Sunshine Act data collection delayed to January 2013, says USA's CMS

In a web site posting last week, The US Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CSM) announced that manufacturers will not be required to collect data under the physician payment Sunshine provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act before next January.

The CMS said it is “committed to addressing the valuable input received during the comment period, and to ensuring the accuracy of the data collected. In order to provide time for organizations to prepare for data submission and to sufficiently address the important input we received during the rulemaking process, CMS will not require data collection by applicable manufacturers and applicable group purchasing organizations before January 1, 2013.”

The Sunshine provisions, developed by US Senators Chuck Grassley (Republican, Iowa) and Herb Kohl (Democrat, Wisconsin), among other things, require manufacturers of drugs, devices, biologicals, and medical supplies that are covered under Medicare, Medicaid, or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to report annually to the CMS certain payments or other transfers of value to physicians and teaching hospitals. Although the statute requires the first report to be submitted by March 31, 2013 for payments made in calendar year 2012, the CMS has long exceeded its statutory deadline of October 1, 2011 for issuing implementing procedures.