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NASS details its new disclosure policy reforms in letter to U.S. senator
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The North American Spine Society sent a letter to Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) last week highlighting the group’s recently enacted disclosure policy reforms in response to the senator’s inquiry regarding the disclosure of financial relationships among medical device and pharmaceutical industries, physicians and professional medical associations.
According to a North American Spine Society (NASS) press release, the ranking member of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee sent letters to 33 health care organizations last month requesting information about financial backing that the groups may have received from pharmaceutical, medical device and insurance companies during the last 3 years.
“As the leader in multidisciplinary spine care, representing more than 5,500 providers across the United States, NASS appreciates Senator Grassley’s leadership on this important issue and understands the impact these relationships can have on the care provided to patients,” NASS President Ray Baker, MD, stated in the release. “Over the past several years, NASS has set forth a robust participant disclosure and leadership divestment plan to ensure industry relationships with NASS, its leadership, and its members are fully transparent and that these relationships do not influence the work of our organization or its leadership.”
Last January, the society adopted a new disclosure policy mandating that participants in any NASS activity, including committee members, leaders within the society, speakers and authors of NASS publications, disclose any industry relationships that occurred within the previous calendar year with an estimated value greater than $100. In addition, the society’s board of directors appointed a non-member, academic ethicist to its board.
“The NASS Board of Directors is committed to the highest level of ethics for its members and has created an environment in which full disclosure is not only encouraged, but mandatory,” Baker stated in the release. “We continue to strive to ‘raise the bar’ for ethics not only within NASS but in the entire field of spine care.”
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