Pharma to rely on automated spend tracking for Physician Payments Sunshine Act compliance

While many states already require aggregate spend reporting, the Physician Payments Sunshine Act takes it a step further, requiring drug companies to disclose aggregate spend at a federal level. Are drug companies ready for the new requirement, which was included in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) that was signed into law by President Obama in March?

Not yet, according to the Cegedim Dendrite 2010 Aggregate Spend Survey, which found that only 29% of respondents say they are very confident that their company’s disclosure reporting is fully compliant with current regulations.

For the survey, Cegedim surveyed personnel at life sciences companies who are responsible for managing or directing compliance programs.

The company also found that about 40% of respondents say they are still tracking and reporting manually or with spreadsheets. But half of these say they plan to switch to an automated system before the physician payment recording requirements take effect in 2012.

“As companies continue to struggle with the identification of data sources, consistent standards for data sources, single views of customers across data sources and various other data anomalies, it becomes increasingly important to have a more holistic and consistent approach to aggregate spend and state reporting,” says Bill Buzzeo, VP of Compliance Solutions for Cegedim Dendrite. “This approach has to encompass all indirect and direct internal departments, third parties and systems with oversight from compliance.”

Cegedim offers reporting oversight with its AggregateSpend360 product, offered in both SaaS and license models.