Bill would add nurse practitioners to pharma payments database
A bill proposed yesterday would require drug and device makers to report payments to nurse practitioners and nurses assistants. The legislation is designed to close what critics call a loophole in the federal government’s Open Payments database, which was created under the 2010 Affordable Care Act in response to concerns that industry payments to doctors unduly influence medical practice and research.
“We think that the void should be filled in order to have a complete record,” US Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who co-sponsored the bill, told ProPublica. His investigation into industry payments to physicians several years ago led to the creation of the database. “Transparency isn’t an end to itself,” he continued. “Transparency is meant to bring accountability.”