decisionhealth Newsletters, Coder Pink Sheets - 2014 Issue 10 (October)
Open Payments are online but 40% of records will lack physician data until 2015
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Article Overview
This article covers the first online release of CMS Open Payments data under the Sunshine Act and explains why many records may not yet be linked to named physicians. It is relevant to compliance, health system administration, and revenue cycle or data management teams that need to understand the structure of the dataset, the review process, and practical access considerations for large file downloads.
Why This Topic Matters
The Open Payments database affects how physician-industry financial relationships are tracked and reviewed, making the initial release important for compliance oversight and data reconciliation. The article also highlights limitations in record identification and file size that can affect how organizations search, import, and analyze the data.
Article Sections
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Compliance
Introduces the Open Payments release in the context of federal reporting and compliance activity. It sets up the dataset and the types of information included in the public release.
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Your data could be there but ‘de-identified’
Explains that some records may appear without named physician identifiers and discusses broad reasons records may be unpublished or delayed. It also references the review and verification process used before publication.
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Beware of big files
Describes the website tools available for accessing the data and notes practical issues related to large downloads. It also mentions general approaches for handling the files in common data systems.
What You Will Learn
- What the initial Open Payments release includes at a high level
- How CMS categorizes the reported data into broad groups
- Why some records may not yet be linked to identifiable physicians
- What tools are available for searching and downloading the dataset
- What practical issues arise when working with large public data files
Who Should Read This
- Compliance professionals
- Medical practice administrators
- Health system data analysts
- Revenue cycle professionals
- Physician organizations
- Healthcare IT teams
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