Worried About Sunshine Act Compliance? Gorilla Expense Can Make it Painless

The Physician Payment Sunshine Act known in short as the Sunshine Act has now been renamed to the National Physician Payment Transparency Program or Open Payments. It is designed to promote transparency to the financial relationship between the pharmaceutical/biotech/medical device companies and teaching hospitals and doctors (official terminology is Health Care Provider or HCP).

The Sunshine Act requires the pharmaceutical companies and medical devices manufacturers to make a report of all payments made to HCPs that include meals, honoraria, travel expense, and transfers of value.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) will be administering the transparency of financial relationship between HCPs and the pharma and medical devices manufacturers. CMS requires such companies to submit an annual report of all the expenses paid to HCPs. The data from the report will be available to the public.

Pharmaceutical companies and medical devices manufacturers must take this law seriously. Non-compliance to this law could lead to heavy penalties, amounting anywhere from $10,000 to $1,000,000! The Gorilla Expense solution includes a Sunshine Act module that helps companies remain in compliance. But equally important is to have a well-planned process for the capture of expenses. Here are some of the best practices followed by our customers:

Immediate capture of expenses and receipts

This is the most basic part of preparation for the Sunshine Act Compliance. Paper receipts can be easily lost or destroyed and are best stored electronically. The Gorilla Expense mobile solution allows for the immediate capture of receipts along with relevant allocation of expenses to the respective HCP.

Have a robust expense tracking system

To comply with the Sunshine Act, pharma companies need to submit reports to the State and Federal agencies. The information required includes the name and address of the HCP, NPI number of the HCP, amount, event/meeting information, date of payment and the nature of payment.

Gorilla Expense makes it very easy for the pharma reps to prepare their expense reports with all the details required per the Sunshine Act. Additional analytics and reporting can be run based on the NPI number, Spend by State and others as required.

Train employees to prepare for Sunshine Act expense reporting

Since this is a relatively new law, best practices on expense management for the Sunshine Act can be new to some employees. It is important for the company to train employees on the requirements per the law since the penalties are so huge.

Check for errors before submitting the report to CMS

The data submitted to the CMS will be made available to the public. It is important for pharma companies and medical devices manufacturers to make sure that Sunshine Act expense reporting is done with utmost care and accuracy.

The use of the Gorilla Expense to not just capture the expense data but also have it reviewed by multiple levels of managers from different departments ensures that the data is accurate and ready to be submitted to CMS.

Plan ahead of time and avoid the last minute rush

While creating and validating the annual report, it makes sense for companies to prepare all the data ahead of time rather than rush at the last minute, when there is a greater chance for errors. With the amount of data to be managed and multiple departments that will need to sign off, Sunshine act expense reporting can be a complicated task if not planned well.

In conclusion, Gorilla Expense helps companies with this process and makes it easy for them to comply with the intricate rules of the Sunshine Act. Gorilla Expense offers extensive customized solutions, which includes the capture of expense data, allocation of expenses to the respective HCPs, slicing-and-dicing of data and connection to 3rd party vendors for seamless federal reporting of aggregate spend.

To learn more on how Gorilla Expense can help with the Sunshine Act Compliance, visit our website at http://gorillaexpense.com/sunshine-act-expense-reporting-and-compliance.html

About Gorilla Expense

Gorilla Expense is a leading global provider of T&E Expense Management Software for Microsoft Dynamics ERP. Our Expense Reporting, Mobile Apps, Integration Services & Analytics solutions give customers the edge they need to compete in the global marketplace. With our powerful solution, we are constantly proving that – Expense management doesn’t have to be so difficult! Learn more at www.gorillaexpense.com

The post Worried About Sunshine Act Compliance? Gorilla Expense Can Make it Painless appeared first on goERPcloud.