Medical groups and health policy experts were cool to the debut of the Open Payments database showing payments made by drug and device companies to physicians and other healthcare professionals.
The database, which the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) opened to the public on Tuesday September 30, provides some details on $3.5 billion in drug- and device-related payments to doctors. The payments, which span only the last 5 months of 2013, are for consulting, research, travel expenses, and other purposes and were made to 546,000 physicians and nearly 1,360 teaching hospitals.
“CMS is committed to transparency, and this is an opportunity for the public to learn about the relationships among healthcare providers and pharmaceutical and device companies,” CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner said in a statement. “This initial public posting of data is only the first phase of the Open Payments program. In coming weeks, we will be adding additional data and tools that will give consumers, researchers, and others a detailed look into this industry and its financial arrangements.”
At first glance, the data in the database — mandated by the Physician Payments Sunshine Act — are hard to unravel, noted a story by ProPublica. For example, particular pharmaceutical companies reported their payments under the names of as many as 15 subsidiaries, and about 40% of the payments didn’t include names of the physicians or hospitals they were sent to.
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Contact Steven G. Cosby, MHSA with questions or to request more information and to schedule a healthcare plan evaluation, savings analysis or group plan solution for your company.
