In recent days, leading health care leaders on Capitol Hill have introduced bipartisan legislation and sent a bipartisan letter to CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner expressing support for the CME Open Payments reporting exemption and opposition to the CMS proposal to eliminate it.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Andrew Rosenberg, (202) 247-6301, arosenberg@thornrun.com

Today, the CME Coalition applauded Congressman Michael Burgess, M.D. (R-TX) and Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz (D-PA) on their introduction of H.R. 5539, a bill that exempts payments related to continuing medical education, in addition to the sharing of peer-reviewed journals, journal reprints, journal supplements, and medical textbooks, from the reporting requirements of the Physician Payments Sunshine Act.

In an effort to encourage the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to reverse course on their proposal to revise the Sunshine Act reporting requirements for accredited CME related payments, hundreds of individuals, companies, and organizations, themselves representing hundreds of thousands of healthcare providers, have submitted letters and comments to the agency.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Andrew Rosenberg, (202) 247-6301, arosenberg@thornrun.com

In an overwhelming display of support for the Sunshine Act exemption for accredited continuing medical education (CME), over 800 comments were submitted to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) encouraging the agency to either maintain or expand the current exclusion, according to the CME Coalition’s analysis.  

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Andrew Rosenberg, (202) 247-6301

Today, the CME Coalition released a statement regarding the proposed rule to eliminate the exemption for speaker payments for accredited Continued Medical Education (CME) programs from the Physician Payment Sunshine Act’s reporting requirements.

The following Letter to the Editor was submitted by Andy Rosenberg, Senior Adviser to the CME Coalition, in response to a recent article in Modern Healthcare on CME and the Physician Payment Sunshine Act.

Reporter Jaimy Lee wrote a very balanced piece recently in which she accurately laid out some of the battle lines surrounding the merits of commercial support for accredited continuing medical education (CME). While most patients and their doctors appreciate the vitally important role that CME plays in offering health care providers with independently-verified, scientifically-based information regarding the latest in diagnosis and treatment for disease, some in academia continue to chafe at the fact that much of this life-saving information might never make it to bedside, but for the indirect financial support of drug and device manufacturers.

Straight-forward design recommended for voluntary use by CME providers in order to comply with the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education’s (ACCME) recent ban on the use of corporate logos, while ensuring transparency of commercial support.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Andrew Rosenberg, (202) 247-6301

Today, the CME Coalition released a proposed design template for the disclosure of commercial support on CME materials. This design template, which is intended as a voluntary guide for use by CME provider organizations, is intended to abide the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education’s (ACCME) ban on the use of corporate logos, while still providing commercial supporter transparency.