News-At-A-Glance: Open Payments Data Available December 31

Ready or not, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is giving providers until Oct. 31 to correct errors in their open payments database before publication on Dec. 31. Laboratories were not required to provide data for the database, but the information contained there may prove useful to laboratories in gaining information about existing and potential clients. The CMS Web site at www.CMS.gov/openpayments includes a variety of tools to search and view the data and allows for a download of the data sets. According to a statement on the Web site, the publication of the data is required by the Social Security Act. It provides information about the financial relationships that doctors and hospitals have with device manufacturers concerning payments made to doctors for such things as research activities, gifts, speaker fees, meals, or travel. The site includes access to a factsheet and instructions on how to find information or search the database.