As we wait for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to publish the final regulations implementing the Physician Payment Sunshine Act, numerous stakeholders are preparing for the significant burdens complying with the law will create. Interestingly, prior to the proposed regulations, several organizations including the media began to aggregate physician-industry payments that were voluntary reported by companies or required by corporate integrity agreements.
One of those organizations was ProPublica and its Dollars for Docs campaign. While the investigative journalist group was quite active back in 2011, the group has been quiet since May of this year.
Interestingly, in late October, Health Care Compliance Strategies, Inc. (HCCS) announced the release of a new enhancement to its COI-SMART tool that provides direct connectivity to the ProPublica “Dollars for Docs” database of industry payments to physicians. HCCS is a provider of online healthcare compliance and competency training and tracking solutions.
COI-SMART is a web-based system for the management and real-time tracking of Conflict of Interest disclosures. COI-SMART provides sophisticated tools for the development of multilevel questionnaires, automated assignment of reviewers, the development of COI management plans, and data mining tools for auditing, tracking and reporting on potential conflicts of interest. COI-SMART provides comprehensive tools for tracking and managing Conflict of Interest disclosures. COI-SMART:
- Automates cumbersome manual processes
- Tracks and manages conflicts
- Meets NIH COI requirements
- Manages IRS Form 990 requirements
- Will integrate with the Physician Payment Sunshine Act database
Providing connectivity to the ProPublica database in COI-SMART allows reviewers to quickly and easily look up public data and compare it to physician self-disclosures in COI-SMART. It also serves as a reminder to physicians making disclosures that this information is publically available and should be reviewed before disclosing in COI-SMART.
“This is the first step in providing reviewers and physicians with access to public financial disclosure data directly in COI-SMART,” says Ben Diamond, President of HCCS. “Ars more comprehensive data becomes available through the Physician Payment Sunshine Act database, we will be able to provide even more detailed comparison and discrepancy reporting. The ultimate goal is to make it easier for healthcare organizations to track and manage disclosures while providing a complete picture of potential conflicts and risks.”
Just what the world needs, yet an another easy to use database to track your doctor’s relationships with industry. This may have some applicability for the next year, the database only creates a temporary solution.