The Sunshine Act, signed into law in 1976 in order to implement a greater transparency in governmental agencies, allows every agency meeting to be open for public observation. This act helps involve citizens of the U.S. with governmental agency proceedings and meetings and ensures that the government is fully accountable for its actions.
In relation to health care, the Sunshine Act states that all pharmaceutical manufacturers, biological product manufacturers, and producers of medical products to report monetary transfers, including payments, to physicians and track all financial expenditures. These recordings allow insight into the financial processes of the health care system and expose flaws and inefficiencies, which in turn helps improve the effectiveness of the health care system overall.
Physician payments and benefits are then reported to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and reports must be electronic, downloadable, and easily searchable. As of 2010, this law was passed through legislation as the Physician Payment Sunshine Act, and by 2013 all companies must comply with its regulations. Following are just a couple more things you need to know about the Sunshine Act.
? Failure to report payments will cost each company $1000 ? $10,000 for each payment not reported; however, this number is not to exceed $150,000 annually. Additionally, if a company intentionally fails to report a payment the fine will raise to $10,000 ? $100,000 for each payment not reported; this number is not to exceed $1,000,000 annually.
? The reports are detailed in such a way that payment recording needs to be conducted in a effective manner, as reports need to contain not only the form of payment (cash, check, etc.) but also the date, the name of related drug, device, or supply, the value, the national provider ID, physician specialty, physician name, and the business address. In addition to this information, the category of payment needs to be included as well; this includes gifts, food, entertainment, travel, research funding, education, profit distribution, charity contributions, consulting fees, speaking fees, royalties, and stock or stock options. With the Sunshine Act, all payments and monetary transactions need to recorded and reported with detail, as failure to produce such payments result in the heavy fines mentioned above. Transfers of less than a value $10 are excluded from these regulations.
? With these new regulations, the public at large will be able to see whether or not their physicians will prescribe certain medicines and products based on need or pharmaceutical influence, thus creating greater transparency and eliminating inefficiencies in the health care system. All of the reports gathered will be freely available and easily searchable in certain databases across the web.
The Sunshine Act in relation to health care was passed in May of 2010 and will have full implementation throughout the entire U.S. health care system by 2014, and until then many companies have several changes and improvements to make throughout their systems. This Act isn?t without opposition either, as over 30 lawsuits have been filed since the Sunshine Act was signed into President Obama?s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
To learn more, visit our website about Sunshine Act Training today and bookmark it to share with others!
Source: http://toddsblogs.com/healthandfitness/2012/08/20/3-things-to-know-about-the-sunshine-act/
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