By Robert Pear, New York Times, March 5/6,2013

WASHINGTON — Deciding which drugs will be covered by Medicare can influence huge amounts of spending, but government officials do little to police conflict of interest among doctors and pharmacists who make those decisions, federal investigators said Monday.

In a new report, Daniel R. Levinson, the inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services, said the federal Medicare agency had not clearly defined “conflict of interest” and did not enforce standards meant to prevent such conflicts from influencing coverage decisions by the panels, known as pharmacy and therapeutics committees.

“The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services does not monitor conflicts of interest on pharmacy and therapeutics committees,” Mr. Levinson said. In many cases, he said, the government cannot identify potential conflicts because committee membership lists are unusable — incomplete, inaccurate and full of discrepancies. The panels are appointed by insurers or pharmaceutical benefit managers hired by insurance companies.

John K. Gorman, a former Medicare official [...] said “Hundreds of millions, even billions, of dollars are at stake each year in decisions about whether and how a drug is covered by a Medicare drug plan.”[.....]