October 2, 2014 by MassDevice
Health reporter Charles Ornstein takes a test drive using the federal government’s new website for drug and device payments. He finds it virtually unusable.
by Charles Ornstein, ProPublica
This story was co-published with The New York Times’ The Upshot.
If the federal government’s new Open Payments website were a consumer product, it would be returned to the manufacturer for a full refund.
Open Payments is the government’s site for publishing payments made to doctors and teaching hospitals by drug and medical device manufacturers. It includes 4.4 million payments, worth $3.5 billion, to more than half a million doctors and almost 1,360 teaching hospitals.
In a news release announcing the site’s launch, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said the goal is “to help consumers understand the financial relationships between the health care industry, and physicians and teaching hospitals.”
