Sunshine rule off to rocky start as doctors encounter error messages on reporting site

Physicians attempting to log in to the Open Payments website to verify information reported about them ahead of that information being made public are encountering a cumbersome log-in process and confusing error messages reports ProPublica.

The Physician Payment Sunshine Act, a part of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, requires industry groups such as pharmaceutical makers and medical device developers to disclose payments and other compensation given to physicians who may then prescribe or order their products. Last week, this information became available to physicians to check for accuracy ahead of the public release of the information.

However, physicians interviewed by ProPublica say the process to verify their identities before viewing the data takes up to 20 minutes to complete and after they are finally logged in, they still cannot tell for sure if there are any financial relationships reported about them.

According to the doctors, instead of the site returning a clear message such as “you have no reported relationships with industry companies” they instead get an error message saying, “There are no results that match the specified search criteria.”

Aaron Albright, a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, reportedly told ProPublica that physicians should accept the error message as confirmation that they have no reported industry relationships and that those with questions can contact the Open Payments help desk.