The Basics of the Sunshine Act: How It Pertains to the Practicing Orthopaedic Surgeon

The Physician Payments Sunshine Act is a disclosure law requiring all drug, medical device, and biologics companies to report transfers of value to physicians and teaching hospitals. It was passed into law in 2010 as part of the Affordable Care Act. The first set of data was released via an online public database on September 30, 2014, with subsequent annual reports to come. Three categories of payments are recorded: general payments, ownership interests, and research payments. With few exceptions, any transfer of value greater than $10 is reported. The first dataset of 4.4 million payments totaling more than $3.5 billion was released amidst controversy and technical problems. Identified data constituted $1.3 billion in transfer payments; de-identified data constituted $2.2 billion in payments. Data regarding an additional $1.1 billion in payments were not published, in part because of unresolved disputes. The largest amount of funding went to research payments. The highest proportion of general payments went to licensing and royalty payments. Orthopaedic surgeons comprised 3.5% of the physicians represented, and they were responsible for more than 20% of total payments. The full impact of the Sunshine Act will not be clear until several years after its implementation.