Feds delay launch of database showing drugmakers' payments to doctors

The system, which had been expected to go public on Sept. 30, will show payments from drug and medical device makers to doctors. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services says it temporarily took down the system to investigate a possible problem.

The Hill: Doctors' 'Conflict of Interest' Database Gets Delayed
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will delay publicly launching a new database intended to disclose potential conflicts of interest among physicians. The agency's Open Payments System lists payments from drug and medical device makers to doctors. It was supposed to have gone public on Sept. 30 after doctors had been given a chance to dispute any information on it by Aug. 27. However, the agency released a statement Thursday noting that the database "has been taken offline temporarily to investigate a reported issue" and physicians won't be able to review their data on the site until it is fixed (Al-Faruque, 8/7).

The Wall Street Journal's Pharmalot: Still Down? Tech Glitch Hobbles Pharma Payment Disclosure System
U.S. doctors and teaching hospitals remain unable to review an online federal government database of payments they have received from drug and device makers, after a government agency shut it down to investigate a data mix-up. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services took the so-called "Open Payments" system offline Sunday night and doesn't have an estimate of when it will be working again, a CMS spokesman said Thursday. The data mix-up involved at least one doctor being able to see the payment data for another doctor whose records were erroneously linked (Silverman, 8/6).