No Escape For Physicians Under This Sunshine
After much deliberation involving multitude of responses to the proposed rule, the final rule to the Sunshine Act of 2010 was ultimately published on Feb 1, 2013. This finally put an end to all speculation, as to whether receiving small tokens of appreciation from a drug or device manufacturer will affect the decision making of a physician, and whether the patient needed to know about the same.
CMS has answered in the affirmative, that “yes”, any such transfers of value exceeding $10 ought to be disclosed by the drug or device manufacturer, and the patient has a right to know about this particular arrangement. Also, needless to say, if the physician or his/her acquaintance has an interest in the drug company, that ought to be disclosed to CMS as well.
A Comedy of Disclosures
Although the act does not prohibit payments, it is a mandatory disclosure statute. The act tries to use some ambivalent legalese to drive home its point, that may ultimately leave some of the physicians confused as to what it denotes as “applicable manufacturers”, “covered products” or “covered recipients”.
And it does not cease there, there are four different items under “transfers of value” and 15 entities under reportable payment categories. Then there is the rule about gifts being smaller $10 but still reportable if the total value exceeded $100 in a year. All of these motley criteria might most probably end up befuddling a practitioner and make him question: WHY?????????????
But as the CMS website says, this probably is a good turn of event in the cause for greater transparency in the healthcare system.
“a final rule that will increase public awareness of financial relationships between drug and device manufacturers and certain health care providers. Called the “National Physician Payment Transparency Program: Open Payments,” this is one of many steps in the Affordable Care Act designed to create greater transparency in the health care market.”
So the next time your drug or device company executive calls you up wondering what you ate at their last conference, drop that incredulous look from your face and find out from your virtual personal assistant your preferred meal on a holiday!!
