The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has unveiled two mobile health applications designed to help providers track payments and other value transfers that they'll be required to report under the Physician Sunshine Act.
The Physician Payments Sunshine Act, also known as the OPEN PAYMENTS program, was created by a provision of the Affordable Care Act and aims to encourage public transparency pertaining to financial transactions among providers, hospitals, drug and device manufacturers and other healthcare businesses.
CMS officials say they've made these mobile apps available to facilitate accurate reporting of required information, which will be publicly available and published annually on the OPEN PAYMENTS website.
"CMS' foray into mobile technology is about providing user-friendly tools for doctors, manufacturers and others in the healthcare industry to use in working with us to implement the law in a smart way," said CMS Program Integrity Director Peter Budetti, MD, in a press release. "These two apps are an innovation option for doctors and industry to accurately and securely track their financial ties and other transfers of values as required under this important transparency program."
To complement the OPEN PAYMENTS program, CMS designed the apps – one for doctors and one for other healthcare industry users – with real-time tracking capabilities. Officials said doctors are not required to report any information via the apps, but can use them to help validate reports submitted by manufacturers regarding received payments.
The Sunshine Act requires drug and device manufacturers to report payments and/or other transfers they make to physicians and teaching hospitals; manufacturers and group purchasing organizations to report on investment interests and/or ownership help by physicians or their immediate family members; and GPOs to report payments or value transfers made to physician owners or investors if they hold ownership/investment interest.
Starting Aug. 1, groups will be required to collect and track payment information.
Officials said the apps can be used for tracking, but financial data loaded into them will not interact with CMS systems and therefore cannot be used for direct data reporting to CMS or its contractors. Furthermore, officials said, CMS will not validate the accuracy of data stored in the apps, nor will it be responsible for protecting data stored in the apps.
