The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released last week the 2014 Open Payments data, the first release of data reported by applicable manufacturers and group purchasing organizations (GPO) for a full calendar year. Notably, the media response has been minimal to date:

• Large media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, the Associated Press and Reuters, released articles on the same day as the data was published, which focused on the $6.5 billion in payments and transfers of value to physicians and teaching hospitals reported by applicable manufacturers and GPOs. This information also has been republished by smaller news outlets.
• ProPublica and NPR each published a more detailed analysis of the data, focusing on which companies reported the highest level of spend, the payment categories with the highest level of reported payments, physicians who received an extraordinary number of payments or transfers of value over the course of the year, and other data outliers.
• ProPublica and NPR also each released articles discussing payments and transfers of value that are noticeably lacking from the Open Payments database – payments to nurse practitioners and physician assistants.
• Bloomberg published an article regarding a physician that failed to disclose $138,000 in payments from a pharmaceutical company in connection with a scientific journal publication.