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Revelations of The Sunshine Act: $825 Million Spent by Pharma
A provision of the Affordable Care Act, the Sunshine Act provides for increased transparency in the healthcare realm.
Disclosure of the financial relationships between the medical industry and health care providers is a very important step toward transparency. Patients heavily rely on the recommendations of their doctors to make any kind of decision regarding their health and thus should have full awareness of payments between their doctors and the medical industry. Patients have a right to be informed about possible conflicts of interests.
A not so well-known provision of the Affordable Care Act is the Sunshine Act. The purpose of this act is to increase the transparency in the healthcare market by requiring doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and medical device manufacturers to disclose their financial relationships. Mandated by the Sunshine Act, on September 30th, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) publicly released the first set of data, under the Open Payments title. This data includes $3.5 billion paid to over half a million doctors and teaching hospitals in the last five months of 2013.
Read the complete Brookings blog: http://bit.ly/1z4gjio
Health Care Utilization and Cost of Diagnostic Testing for Respiratory Infections
September 17th 2025Syndromic reverse transcriptase–polymerase chain reaction tests for respiratory infections were associated with lower health care resource utilization and costs, implicating potential for improved value in patient care.
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AI in Health Care: Balancing Governance, Innovation, and Trust
September 2nd 2025In this conversation with Reuben Daniel, associate vice president of artificial intelligence at UPMC Health Plan, we dive into how UPMC Health Plan builds trust with providers and members, discuss challenges of scaling AI effectively, and hear about concrete examples of AI's positive impact.
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Infertility Coverage Boosts ART Use and Pregnancy Success: Richard A. Brook, MS, MBA
August 26th 2025In this episode, Richard A. Brook, MS, MBA, discusses his study showing that infertility treatment coverage increases assisted reproductive technology (ART) use and improves pregnancy outcomes.
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