West Virginia Prescription Drug Advertising Expense Reporting Rule REPEALED
On March 24th, West Virginia’s Governor, Earl Ray Tomblin, approved SB 267, which repeals the state’s Prescription Drug Advertising Expense Reporting requirement. West Virginia law required pharmaceutical manufacturers doing business in the state to disclose all expenditures for advertising and direct promotion of prescription drugs to consumers, prescribers, pharmacies, and patient support or advocacy groups within West Virginia.
By approving SB 267, the Governor repealed all of the West Virginia Code provisions relating to the Governor's Office of Health Enhancement and Lifestyle Planning (GOHELP). These...
Source: Policy and Medicine - March 26, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
CMS Open Payments Q&A: Tuesday March 10, 1:30pm EST
On Tuesday, March 10, 2015 1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. (EST), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is hosting a live Question & Answer Session.
The session will cover questions related to registration, data submission, and attestation.
It should be a useful resource as the deadline for manufacturers to submit their 2014 Open Payments reports to CMS approaches fast. Submissions are due March 31, 2014.
Who should attend: Industry, physicians, and teaching hospitals interested in learning more about the registration, data submission, and attestation processes.
Dial-in information: Note tha...
Source: Policy and Medicine - March 9, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
Open Payments: Early Impact And The Next Wave Of Reform
Editor’s note: This post is part of a series stemming from the Third Annual Health Law Year in P/Review event held at Harvard Law School on Friday, January 30, 2015. The conference brought together leading experts to review major developments in health law over the previous year, and preview what is to come. A full agenda and links to video recordings of the panels are here.
The Physician Payments Sunshine Act, a provision in the Affordable Care Act, seeks to increase the transparency of the financial relationships between medical device and drug manufacturers, physicians, and teaching hospitals. Launched on Septembe...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - March 3, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Tony Caldwell and Christopher Robertson Tags: All Categories Big Data Business of Health Care Health Reform Hospitals Payment Pharma Physicians Policy Source Type: blogs
Physician Payments Sunshine Act: Vermont Gift Ban and Disclosure Law Update
This report outlines the number of samples and expenditures, listed by manufacturer.
2014 Reports Due April 1, 2015
As a reminder, 2014 disclosures for expenditures and samples from January 1 – December 31, 2014 are due by April 1, 2015, using the following documents: 2014 Expenditures Disclosure Form and 2014 Samples Disclosure Form
Vermont’s Prescribed Products Gift Ban and Disclosure Law
As a background, Vermont law bans most gifts and requires manufacturers of prescribed products, including pharmaceuticals, biological products, and medical devices, to “disclose allowable expenditures and ...
Source: Policy and Medicine - February 25, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
Physician Payments Sunshine Act: CMS Holds Data Submission Q&A
Yesterday, CMS’ Open Payments team held an informal question and answer session. Doug Brown, director of the data sharing and partnership group within the Center for Program Integrity at CMS, spoke on a number of topics that compliance professionals have spent the last year working through. He described what to expect in the coming weeks and technical issues with Open Payments.
Recently, CMS announced that applicable manufacturers and applicable group purchasing organizations (GPOs) are now able to register or recertify their registration in the Open Payments system and begin data submission for any payments or transfers...
Source: Policy and Medicine - February 10, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
Physician Payments Sunshine Act: Year 2 of Data Submission Begins Today
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has announced that beginning today, February 2, 2015, applicable manufacturers and applicable group purchasing organizations (GPOs) will be able to register or recertify their registration in the Open Payments system and begin data submission for any payments or transfers of value that occurred in the 2014 calendar year.
"All applicable manufacturers and GPOs must register or recertify their registration," states CMS. "Applicable manufacturers and GPOs can also now submit corrected 2013 data (if needed) and submit their 2014 data to the Open Payments system."
March 31, 2015, ...
Source: Policy and Medicine - February 2, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
Time to "Look for the Union Label?" - "First US Doctors' Strike in Decades," at University of California Student Health
The First US Doctors' Strike in Decades A few news media outlets in California have reported on what has been up to now a very rare event - a strike by physicians. An initial summary was in an article in the San Diego Union - Tribune, whose title wasFirst U.S. Doctors' Strike in DecadesA handful of doctors providing medical services to students at UC San Diego — and their colleagues at nine other University of California campuses — went on strike Tuesday.It's the first time in 25 years that fully licensed doctors are picketing a U.S. employer, according to the Union of American Physicians and Dentists, whic...
Source: Health Care Renewal - January 30, 2015 Category: Health Management Tags: corporate physician executive compensation labor unions physician strikes transparency University of California Source Type: blogs
Physician Payments Sunshine Act: Open Payments 2015 Timeline; Enhancements to the System
Unlike the first Open Payments program year, which took place over a 5 month period from August 2013 – December 2013, the second year covers all of industries' 2014 payments or transfers of value to covered recipients. Data collection wrapped up on December 31, 2014.
Following a month-long outage to Open Payments this January in order for CMS to address some technical issues, companies are expected to be able to submit their 2014 payment data during the months of February and March. The review and dispute process will follow, likely in April-May. Physicians and teaching hospitals will have at least 45 days to access the ...
Source: Policy and Medicine - January 15, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
Graduate Medical Education: The Need For New Leadership In Governance And Financing
In conclusion, we have recently proposed rejuvenating COGME with expanded resources and membership. If accomplished, COGME should be able to serve the role recommended for the GME Council described in the IOM report, thereby creating new leadership for GME reform.
As an immediate first step, we have proposed reauthorization of the THCGME program, with Medicare GME funding appropriated to assure sustainability. This small addition to the Medicare budget would have great value by encouraging optimism within this program’s broad constituency that the importance of ambulatory training is now recognized by Congress. Furthermo...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - January 14, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Richard Rieselbach, David Sundwall, and Kenneth Shine Tags: All Categories Disparities Hospitals Medicaid Medicare Physicians Policy Primary Care Workforce Source Type: blogs
Thursday, January 15: Open Payments Question and Answer Session
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will be hosting a call next Thursday, January 15, 2015 for an Open Payments Question & Answer Session. The session will begin at 11:30 AM EST.
CMS notes that stakeholders should bring their questions to this session related to the December 19 data refresh, or the upcoming 2014 Open Payments program year.
CMS provides the following log-in information:
Dial-in information: Note that there will be no online portion to this meeting; please just use this phone line for the audio meeting: 1-877-267-1577
Meeting number: 995 248 830 (a pa...
Source: Policy and Medicine - January 9, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
CMS Adds $200 Million In Payments to Open Payments Database
On Friday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) added approximately 68,000 payment records—valued at more than $200 million—to the Open Payments dataset.
“With this new data, Open Payments now reports information on $3.7 billion in payments and transfers of value made to up to 546,000 individual physicians and up to 1,360 teaching hospitals in the last five months of the 2013 calendar year,” states CMS.
CMS notes that an updated data set will be routine going forward.
“Every year, CMS will update the Open Payments data at least once after its initial publication,” according to the announcement. ...
Source: Policy and Medicine - December 22, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
Physicians must be the architects of health care change
An excerpt from The Myths of Modern Medicine: The Alarming Truth about American Health Care (Rowman & Littlefield).
Myth 1: “The United States boasts the best health care in the world.”
Betsy Lehman trusted her life to the American health care system. An award-winning journalist, Lehman was a rising star at the Boston Globe, where she wrote extensively about health care issues. So when the mother of two was diagnosed with a particularly aggressive type of breast cancer, she knew instinctively where to go to receive outstanding care. Lehman selected a top-notch teaching hospital that has long been recogni...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - December 13, 2014 Category: Journals (General) Authors: John Leifer Tags: Policy Health reform Source Type: blogs
Preparing US Hospitals To Safely Manage Ebola Virus-Infected Patients: At What Cost?
Since Ebola first reached US shores this summer, hospitals nationwide have attempted to prepare. National guidance has been helpful, but no such guidance can deal with the fastidious attention to every minute and mundane aspect of caring for a patient with Ebola virus infection that could place a health care worker at risk if a breach occurs. Simulation training has helped to uncover defects and to assess our capacity to mitigate those defects.
Additionally, innumerable hours of countless health care workers, hospital administrators, infection control staff, facilities and environmental services providers, communications s...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - December 11, 2014 Category: Health Management Authors: Leonard Mermel Tags: All Categories Effectiveness Hospitals Nurses Patient Safety Physicians Public Health Workforce Source Type: blogs
Physician Payments Sunshine Act: List of Open Payments Resources
This article also lists resources that analyzed the payment data. We followed up this initial publication review with another round-up on October 30, a month after the initial data release.
Breakdown of Research Payments, Including Top Manufacturers
Research payments from manufacturers to teaching hospitals and physicians in the first database were around $1.5 billion. While about 90 percent of this research data was de-identified, so as to cover the recipient of these payments, the information provides a useful look into the collaborations between companies and physicians and teaching hospitals.
Continuin...
Source: Policy and Medicine - December 8, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
Open Payments Search Tool Now Includes Summary Information about Companies and Doctors; CMS releases Updated Physician Matching List
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) today made a number of announcements related to the Open Payments program.
Updates to the physician and manufacturer search tool
CMS previously announced the availability of the Open Payments data search tool to allow users to search identified data for physicians, teaching hospitals, or companies making payments by name, city, state, and specialty. Now, they have enhanced their search tool so that when users search for physicians, teaching hospitals, or companies making payments, they can view detailed and new summary information about them.
This new ...
Source: Policy and Medicine - December 4, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
