Open Payments review and dispute period open April 19, 2017 General, Managed Care, Medicare Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS, Medical Devices, Physician Payments Sunshine Act, Prescription Drugs 0 Drug and medical device manufacturers have completed their submission of data to the Open Payments system on payments or transfers of value made to physicians during 2016. Physicians now have 45 days to review and dispute records attributed to them. The review and dispute period is open until May 15, 2017. The review and dispute process is voluntary, but encouraged. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will publish the 2016 payment data, along with updates to the 2013 and 2014 data, on June 30, 2017. Disputes that are initiated before the May 15 deadline will be flagged in the public release on June 30. Under the Sunshine Act, drug and medical device manufacturers are required to report their financial interactions with licensed physicians – including consulting fees, travel reimbursements, research grants and other gifts. Any payments, ownership interests and other “transfers of value” are reported to CMS for publication in the online database. Physicians who are not already registered should be aware that there is a two-step process to register for the Open Payments program. The first step requires physicians to register at the CMS Enterprise Identity Management System portal, a step many physicians may have already completed as the gateway enables access to a number of other CMS programs. Step two is to register in CMS’ Open Payments system. Physicians who have already registered but who have not accessed their account in the past 60 days will need to unlock their account by going to the CMS Enterprise Portal, which will prompt you to enter your user ID and correctly answer all challenge questions. You will then be prompted to enter a new password. Users who registered last year, but who have been inactive for more than 180 days, will need to reactivate their account by contacting the Open Payments Help Desk at openpayments@cms.hhs.gov or (855) 326-8366. Comments are closed.
