Understanding the Sunshine Act—Part One
March 27, 2012 · Leave a comment
Industry Insights from Kristen Smithwick
Albeit a bit late, the U. S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a proposed rule on the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act’s Physician Payments Sunshine Provision (also known as the “Sunshine Act”) to implement it as law.
CMS invited comments on the proposed rule through mid-February 2012, and a recent webcast, sponsored by PharmaLive’s Pharmalot, featured key facts and summaries of comments on the proposed rule. Working for a provider of research and consulting to the biopharmaceutical, medical device, and diagnostics industries on relationships with physicians and other health care providers, I enjoyed the opportunity to join the webcast, led by experts from Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, P.C., and am eager to share some of my key takeaways.
As mentioned in previous Thought Leader Select Blog posts, the Sunshine Act, as with many laws and regulations, is full of unintended consequences – some positive and some negative. Lance K. Stell, medical ethics teacher at Davidson College and Carolinas Medical Center, reports in his USA Today op-ed piece that the “Sunshine Act will cost far more than the $224 million estimated for just the first year of compliance” and that “the biggest cost will be the valuable, socially useful physician-industry collaborations that simply won’t occur.” Of course, the idea of ... read more »
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