Starting today, physicians have 45 days to review and dispute reports regarding their financial interactions with manufacturers of drugs and medical devices reported under the Physician Payments Sunshine Act (also known as the Open Payments program). Here’s what you need to know about the process before the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) makes the data available to the public this summer.
The program is the Center for Medicare & Medicaid’s (CMS) attempt to increase transparency and accountability in health care, but the program’s inaugural year was plagued with inaccurate data and a clumsy registration and review process. Make sure you follow the three-step registration process so you can review and potentially dispute any inaccurate data reported about you.
Step 1: Register with CMS’ Enterprise Portal. New users will be prompted to register with the portal before proceeding.
Step 2: Register with CMS’ Open Payments system via the Enterprise Portal.
Step 3: Review your data and dispute any inaccurate data. Disputes initiated by May 20 will be flagged as such when the data set is made public on June 30.
Even though CMS overrode the AMA and other medical associations’ calls to delay the release of 2013 payment data in light of all the problems, the AMA was able to head off much of the anticipated interpretation troubles by educating reporters about issues with the data, guiding physicians through the review and dispute process and providing talking points to explain the data to inquiring patients.
Learn more about the Sunshine Act.
