On June 1, physicians and teaching hospitals began registering with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to review their data under the Open Payments program.
Under Open Payments – previously – CMS officials publish information on the financial relationship between physicians and drug and device manufacturers. In September, CMS plans to release information on payments and gifts made to individual physicians and teaching hospitals during the last five months of 2013. The payments may include compensations for meals and travel, consulting payments, or research grants.
Dr. Ardis Dee Hoven
The data release will be based on information collected and reported by the drug and device industry. However, physicians and teaching hospitals will have a chance to review and dispute their data before September.
Starting June 1, physicians and teaching hospitals were able to register on the CMS Enterprise Portal. In July, physicians and teaching hospitals must register again in the Open Payments system. Once registered in both systems, providers will be notified if data is submitted about them.
While there is no deadline for registration in either the Enterprise Portal or the Open Payment system, physicians and teaching hospitals will have only 45 days to review their data once it becomes available.
Data can be disputed during the 45-day period; however, if disputed data is not corrected by the drug or device manufacturer, it will be publicly listed as disputed.
Physicians aren’t required to review their data, but both CMS and the American Medical Association are encouraging them to do so.
The Open Payments program "will impact many physicians with a current medical license and it is important that they are properly registered to review and ensure the accuracy of the data reported by manufacturers and group purchasing organizations before the world sees it," Dr. Ardis Hoven, AMA president, said in a statement. "To avert one of the problems that came to light as a result of the Medicare claims data release earlier this year, we strongly urge physicians to make sure their information in the national provider identifier (NPI) database is current."
The AMA is asking CMS to give physicians more time to review and dispute their data.
The AMA has also released an online toolkit to help physicians stay on top of the Open Payments deadlines.
mschneider@frontlinemedcom.com
On Twitter @maryellenny
*Updated 6/2/2014