Dive Brief:
- On April 6, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services opened a 45-day review period during which providers can review and dispute payments attributed to them as part of the Open Payments program.
- Payments that are disputed but not resolved within 15 days after the review period will be made public on June 30, 2015.
- Once the review and dispute period officially ends, providers can continue to register disputes, but resolutions will not be publicly displayed until the next reporting cycle.
Dive Insight:
CMS launched its Open Payments program in 2014 with the goal of making payments providers have received from drugmakers and medical device manufacturers transparent. Although participation in the program is voluntary, around 500,000 physicians and 1,360 teaching hospitals are currently participating. CMS is now working to improve outreach in order to get more providers to review their payment information.