A bill recently signed into law expands the reporting
requirements under the Physician Payments Sunshine Act
("Sunshine Act"). Applicable manufacturers will now be
required to report payments and other transfers of value to
physician assistants and advance practice nurses, in addition to
physicians and teaching hospitals.
Currently, applicable manufacturers are required to report payments
and other transfers of value to "covered recipients,"
defined as physicians and teaching hospitals. The bill expands the
definition of "covered recipients" to include physician
assistants, nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists,
certified nurse anesthetists, and certified nurse-midwives,
recognizing that these providers have prescriptive authority under
most states' laws. These changes apply to data submitted on or
after January 1, 2022, which will have been collected in 2021.
Applicable manufacturers will need to update their policies and
systems for capturing and tracking payments and transfers of value
to this expanded list of providers and should consider providing
additional training.
The bill, titled the "SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act,"
includes a variety of health reforms aimed at combatting the opioid
crisis. It incorporates a bipartisan bill introduced earlier in the year
by Senators Grassley (R-IA), Brown (D-OH), and Blumenthal (D-CT) to
shine a light on the relationship between drug companies and
prescriptions for opioids. These changes apply beyond opioids,
however, to all covered products, reflecting Senators
Grassley's and Blumenthal's earlier attempts to expand the reach of the
Sunshine Act to anyone with prescriptive authority.
The bill also sunsets a provision that currently excludes a
provider's National Provider Identifier ("NPI") from
the data that is made public by the Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services ("CMS") through the Open Payments
program. Applicable manufacturers are required to report a covered
recipient's NPI, but the NPI is not published by CMS. However,
data made publicly available after January 1, 2022, will include
the NPIs for covered recipients.
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