Bumps in the road to transparency
October 04, 2014
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released the Open Payments data, which details which companies have given how much to different doctors. We think this is terrific for patients. The underlying concern is that physicians who have received large payments from certain manufacturers have a conflict of interest and might be biased towards that manufacturers' products. Some will counter that physicians abide by a professional ethic that prioritizes the interests of the patients and are above such influences. It seems clear that at least some physicians will be negatively influenced, and it's unclear who would be in the best position to detect that (given, for example, that medical state licensing boards don't systematically review doctors' prescription patterns). In other areas (such as journalism and research), professionals disclose potential conflicts of interest so that others can judge for themselves whether their output has been unduly influenced. The Open Payments program helps move the health care industry in that direction.
Already, there are some criticisms of the data that has been leveled. A basic criticism about the data is that CMS has withheld the unique physician identifiers that they have collected. Thus, for example, there may be some ambiguity as to which Dr. John Smith has received payments. Another criticism is that some of the data is just plain wrong. For example, WSJ posted an article about how one physician was listed as having received more than $150,000 while in actuality received close to $2,000. The source of the error lies with the company that reported the information, but CMS has also stated that it won't update the data set until next year. Both of these criticisms are clearly unfortunate, but still, the Open Payments program is a step in the right direction and will hopefully improve over time.