The Week Ahead
A Stanford University ban on gifts to physicians from sales representatives for pharmaceutical, medical device and other companies takes effect. The policy will prohibit doctors from accepting free drug samples and from publishing in medical journals articles that are underwritten by drug companies.
The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine working group on scientific and medical facilities will meet in San Francisco to discuss construction of biomedical facilities in California and hear reports on the development of a Scientific Strategic Plan and other issues.
Proposition 86 -- a measure on the Nov. 7 statewide ballot that would increase the state tobacco tax to fund health care programs -- will be discussed at a joint hearing of the Senate committees on health, and revenue and taxation; and the Assembly committees on health, governmental organization, and revenue and taxation.
The Department of Managed Health Care will hold a hearing in Sacramento to discuss "balance billing," a practice in which emergency department physicians bill patients the difference between charges for health care services and what the patients' managed care companies pay. Gov. Schwarzenegger in July directed the agency to draft new rules to ban the practice.
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