SCAN CEO to Healthcare Industry: ‘No more excessive gifting’
Dr. Jain says execs ‘are taking public dollars for entertainment when we should instead be modeling fiscal responsibility and wise stewardship of public funds’
In his latest Forbes column, SCAN CEO Dr. Sachin Jain calls out healthcare industry executives whose companies are funded with public money for exchanging corporate gifts with vendors and others business partners.
“Healthcare companies that are funded with public dollars should be an exception to business as usual—and a highly visible one at that,” Jain wrote in the column, which appeared on his Forbes page.
Jain calls the practice of healthcare executives exchanging gifts “an open secret.” He said healthcare executives regularly buy each other expensive dinners and give and receive pricey tickets to sporting events such as the US Open and the World Series. Earlier this year Jain himself was offered Super Bowl tickets and other extras valued at more than $8,000, which he declined.
“In a system that, for all our striving to provide blanket coverage to the neediest, still leaves many millions of people unserved or under-served, and where costs have been rising unmitigated, this practice is simply wrong,” says Jain, president and CEO of SCAN Group and SCAN Health Plan.
He calls on his fellow healthcare executives to follow guidelines similar to those set by SCAN Health Plan, a Medicare Advantage plan that receives 99% of its revenues from the federal Medicare program. The SCAN Code of Ethics bars employees from accepting gifts or courtesies worth $150 per event or $300 annually from current or prospective business partners.
“Public trust in healthcare continues to decline, in part due to the idea that healthcare is a profit-seeking enterprise. It’s time for healthcare leaders to step up and commit to not using any public funds on excessive gifts,” says Jain.