n engl j med 368;22 nejm.org may 30, 2013 2052 small-value gifts.5 The discrepancy between data sets also raises the possibility that some qualifying payments were not reported to the Massachusetts database. The federal Physician Payment Sunshine Act will soon require manufacturers to report most payments to physicians and teaching hospitals on a national level. Recently released rules indicate...

In a pervasive but controversial practice, drug firms frequently make monetary or in-kind payments to medical providers. Critics are concerned that drug firms are distorting prescribing behavior away from the best interests of patients, while defenders of the practice claim that payments arise from the need to educate providers about changing drug technologies. Using two different identificatio...

Under the Physician Payment Sunshine Act (PPSA), payments to physicians from pharmaceutical, biologics, and medical device manufacturers will be disclosed on a national, publicly available website. To inform the development of the federal website, we evaluated 21 existing state and industry disclosure websites. The presentation formats and language used suggest that industry websites are aimed ...

As of August 1, 2013, the Sunshine Act mandates that any transaction between a physician (or teaching hospital) and the pharmaceutical or device industries more than $10 in value must be publicly disclosed. Physician and industry leaders have sounded alarms about the impact of this extreme level of transparency; physicians are nervous, for they fear information published online will tarnish the...