Physician Payments Sunshine Act Database Taken Offline

In order to address glitches in the system, the CMS has taken the Open Payments system offline until next month. In the same week, the American Medical Association and 100 other medical societies including the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) sent a letter to CMS to express their concerns with implementation of the Sunshine Act. Citing expansion of the reporting requirement for educational activities, problems with the physician registration system, complicated guidance for physicians, and unclear guidance to manufacturers about the dispute process, organized medicine requested that CMS delay publication of the information collected in the system until March 31, 2015. Read the letter (PDF).