The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) today published the 2015 Open Payments (also called the “Sunshine Act”) data, along with newly submitted and updated payment records for 2013 and 2014, at https://openpaymentsdata.cms.gov/. The Open Payments program requires that transfers of value by drug, device, biological, and medical supply manufacturers to physicians and teaching hospitals be published on a public website. In program year 2015, health care industry manufacturers reported $7.52 billion in payments and ownership and investment interests to physicians and teaching hospitals. This amount consists of 11.90 million total records attributable to 618,931 physicians and 1,116 teaching hospitals.
Sen. Chuck Grassley co-authored the legislation, later enacted, creating the database after his oversight and news stories explored payments from industry to doctors. In October 2015, Grassley authored and introduced new bipartisan legislation to apply the disclosure of drug company and medical device maker payments to nurse practitioners and physician assistants. Grassley made the following comment on the latest disclosures.
“The purpose of the Sunshine Act was to disclose drug and medical device company payments to doctors and teaching hospitals to the public. With the information available publicly, patients, doctors and researchers are able to access the data. Researchers and journalists increasingly find ways to analyze the information. Just this week, in addition to the CMS report, the news site ProPublica released an analysis of payment information at hospitals by region and hospital ownership. Transparency in the health care system increases public understanding of how a complex system works.”
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