The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services gave continuing medical education providers both a trick and a treat on Halloween when it issued its final rules relating to Open Payments (formerly known as the Sunshine Act). The trick: It eliminated the CME exemption in its entirety. The exemption would have specifically excluded speaker honoraria at CME activities offered by providers accredited by five major accreditors from the list of financial transactions between pharmaceutical companies and docs that have to be tracked and publicly reported. Many in the accredited CME community had lobbied heavily for CMS to keep the exclusion in its final rules.

To read the full article, please follow this link to the website of our media member MEETINGSNET Magazines & E-Media, Penton Media.