US Sunshine Act

By Shantanu Agrawal, M.D., CMS Deputy Administrator for Program Integrity On June 30, 2016, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) posted the Open Payments data for program year 2015, along with newly submitted and updated 2013 and 2014 records.  Open Payments (sometimes called the “Sunshine Act”) is a national program, required by the Affordable Care Act, that promotes CMS’ commitment to transparency by providing data on the financial relationships between the health care industry – including pharmaceutical and medical companies – and health care providers. In program year 2015, health care industry manufacturers reported $7.52 billion in payments …

For All Open Payments the story is a flat one. All Open Payments includes General Payments (charitable contributions, compensation for services other than consulting, consulting fees, education, entertainment, food & beverage, gifts, grants, honoraria, royalties & licenses plus travel & lodging – referred to as Transfer of Value) plus Research Payments and Ownership + Investment Payments. Key highlights: Total payments are effectively the same from 2014 – 2015 at $7.47B v $7.52B Number of physicians receiving a payment is static YoY at 618,000 Total number of records published has shows no growth at 11.9M Average payment received by physicians (total …

Use the Search Tool to conduct your own specific search To Download all Open Payments data in detail. The Data Explorer tool allows you to view different datasets and create visualizations such as charts and graphs to get an in-depth look at the data applicable manufacturers and GPO’s have submitted about payments and transfers of value they’ve made to physicians and teaching hospitals. To Access the Data Explorer Tool

Where a hospital is located and who owns it make a big difference in how many of its doctors take meals, consulting and promotional payments from pharmaceutical and medical device companies, a new ProPublica analysis shows. A higher percentage of doctors affiliated with hospitals in the South have received such payments than doctors in other regions of the country, our analysis found. And a greater share of doctors at for-profit hospitals have taken them than at nonprofit and government facilities. Doctors in New Jersey, home to many of the largest drug companies, led the country in industry interactions: Nearly eight …

Physician-industry relationships—including sponsored meals and promotional speaking fees—are at the center of an international debate, intensified by recent transparency efforts in the United States and the European Union. In the United States, in the last 5 months of 2013, 4.3 million industry payments totaling $3.4 billion were made to more than 470 000 physicians and 1000 teaching hospitals. Although some argue that industry-sponsored meals and payments facilitate the discussion of novel treatments, others have raised concerns about their potential to influence prescribing behavior. Studies suggest that physician-industry relationships are associated with increased prescribing of brand-name drugs. Although most studies have relied …

The third annual Physician Payments Sunshine Act (“Sunshine Act”) reporting deadline has come and gone. If you are an applicable manufacturer and this law is news to you, you might be getting fined. The most recent reporting deadline was March 31st, 2016. Previous reporting cycles included 2013 (partial report out) and 2014. Failure to report can result in Civil Monetary Penalties (“CMPs”) assessed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) and bad publicity. Presumptively, when CMS fines the first manufacturer or group purchasing organizations (“GPOs”) for a reporting failure, it will be publicized in order to compel industry …