The Physician Payments Sunshine Act is a 2010 United States healthcare law to increase transparency of financial relationships between

health care provider A health care provider is an individual health professional or a health facility organization licensed to provide health care diagnosis and treatment services including medication, surgery and medical devices. Health care providers often receive ...

s and

pharmaceutical manufacturer The pharmaceutical industry discovers, develops, produces, and markets drugs or pharmaceutical drugs for use as medications to be administered to patients (or self-administered), with the aim to cure them, vaccinate them, or alleviate sympto ...

About

The Sunshine Act requires manufacturers of drugs,

medical devices A medical device is any device intended to be used for medical purposes. Significant potential for hazards are inherent when using a device for medical purposes and thus medical devices must be proved safe and effective with reasonable assura ...

, biological and medical supplies covered by the three federal health care programs Medicare,

Medicaid Medicaid in the United States is a federal and state program that helps with healthcare costs for some people with limited income and resources. Medicaid also offers benefits not normally covered by Medicare, including nursing home care and pers ...

, and

State Children's Health Insurance Program The Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) – formerly known as the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) – is a program administered by the United States Department of Health and Human Services that provides matching funds to ...

(SCHIP) to collect and track all financial relationships with physicians and

teaching hospital A teaching hospital is a hospital or medical centre that provides medical education and training to future and current health professionals. Teaching hospitals are almost always affiliated with one or more universities and are often co-located ...

s and to report these data to the

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), is a federal agency within the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that administers the Medicare program and works in partnership with state governments to administer M ...

(CMS). The goal of the law is to increase the transparency of financial relationships between

s and

s and to uncover potential

conflicts of interest A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates to situations i ...

. The bill allows states to enact "additional requirements", as six states already had industry-pay disclosure laws. In 2013, the

American Medical Association The American Medical Association (AMA) is a professional association and lobbying group of physicians and medical students. Founded in 1847, it is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Membership was approximately 240,000 in 2016. The AMA's state ...

offered physicians training to understand the Sunshine Act.

History

The Sunshine Act was first introduced in 2007 by senior US Senator

Charles Grassley Charles Ernest Grassley (born September 17, 1933) is an American politician serving as the president pro tempore emeritus of the United States Senate, and the senior United States senator from Iowa, having held the seat since 1981. In 2022, he ...

, a

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

from

Iowa Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the ...

and Senator

Herb Kohl Herbert H. Kohl (born February 7, 1935) is an American businessman and politician. Alongside his brother and father, the Kohl family created the Kohl's department stores chain, of which Kohl went on to be president and CEO. Kohl also served as a ...

from

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

, a member of the

Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...

. The act was introduced independently and failed. After debate by various groups it was enacted along with the 2010

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act The Affordable Care Act (ACA), formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and colloquially known as Obamacare, is a landmark U.S. federal statute enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by Presi ...

. In 2011, it was proposed to use identification systems on tracked physicians. On September 30, 2014, the

reported payment information on its Open Payment Program website for the first time, the data from 2012.

Criticism

In 2012 it was suggested that the act may have a limited effect on prescribing and on expenditures. A 2015 opinion piece in

JAMA ''The Journal of the American Medical Association'' (''JAMA'') is a peer-reviewed medical journal published 48 times a year by the American Medical Association. It publishes original research, reviews, and editorials covering all aspects of biom ...

stated that the value of transparency was beyond dispute, but "the true value of the database remains uncertain and probably too early to ascertain".

International comparison

There is no agreement on appropriate standards of disclosure internationally. Australia was one of the first countries that has, since mid-2007, required reporting of details of every industry-sponsored event. Data are publicly posted, updated every six months and downloadable as pdf only. A 2009 study found modest expenditure at individual events, but high cumulatively, particularly for prescribers of high cost drugs like oncologists, endocrinologists, and cardiologists. It concluded disclosure requirements fell short of what is required and proposed more comprehensive data collections. In The Netherlands the was founded in 2013, that requires full disclosure of payments above 500 euro from pharmaceutical companies and manufacturers of medical devices to healthcare workers, patient organizations et cetera. The effectiveness of this register will be evaluated in 2019.

References

External links

* *{{cite web, url=http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/advocacy/topics/sunshine-act-and-physician-financial-transparency-reports.page, publisher= American Medical Association, title=Physician Financial Transparency Reports (Sunshine Act), date=n.d. Affordable Care Act Proposed legislation of the 111th United States Congress United States federal health legislation