Overall, the data reveal $3.5 billion was paid out nationally — in consulting fees, research grants, travel reimbursements, meals and other gifts companies provided to physicians and teaching hospitals — during the last five months of 2013, according to the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
The initiative, Open Payments, is part of the Affordable Care Act’s efforts to create more transparency in medicine. Opponents of the payments say it may unduly influence physicians in the medications they prescribe and in other treatments.
“There’s no doubt in our minds that payments that go from pharmaceutical companies or medical device makers to physicians and teaching hospitals have insidious, corrupting influences on the practice of medicine and medical research,” said Dr. Michael Carome, director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group.
The site, which contains 4.4 million payments to 546,000 physicians and 1,360 teaching hospitals, was difficult to navigate and slow throughout the day. Consumers had trouble tailoring a state-by-state search or locating information on specific doctors.
“It’s consumer-unfriendly, and as far as I can tell it requires an advanced degree in information technology,” Carome said, calling it “a failure of government.”
Another major problem with the site: It doesn’t include identifying details in about 40 percent of the records provided by device makers and pharmaceutical companies due to inconsistent information that may have misidentified doctors or hospitals. Another 300,000 records are still being verified, and were not included, so the total value of payments is expected to be higher, CMS officials acknowledged in a conference call Tuesday.
“The program has had some fits and starts because of data accuracy issues,” said Larry Downs, CEO of the Medical Society of New Jersey. “If people have questions about their physicians, there may be a plausible explanation such as consulting or developing new products rather than a rush to judgment that this doctor was paid.”
The government acknowledged problems with the website, cms.gov/openpayments, and promised “enhancements” such as new tools for easier data searches.
©2014 The Record (Hackensack, N.J.)
