A new law requires transparency between pharmaceutical companies and physicians. Starting in 2014, the public can look in a database to see if drug companies are incentivizing doctors to use their products through payments made to them. Anything over $100 must be reported; buffet meals and cups of coffee and the like do not have to be reported but anything accumulating to more than $100 must be included. This law is long overdue. The public has a right to know whether physicians are prescribing certain medications produced by companies they are getting payments from. Fines for violating the law can be as much as $100,000.
–Liza Thompson, Expert Medical School Admissions Consulting