As a follow-up to Senator Claire McCaskill’s long running opioid investigation and report titled: Fueling an Epidemic: Exposing the Financial Ties Between Opioid Manufacturers and Third Party Advocacy Groups, the senator released the Patient Advocacy Transparency Act of 2018. The proposed legislation, if adopted, would expand Open Payment reporting to include television programs, websites, and payments to patient advocacy organizations, professional societies, clinical trial organizations, and Continuing Medica Education (CME) providers.
This legislation amends the Physician Payment Sunshine Act to:
- Broaden the reporting definition of “grants” to include various types of educational grants and “capacity building grants”;
- Also expands reporting for:
- fundraising event sponsorship;
- meeting or conference expenses not currently covered in Open Payments;
- funding of marketing and public relations activities; and
- placement on television programs or internet websites, or social media support.
To read the article by Thomas Sullivan
