Sunshine Act went into effect last week…..Suppliers are you in compliance?

Did you know? The Physician Payments Sunshine Act, an Affordable Care Act provision requiring doctors and medical companies to disclose their financial relationships, went into effect Aug. 1. Physicians say they are now working to find a balance between necessary transparency and what some perceive to be burdensome filing, according to Kaiser Health News. “We want to spend our time seeing patients, not doing paperwork,” said Dr. Jason Mitchell the director of the Center for Health IT at the American Academy for Family Physicians.

Supplier reps will find themselves in a similar situation.

The Sunshine Act requires drug companies and medical device makers to report payments, gifts and investments to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Though the act is now in effect, a complete set of records are not due until March 2014 and will not be made public until September 2014.

The main goal of the Sunshine Act is to prevent companies from being able to buy a physician’s choice or time.  However, here will be a lot of tracking and work involved – for both physicians and their suppliers. Some examples:

• Doctors must report any items they are “given” from all healthcare companies.
• Dollar amounts to report are $10 or higher, or if they have a yearly amount over $100. If you buy them lunch for $12 it must be reported, if you buy them $5 of donuts 20 times in a year it must be reported.

In short, suppliers will have to changes how they track their expenses, if they haven’t already done so, including follow-up with the doctors. Considering the following: At the end of the year in December, suppliers are required to notify doctors of the items it has provided throughout the year that will be reported to them under the Sunshine Act. At that time, the doctor can agree or disagree with the supplier on the charges.

Are you ready?