Section 6002 of the Affordable Care Act requires the establishment of a transparency program, now known as Open Payments. The program increases public awareness of financial relationships between drug and device manufacturers and certain health care providers.

Open Payments requires

• Applicable manufacturers of covered drugs, devices, biologicals, and medical supplies must report payments or other transfers of value they make to physicians and teaching hospitals to CMS.
• Applicable manufacturers and applicable group purchasing organizations (GPOs) to report to CMS certain ownership or investment interests held by physicians or their immediate family members.
• Applicable GPOs to report to CMS payments or other transfers of value made to physician owners or investors if they held ownership or an investment interest at any point during the reporting year.

CMS will collect the data annually, aggregate it, and publish it on a public website.

For purposes of reporting payments to Covered Recipients, the term “Covered Recipients” refers to physicians (except for physicians who are bona fide employees of the applicable manufacturer reporting the payment) and teaching hospitals. For the purposes of this program, a “physician” is any of the following types of professionals that are legally authorized to practice:

• Doctor of Medicine
• Doctor of Osteopathy
• Doctor of Dentistry
• Doctor of Dental Surgery
• Doctor of Podiatry
• Doctor of Optometry
• Doctor of Chiropractic Medicine
• Advanced Practice Providers
• Physician Assistants

For additional information, please visit UIHC's Joint Office for Compliance page or CMS's Open Payments Act page.