A Democratic proposal to ban the collection of doctors' prescription records for marketing purposes is unlikely to be included as part of the Senate's overall health reform bill, a Senate staff member said on December 14.
A member of the staff of Senator Herb Kohl, a main sponsor of the amendment, said the change was not likely to come up for a vote or be included as part of a package of changes to be offered later by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
"We don't think it's likely that the ... amendment will come to a vote or be included in the manager's amendment," the staff member told Reuters on the condition of not being named since debate on the bill is not finished.
Dozens of amendments have been offered as part of the Senate's legislation to overhaul the nation's $2.5 trillion healthcare system, President Barack Obama's top domestic priority. There have been few votes on such changes so far but Democratic senators vowed to finish work on the bill as soon as this week. A ban on so-called "data mining" would have a huge impact on pharmaceutical data companies such as IMS Health and McKesson Corp's Verispan that collect and sell such data for a variety of uses.
Pharmaceutical manufacturers in particular use information on doctor's prescribing habits to better inform their drug salespeople when they visit physician offices to market certain products.
IMS has said such data from doctors and other providers is used to help monitor safety issues, reduce costs and for other research purposes. "Provider level information is a critical resource," a spokesman for IMS said.