MMIS, Inc., the leading provider of compliance solutions for pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers, announces today that its MediSpend Validate tool will be available for free to manufacturers to help them validate their data against just-announced revisions to CMS’ Open Payments reporting requirements.

MediSpend Validate allows organizations to upload Open Payments reports to a software-as-a-service (SaaS) validation system and receive detailed reports for all records. MMIS is currently seeking clarification from CMS to ensure that MediSpend Validate utilizes the revised matching algorithms.

“At the just concluded 8th Annual Forum on Transparency and Aggregate Spend in Washington DC, everyone expressed frustration and wanted to understand why CMS modified the matching algorithms which caused a significant number of transactions to be removed from manufacturers portals,” said Michaeline Daboul, CEO of MMIS. “Despite CMS’ response, manufacturers and industry executives are still confused. In order to help manufacturers comply and re-validate their data, we have decided to make MediSpend Validate available to all manufacturers at no cost.”

CMS explained why certain submitted records were rejected. The key point was that manufacturers must now match additional data elements in the NPPES or PECOS data sets to ensure an accurate match to CMS data sources. Changing the algorithm is what caused selected data to be removed. CMS also said that removed records would not be included in the initial public release of data on September 30th. Instead, removed records will be returned to manufacturers and GPOs for further remediation consistent with the revised requirements.

“Given that this is the first reporting period for Open Payments, we expected there to be some issues, but this latest issue came as quite a surprise”, said Tim Robinson, Chief Knowledge Office at MMIS. “There have been challenges with the CMS site and unexpected removal of data that was submitted in accordance with previously published requirements.”

MMIS will provide detailed instructions on how to access the cloud-based MediSpend Validate portal early next week. “Open Payments, a program designed to bring more transparency to the healthcare industry, is struggling due to technology issues related to data matching, but physician data is complex and we expected some of these problems." commented Daboul. “As a recognized technology leader in the aggregate spend marketplace, making MediSpend Validate available to all, is the right thing to do.”

About MMIS | MediSpend

Since 1999, MMIS has developed innovative products and services for the life sciences industry. The MediSpend Global Compliance platform is recognized as a leading SaaS solution that allows organizations to cost-effectively comply with global transparency laws, manage risk and securely communicate with healthcare providers across the globe. Other offerings include MediSpend Insight™, dashboards providing business insight to manage risk and its business impact. In addition, MMIS operates the Physicians Professional Network (PPN), a cloud-based portal for licensed healthcare professionals that allows them to review and dispute spend data from multiple companies in a secure and private environment. For more information, please visit mmis-inc.com.