Study: Many states do poorly on health care price transparency

Also, ProPublica examines doctor-drug company "double-dipping" at some academic medical centers.

Modern Healthcare: Most States Score Poorly On Price Transparency
A report card on health care price transparency concludes that most states have been all talk and no action when it comes to providing patients with information to make informed choices -- even worse than last year. ... Last year, the report [by the Catalyst for Payment Reform and the Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute] explained that states received points for having transparency laws. But this year, states were also judged on how well they had implemented those laws. In 2013, for example, New Hampshire received an A in part for its law calling for price information to be publicly posted on the Web. This year, the state was given an F because its website is inoperative (Robeznieks, 3/25).

ProPublica: Double Dip: Doctors Paid To Advise, Promote Drug Companies That Fund Their Research 
Pharmaceutical companies pay for the clinical trials that Dr. Yoav Golan conducts on antibiotics at Tufts Medical Center. They also pay him tens of thousands of dollars a year to give speeches and advice on behalf of their drugs. If Golan worked at some teaching hospitals, he would be barred or severely restricted from accepting both research funding and personal payments for promotional speaking or consulting from drug makers. These hospitals fear the money could influence clinical findings, or at least create the appearance of a conflict of interest. Yet Tufts and many other academic medical centers allow doctors to accept overlapping payments -; and some doctors still take them (Ornstein and Grochowski Jones, 3/25).