More than half of doctors are unaware of the so-called "Sunshine Act," a provision of health reform that's intended to expose financial relationships between drug and device manufacturers and certain health care providers, tech firm MMIS Inc. reported Monday. Even more say they are "deeply concerned" that the law will create a publicly accessible database of physician payment information.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released the final rule for the Sunshine Act Feb. 1 after a long delay. This rule finalizes the provisions that require manufacturers of drugs, devices, biologicals, and medical supplies covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program to report payments or other transfers of value they make to physicians and teaching hospitals to CMS. CMS will then post that data to a public website. The final rule also requires manufacturers and group purchasing organizations to disclose to CMS physician ownership or investment interests.
The survey revealed that of the more than 1,000 physicians questioned, more than half admitted they didn't know that the law requires pharmaceutical and medical device companies to report on expenditures annually, without physician review of the data to correct any inconsistencies or errors, prior to submission to the government. The majority—63 percent—also said they "were deeply concerned" that a record of these payments will be available in a publicly searchable database.
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