How to ensure your Open Payments data is correct

Open Payments is a national disclosure program run by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) that provides public information about financial relationships between pharmaceutical and medical device companies and certain health care providers, including physicians.

Drug and device companies, or their distributors, must report to CMS any payments or transfers of value they make to covered recipients who fall under the program’s guidelines. Reportable transactions include, but are not limited to, payments for consulting and speaking fees; honoraria, gifts, and royalties; grants and research contributions; entertainment, travel, lodging, food, and beverage; faculty compensation; and space rental or facility fees.

CMS releases the reported data to the public each year in June. Physicians can review any information reported about them before CMS publishes it by registering in the Open Payments system. Registration is open year-round and gives covered recipients the opportunity to dispute any data they believe is inaccurate before it becomes public. More information about registration and how to review and dispute data is available on CMS’ Covered Recipients page.

Covered recipients have a 45-day window (April 1 through May 15) every year to review and dispute data before it is published. Any disputes received after May 15 and before Dec. 31 can still be corrected post-publication during a data “refresh” that CMS performs every January. (This means covered recipients have until Dec. 31, 2022, to take action on 2021 data or any newly submitted data from previous years that CMS published on June 30, 2022.)

Registration is voluntary, but it’s the only way for physicians to ensure that the information about them in the Open Payments database is accurate. Physicians and other covered recipients can sign up for email reminders on the program’s Contact Us page so they are ready to register and participate in pre-publication review next April.  Visit cms.gov/OpenPayments for more information.

— Kent Moore, AAFP Senior Strategist for Physician Payment

Posted on Dec. 19, 2022