WASHINGTON – The Department of Health & Human Services’ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) released its annual report to Congress on its Open Payments database. Open Payments is a mandatory, national disclosure program created by the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, legislation authored by Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa. The program promotes transparency and accountability by providing information about transfers of value by drug and medical device makers to physicians and teaching hospitals.
“This is the fourth full calendar year of reporting by information from Open Payments. The 2017 data found 11.54 million financial transactions attributed to 628,000 physicians and 1,158 teaching hospitals, totaling $8.4 billion. Over the course of four years, $33.42 billion in payments have been reported. Many of these payments are for legitimate research and patient care, but this disclosure provides great benefit to consumers and the public.
“The Sunshine Act is working as intended to shine light on part of the health care system that many of us didn’t know much about before,” Grassley said. “After all, you can’t have accountability without transparency.”
In 2015, Grassley, along with Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, introduced the S. 308, the Provider Payment Sunshine Act, legislation to apply the same disclosures of drug company and medical device maker payments to nurse practitioners and physician assistants. The senators reintroduced the legislation in 2017.
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