Provider Payment Sunshine Act: Senators Grassley and Blumenthal Introduce Bill to Expand Open Payments Reporting Requirements to Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants

On October 7, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn) introduced a bill that would expand the Open Payments reporting requirements to include nurse practitioners and physician assistants. Currently, to comply with the Sunshine Act, pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers are required to report payments and other transfers of value to physicians and teachings hospitals. While the definition of physician is broad—and includes doctors of medicine, osteopathy, dentists, podiatrists, optometrists and chiropractors who legally authorized to practice by a state—the law currently does not cover NPs or PAs. Proponents of the change to Open Payments, including ProPublica, have argued that these professionals are able to prescribe medicine and should be included in the transparency language just like doctors. S.2153 - A bill to amend title XI of the Social Security Act to require applicable manufacturers to include information regarding payments made to physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and other advance practice nurses in transparency reports submitted under section 1128G of such Act. Currently, only a summary of the bill is available; we will add specific of the bill as they are released. The Senators’ bill comes after Connecticut passed a similar law in 2014 that they have since delayed to 2017. Introduced as part of a bill giving Advance Practice Nurse Practitioners (APRNs) the opportunity to practice independent of physicians...
Source: Policy and Medicine - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs