadian pharmacies.

The couple, Ray and Gaylee Andrews, both in their 70s, had been encouraged to file the lawsuit by Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich, who has pushed to allow drug reimportation from other nations. They argued that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ban on drug reimportation violated their rights to due process under the Second Amendment.

U.S. District Judge James Robertson, however, said that "the right to purchase drugs from a preferred source or at a preferred price -- if there is such a right at all -- is not fundamental."

Illinois physician group settles FTC price-fixing charges

A Chicago-area physician group has agreed not to bargain collectively on behalf of its members as a result of a settlement of price-fixing charges announced in April by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. A consent order prohibits Evanston Northwestern Healthcare from negotiating with insurers on behalf of independent physicians affiliated with the organization. The order does not prohibit the group from participating in a "qualified risk-sharing joint arrangement" or a "qualified clinically integrated joint arrangement."

Such arrangements must satisfy conditions of interdependence, risk-sharing and efficiency gains. Evanston Northwestern Healthcare did not admit to any wrongdoing.

The settlement does not affect the FTC's complaint alleging that Evanston Northwestern's acquisition of Highland Park (Ill.) Hospital was illegal and anticompetitive. A trial on those issues is pending.