The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is providing opportunities for physicians to learn about the Open Payments program in order to understand what information is being reported about your financial relationships with pharmaceutical or health care manufacturing companies.
These relationships can include money for research activities, gifts, speaking fees, meals, or travel. The Social Security Act requires CMS to collect information from applicable manufacturers and group purchasing organizations (GPOs) in order to report information about their financial relationships with physicians and hospitals. Open Payments is the federally run program that collects the information about these financial relationships and ultimately makes it available to the public.
An audio conference originally presented on January 15, is now available on the Events page of the Open Payments website. Listeners are provided with highlights of the recent data refresh, an overview of what’s to be expected for the 2014 program year, and an opportunity to hear the questions and answers recorded during the original presentation. Also, answers to general questions asked about the 2014 reporting year during the Q&A can be found in the 20 minute Open Payments Program Overview and Enhancements – Video Tutorial.
CMS plans to conduct these sessions regularly each month, and will announce upcoming calls at least a week in advance.
For more information, please visit the Open Payments website and sign up for the Open Payments listserv. If you have any questions, you can submit an email to the Help Desk at [email protected].
Live Help Desk support is available by calling 1-855-326-8366, Monday through Friday, from 7:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. (CT), excluding Federal holidays. Peak Help Desk call time is between 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. (CT), although average wait time is usually short even during peak call time.