Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Open Payments is a federally run program that provides transparency and increases public awareness of financial relationships between the healthcare industry and physicians and teaching hospitals. This is accomplished by collecting, and making public, any payments or transfers of value from drug and device manufacturers to physicians or teaching hospitals.
Per Open Payments, all transfers of value from an industry representative to a physician or teaching hospital valued at or above $10, or aggregate of $100 per year, are reported on a public website: https://openpaymentsdata.cms.gov/.
Transfers of value may include food and beverage, entertainment, charitable contributions, speaking fees, royalties or licenses, grants, consulting fees, honoraria, travel and lodging, education, research and more. The nature and purpose of the amount will also be recorded and disclosed.
On April 1, 2019, CMS began the 45 day dispute period in which physicians and teaching hospitals can review their 2018 data posted by drug and device manufacturers. This review and dispute period provides physicians and teaching hospitals the opportunity to dispute any inaccurate or incomplete data before it is published to the public on June 30, 2019.
The Office of Privacy and Corporate Compliance (OPCC) will be reviewing applicable CMS Open Payments data once released on June 30, 2019. Furthermore, the OPCC may contact physicians regarding their Open Payments data if it’s not aligned with their most recent Conflict of Interest disclosure survey responses. We encourage all physicians to review their data and refute any inaccurate data prior to it becoming public on June 30, 2019.
Thank you for your timely attention to this matter. Any questions or concerns can be directed to the OPCC at 203-688-8416 or [email protected].
