The Open Payments database lists most transfers of value made by pharmaceutical and device manufacturers to physicians and teaching hospitals, from a $10 sandwich to consulting arrangements in the thousands of dollars. The government database allows for users to search for a particular physician, but so far the challenge for manufacturers has been how to assemble Open Payments data—both for their own company and their competitors—into a meaningful business tool. A new resource entitled Open Payments Analytics, created by business analytics and software developer Streebo, now offers companies this ability.
Open Payments Analytics provides new insight into the reams of physician payment data that, due to the shear file size, has so far been near impossible to achieve. For example, the program offers manufacturers answers to the following questions:
*What percentage of your spend is on physicians of a particular specialty?
*What are you competitors’ interactions with your target physicians?
*What are the spending patterns of your competitors?
Here is a screenshot of one companies Open Payments analytics at a high level, listing spend by specialty, type, and the top physicians and teaching hospitals receiving transfers of value from the company:
Promotion Code: If you sign up with “POLICYMED” as your promo code, you will also receive two dashboards with more detailed specialty and teaching hospital information.
Here is a screenshot of the particular specialty information you will receive using the promotion code (zoom for a clearer image):
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Potential of Open Payments Analytics
Right now the payment data included in Open Payments Analytics covers 2013 transfers of value, including the December refresh. Importantly, the 2013 data is limited by its nature–the payment data is in many cases de-identified at the physician level, there were issues regarding the matching of physicians to the spend they received, and the payments cover only the last five months of the year.
The potential of “OPA,” however will be revealed later this year, and as more records are added to the system in the future. Mohammed Ovais, managing partner, says that the 2014 compilation “will become available as soon as possible” after the data’s expected June 30 publication by CMS.” The 2014 data covers a full year of payment transactions and is likely to be more than double the file size of the already gigantic 2013 database, making it even trickier to successfully analyze. Open Payments Analytics will thus be a very useful resource for companies looking to utilize this data–covering millions of physician interactions–to their competitive advantage.