District of Columbia Makes Changes Transparency Law to Align with Open Payments

Late last week with only a photo attachment, the District of Columbia Department of Health announced to the pharmaceutical industry that the District is changing its gift reporting requirements to meet the requirements with the new Open Payments reporting.

Chapter Eighteen of the District of Columbia Municipal Regulations requires manufacturers and labelers of prescription drugs dispensed in the District who engage in marketing in D.C. to report to the Department of Health their costs for pharmaceutical drug marketing in the District. Each manufacturer or labeler is required to report their annual prescription drug marketing costs in a report filed with the Department of Health on or before July 1 of each year.

This year, the aforementioned changes will be reflected in the Nature of Payment, Form of Payment, and Primary Purpose sections. The categories will have to align with Open Payments categories. Some responses will now be limited to the updated set of values.

While payments made to physicians or teaching hospitals must be reported to the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), companies are not required to report this information to the District of Columbia. However, payments made to recipients other than physicians and teaching hospitals must be reported to the District of Columbia. Reporting requirements for aggregate and advertising expenses remain unchanged.

The D.C. Department of Health recommends that companies who have filed reports in previous years use the Microsoft Excel file published online, as it will reflect changes and updates in the law. Complete instructions for filling out the forms are found in the PDF document, as well as on the fifth tab of worksheet of the Excel document.

The Company Information, Gift Expenses, Advertising Expenses, and Aggregate Cost worksheets should be filled out electronically according to the instructions, and submitted in Excel format to dc.accessrx@dc.gov. The Company Information worksheet should also be printed and sent to the D.C. Department of Health, along with a $5,000 filing fee check made payable to “D.C. Treasurer.”

This change was supposed to take place in 2013 when the Physician Payment Sunshine Act preempted state reporting. The District of Columbia is a little late to this change.