Applicable manufacturers and group purchasing organizations (GPOs) had until April 3, 2015, to submit and attest to 2014 program year data about their financial relationships with physicians and hospitals and update 2013 program year data. Now it is the physicians’ and teaching hospitals’ turn.
Beginning April 6, 2015, physicians and hospitals have 45 days to review and, if necessary, dispute payments reported to the Open Payments system before the information is made public on June 30, 2015. After the review and dispute period officially ends, physicians and teaching hospitals can continue to register and initiate disputes, but resolutions will not be publicly displayed until the next reporting cycle.
What Should You Do?
The only thing you can do is review your data and dispute any discrepancies. Here’s how:
- Register in both the CMS Enterprise Portal and the Open Payments system.
- After you register, go to the CMS Enterprise Portal, log in using your user ID and password, and navigate to the Open Payments system home page.
- Use the Review and Dispute Process Quick Reference Guide to assist you with reviewing the submitted information and affirming or disputing the reported data before it is published.
Those who registered last year do not need to register again in the CMS Enterprise Portal or the Open Payments system. However, the CMS Enterprise Portal locks accounts if there is no activity for 60 days or more and deactivates accounts if there is no activity for 180 days or more.
- To unlock an account, go to the CMS Enterprise Portal, enter your user ID, and correctly answer all challenge questions; you’ll then be prompted to enter a new password.
- To reinstate an account, contact the Open Payments Help Desk.
Is It Really Necessary?
This is the second reporting cycle for Open Payments, and it covers payments made in 2014. Last year, CMS published information about 4.45 million payments valued at $3.7 billion for the last five months of 2013. Remember what happened with the first release of information? Medicare couldn’t report almost 40 percent of the data because the physician or hospital that received the payment wasn’t listed. Also, payments to providers with the same name were inadvertently lumped together. Not to mention problems with the website itself.
While this program does not require physicians and teaching hospitals to do anything, manufacturers and GPOs will report information about physicians and teaching hospitals. Since that data will eventually be made public, it’s probably a good idea to take the extra step to review it and dispute any discrepancies.
For more information about Open Payments as well as the review and dispute process, visit the Open Payments webpage or register for the April 15 Medicare Learning Network Call: “Prepare to Review Open Payments Reported Data.” Space may be limited, so register early.
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