1. Provide the title of your story or series and the names of the journalists involved.
Doctors fail to disclose pharma payments, despite state law.
Eric Whitney, Kelley Griffin, Burt Hubbard
2. List date(s) this work was published or aired.
The work is a two-part series that aired 11/18/10 and 11/19/10 on Colorado Public Radio.
3. Provide a brief synopsis of the story or stories, including any significant findings.
Colorado doctors are required to disclose any health-related contracts that pay $5,000 or more a year in a publicly-available "physician profile" on a state web page. This includes promotional and educational work for drug companies. The idea is to make the public aware of potential conflicts of interest. On Oct. 19, 2010 ProPublica published a database of doctors who work for drug companies, as disclosed by seven drug companies themselves. We checked the names of Colorado doctors in the database against their state profiles to see how many were disclosing the contracts as required by law. We found that two-thirds of the Colorado doctors in the ProPublica database failed to disclose drug company contracts as required. Our reporting caused state regulators to send letters to 84 doctors, asking them to check the accuracy of their profiles and/or update their disclosure status. Most of those physicians updated their profiles to reflect drug company contracts, as did many other doctors after our stories aired. In total, 160 Colorado doctors, many of whom were not listed in the ProPublica database, updated their profiles after we contacted state regulators and broadcast our stories. The state lawmaker who wrote the law says that our reporting pointed out weaknesses in the law and its implementation by state regulators. She now plans to return to the legislature with a new bill to fix the disclosure law.
4. Explain types of documents, data or Internet resources used. Were FOI or public records act requests required? How did this affect the work?
We used the ProPublica "Dollars for Docs" database to find Colorado doctors who were being paid, and how much, by drug companies. We sorted that list of 435 Colorado doctors by payment amount, and found 130 were paid more than the state reporting threshold. We checked those 130 names against the State of Colorado "Physician Profiles" database to see how many were disclosing the payments as required by law. About two-thirds, 84 doctors, failed to disclose as legally required. We got help analyzing both databases from I-News, the Rocky Mountain Investigative News Network. We're proud that we (Colorado Public Radio) were able to recognize that the ProPublica database, combined with the State's physician profile database could yield a list of doctors who are and are not complying with Colorado's uniquely tough physician disclosure law. We think our work demonstrates the power of partnership and teamwork with outside investigative journalism organizations. We worked closely with both ProPublica and I-News to efficiently process information from hundreds of doctors and think we combined that well with our reporting and storytelling skills to produce stories that are both meaty and comprehensible.
5. Explain types of human sources used.
We called more than 40 physicians on the list of doctors who were paid by drug companies, and talked to half a dozen (most didn't return our calls). We also spoke with the head of the state physicians association and the lawmaker who got the disclosure law passed.
6. Results (if any).
Our reporting caused state regulators to send letters to 84 doctors, asking them to check the accuracy of their profiles and/or update their disclosure status. Most of those physicians updated their profiles to reflect drug company contracts, as did many other doctors after our stories aired. In total, 160 Colorado doctors, many of whom were not listed in the ProPublica database, updated their profiles after we contacted state regulators and broadcast our stories. That means we were able to leverage the disclosures drug companies made (and ProPublica compiled) to yield more information about how many and which doctors are being paid by pharmaceutical companies. The state lawmaker who wrote the law says that our reporting pointed out weaknesses in the law and its implementation by state regulators. She now plans to return to the legislature in January of 2011 with a new bill to fix the disclosure law.
7. Follow-up (if any). Have you run a correction or clarification on the report or has anyone come forward to challenge its accuracy? If so, please explain.
We're planning more reporting on this topic when the state legislator who wrote the original physician disclosure law goes back to the legislature in January with a new bill to tighten it up.
8. Advice to other journalists planning a similar story or project.
Don't be afraid to reach out beyond your own newsroom for investigative reporting help. Finding a technical expert at I-News who could efficiently process hundreds of names and associated fields in spreadsheets saved many tedious hours. Also, know your beat. When ProPublica made its database public it spawned a lot of reporting nationwide and in Colorado exploring ethical issues related to doctors being paid by drug companies. But most reporters here were ignorant that Colorado has the toughest physician financial disclosure law in the nation and only our reporting revealed that a significant number of doctors here were violating state law.