2024/2025 Financial Interest Disclosure: Submit here
Information You Need To Know to Disclose Your Financial Relationships with Companies Related to Healthcare Products or Services
Why We Ask:
Because The American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (ASCRS) is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), we require your assistance to comply with accreditation guidelines and help us create high-quality education that is independent of industry influence. To participate in this educational activity, all individuals who have the ability to influence and/or control the content of this accredited CME activity must disclose all financial relationships with all companies — whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients — over the past 24 months. To confirm your participation in this CME activity, we ask that you complete and return this form within seven days of receipt of this document.
What to Disclose:
- There is no minimum financial threshold; you must disclose all financial relationships, regardless of the amount, with companies as described above; only disclose your own financial relationships, not those of your spouse or life partner.
- We ask you to disclose all financial relationships regardless of whether or not you view the relationships as relevant to the CME activity. The CME Office will determine if the information that you provide is relevant to the topics of the CME activity in which you will participate.
- Since healthcare professionals serve as the trusted authorities when advising patients, they must protect the learning environment from industry influence to ensure they remain true to their ethical commitments.
- If the CME staff determine that the financial relationships create a conflict of interest, the CME staff also will determine the appropriate method of mitigation. Mitigation may involve but is not limited to an independent review of the content you develop (or if you are a planner, other methods will be utilized, including peer review of content by non-conflicted planners, etc.).
- Many healthcare professionals have financial relationships with companies as defined above. By identifying and mitigating relevant financial relationships, we will work together to create a protected space to learn, teach, and engage in scientific discourse free from the influence from organizations that may have an incentive to insert commercial bias into education.
If you have questions, please contact us at anichols@ascrs.org.
Financial Relationships Relevant to the Program
Please disclose all financial relationships that you have had in the past 24 months with ineligible companies (see definition under the table below). For each financial relationship, enter the name of the ineligible company and the nature of the financial relationship(s). There is no minimum financial threshold. We ask that you disclose all financial relationships, regardless of the amount, with ineligible companies.
A table to assist you in providing your disclosure information is available below.
| Category | Code | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Employee, Executive Role, or Owner of an Ineligible Company* | EO | I am a paid employee or owner of an Ineligible Company that is a pharmaceutical company or a medical device manufacturer. |
| Researcher | R | My research is fully or partially funded by an Ineligible Company. |
| Consultant | C | I am a paid consultant to an Ineligible Company. |
| Advisor | A | I am an advisor to an Ineligible Company, including, for example, advisory boards. |
| Speaker | S | I am a speaker acting for an Ineligible Company (NOTE: This does not include being a speaker for a CME activity in which I am paid by the accredited provider). |
| Independent contractor (including contracted research) | IC | I received compensation for contracted work from an Ineligible Company, including contracted research. |
| Royalties or patent beneficiary | RP | I earn a royalty or derive other financial gain from the intellectual property of an Ineligible Company. |
| Individual stocks from a Privately-held company | SP | I own stocks from an Ineligible Company that is a privately-held company. |
| Individual stocks from a publicly traded organization | SU | I own stocks from an Ineligible Company that is a publicly traded organization. |
| Stock options | SO | I have received future options for stock to be actioned at a future time. |
* Ineligible companies are ineligible to be accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), and include these types of organizations: (1) biomedical startups that have begun the regulatory approval process, (2) compounding pharmacies that manufacture proprietary compounds, (3) device manufacturers or distributors; (4) diagnostic labs that sell proprietary products; (5) growers, distributors, manufacturers or sellers of medical foods and dietary supplements; (6) manufacturers of health-related wearable products; (7) pharmaceutical companies or distributors; pharmacy benefit managers; and (8) reagent manufacturers or sellers.