Your doctor’s computer may have suggested opioids because drugmakers paid to tweak the software, DOJ says
San Francisco-based medical records startup Practice Fusion allegedly developed software for pharmaceutical companies to help increase the number of prescriptions doctors wrote for pain medications, according to a settlement with the US Department of Justice, Bloomberg reports. The company, which supplied its software to tens of thousands of doctors offices nationwide, admitted doing so as part of a $145 million federal settlement this week to resolve civil and criminal penalties, including $113 million to be paid to the federal government and more than $5 million to states.
Here’s how the software worked: When a health care provider accessed a patient’s electronic health records (EHR) on Fusion’s software, a pop-up window would appear...