The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced during a March 19, 2020 teleconference for physicians and teaching hospitals that it does not have the authority to postpone the statutory timeline for the Physician Payments Sunshine Act (Sunshine Act).[1]

This means, despite current operational challenges associated with the coronavirus pandemic, pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device manufacturers subject to the Sunshine Act must report applicable payments and transfers of value to teaching hospitals and physicians by March 31, 2020. Teaching hospitals and physicians may review and dispute applicable reported data between April 1 – May 15, 2020 before CMS publishes the data by June 30, 2020.

Notably, CMS emphasized that reviewing and disputing data reported by manufacturers is optional. CMS also added that teaching hospitals and physicians have the option to dispute data at any time through the 2020 calendar year. However, records disputed after May 15, 2020 will be published as originally submitted and updated at a later point in the year, which may result in inaccurate information being made public on the CMS Open Payments website.

We will continue to provide updates on this topic. If you have any questions, please contact the author or your Dinsmore attorney.