Open Payments Website Launched
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
"Data dump’ reveals billions in pharma payments to docs, hospitals.
With the official launch of the Open Payments Website, the government revealed the financial ties between American medicine and the drug and medical device industries, publishing millions of records listing $3.5 billion in payments to doctors and hospitals over a five-month period.
The new database contains approximately 4.4 million records available for search and download, reflecting payments and other financial relationships that drug and device manufacturers had with 546,000 doctors and 1,360 teaching hospitals during the last five months of 2013.
"From day one, the Physician Payments Sunshine Act database will be helpful in shining light on a part of medicine most people haven't had the time or opportunity to consider. Eventually, the database will become a valuable resource for all of us with a stake in our country's health care system. That includes individual consumers, insurance companies, and taxpayers who pay for Medicare and Medicaid,” explained Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), author of the ACA provision in a statement.
The database was required under the 2010’s Physician Payments Sunshine Act as a way to increase health care spending transparency by allowing the public to see what doctors are receiving from the health care industry—like grants or speaking fees. “It should empower consumers to learn whether their doctors take payments and if so, why, and whether that matters to them,” Grassley said.
The introduction of the database was not without issues. Initially, the website was slow and incomplete: about 40 percent of the records do not identify the recipient because CMS could not match data provided by manufacturers with existing databases.
According to CMS, data for a full 12-month period will be available in June, and missing recipients will be identified sometime next year. Additional data were delayed by manufacturers who claimed that they contained trade secrets.
In a press release, CMS officials made clear that agency is not “sitting in judgment,” as one put it, of potential conflicts of interest. But transparency is the goal. “CMS is committed to transparency and this is an opportunity for the public to learn about the relationships among health care providers and pharmaceutical and device companies,” said Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The American Medical Association had urged the agency to delay publication until next year, and questioned the accuracy of the data. The group has also expressed concern that readers may fail to grasp that some doctor-drug company relationships are needed in order to carry out research into lifesaving drugs.
The database is available for download here.