CMS has announced it will delay publicly launching its Open Payments website, an online portal listing payments from drug and device makers to physicians, according to a report from The Hill.
The site was scheduled to go public Sept. 30 under the Physician Payment Sunshine Act. Physicians —who are allowed to view the portal before the general public — originally had until Aug. 27 to review and dispute any information included in the database, according to the report.
On Monday, ProPublica reported CMS had temporarily suspended the Open Payments portal after a physician saw payments to another physician with the same name in his records. According to The Hill, CMS said Thursday it was taking the system offline temporarily "to investigate a reported issue," and physicians will not be able to review the data while the site is being fixed. The agency indicated it would adjust its deadlines for the database, although it didn't specify how long the investigation will take or what the reported issue is, according to the report.
The delay comes days after a group of physicians sent a letter to CMS urging the delay of the Open Payments portal's launch until March 31, 2015, in order to give physicians more time to register, review and dispute the data. The physicians expressed concerns about the complexity of the database registration process, incomplete guidance and inadequate registration time, among other issues.