From CMS Reports
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) posted data for all 2014 financial transactions between doctors and drug and medical device manufacturers as part of the Open Payments program. The Open Payments data includes information about 11.4 million financial transactions attributed to over 600,000 physicians and more than 1,100 teaching hospitals, totaling $6.49 billion.
The Open Payments program, created by the Affordable Care Act, requires drug and device manufacturers to report transfers of value (i.e., payments, honoraria or research grants) to health care providers, as well as other industry-related investments providers may have. The program relies on voluntary participation by physicians and teaching hospitals to review the information submitted by these companies. Registered physicians and teaching hospitals reviewed nearly 30 percent of the total value of the reported data.
Acting CMS Administrator Andy Slavitt said, “Consumer access to information is a key component of delivery system reform and making the health care system perform better. In year 2, Open Payments is now a highly searchable resource to provide transparency to over 1 1/2 years’ worth of financial transactions between drug and device companies and physicians and teaching hospitals. This is part of our larger effort to open up the health care system to consumers by providing more information to help in their decision making.”
For all 2014 and 2013 data, CMS was able to validate that 98.8 percent of all records submitted in the Open Payments system contained accurate identifying information about the associated covered recipient. Records that could not be verified to align to an individual covered recipient were rejected and were not processed by the system. CMS will continue to update the Open Payments website annually with data collected from the previous year.
