I want to learn more about the Open Payments CMS system for where to find physician industry payment disclosures to determine if the hospital’s physicians have accurately reported receipt of those payments. I find the database to be difficult to navigate due to the different ways to search. Can someone explain the difference between general payments and research payments? How far back do the reports and records go? Also, there are physicians that clear to have no payments recorded, but I know they have attended conferences in the previous session; it indicates that they did not record any payment received, or are there exclusions that would apply? Is there a multiple download option present so that I do not have to perform an individual search for each physician? Thank you in advance for any guidance you can provide to assist me in better understanding this process.

After reading more about the risk from third parties, it occurred to me that we aren't thoroughly reviewing our own processes and procedures. We put much time and effort into pre-hiring and ongoing employee vetting but are not spending equal time on the companies we are paying.

Vendor screening is just as important as employee backgrounds; if you are using contractors that have been identified as a risk (such as on a federal watch list), the liability is yours.

To mitigate some of the risk associated with using suppliers, we began performing automated sanction checks against all new suppliers prior to signing a contract and then again quarterly thereafter. The number of red flags that we uncover from these background checks is shocking. How often does everyone else review their list of suppliers?

Managing the compliance process is an effort for my small dental practice. I know that we need to check new hires against federal lists. I have also noticed in several online articles that everyone suggests performing Exclusions screening every month.

Is that a requirement for small teams, or is it excessive? It appears to require a lot of administrative effort on our part. I do not want to incur fines, but I also do not wish to spend much time doing it. How do the rest of you handle this as efficiently as possible while keeping cost down? Do you utilize any automated software for this process, or do you do it manually?

As we prepare for future Open Payments submissions, we would like to share ideas related to best practices when it comes to Open Payments CMS Data Reporting. During last year’s submission process there was an increased amount of NPI validation errors being received, will anybody here suggest anything that may assist in reducing the number of errors occurring through this method? Is anyone here using any particular type of software to scrub the data before submitting it to the system for final submission? I would appreciate any recommendations as to how to make the reconciliation process more efficient between the company’s internal finance records and the required federal record formats. Minimalizing disputes can only occur if reporting is done cleanly and accurately so I would appreciate any resource suggestions to assist with validation tool(s).

Greetings all. I run a small export business and there’s been a lot of talk around compliance regulations recently so I’m trying to figure out if I will be required to conduct formal sanctions list for every single client that I have worked with, as it appears that it would require a large amount of work for a small team to conduct the work manually; Is there anybody on this forum using specific software to resolve this issue? I don't want to incur penalties from the government for non-compliance but I also don't have the resources to hire a big legal team, any suggestions?