For those of us who toil in the Life Sciences realm of healthcare, we spend considerable time in the area of spend transparency and the assumed correlation between the cost of healthcare and the relationships between manufacturer promotional spend and the covered recipients (physicians and a select group of teaching hospitals) at the other end of so-called transfers of value (TOVs) between them. This activity is reported and published manually in a program called Open Payments, as mandated in Section 6002 of the Affordable Care Act, also known as PPACA and more commonly known as Obamacare. It requires that the federal government establish a transparency program to raise awareness of the financial relationships between drug and device manufacturers and certain healthcare providers called covered recipients (physicians and teaching hospitals). The program, known as the Physician Payments Sunshine Act or Open Payments, is covered under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and is administered by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
FierceHealthcare reports that another division of HHS, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) is making a significant shift in its priorities towards existing hospitals, entities which are surprisingly absent from CMS's focus under the Sunshine Act (the 1,203 teaching hospitals in scope for 2015 reporting notwithstanding). The move is in line with the federal government's commitment to cutting healthcare care costs. It is indicative of the broader attention on healthcare stakeholders that have just as much, if not more, impact the cost of healthcare for all of us.
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