What is a Journal Reprint Worth?

With the payment data collection date rapidly approaching (Aug 1, 2013), soon to be affected parties are scrambling to interpret, or reinterpret, just what exactly the Physician Payment Sunshine Act will require. The tone of the discussion has moved from shoulder-shrugging semantic hilarity to wide-eyed anxiety and direct pleas to regulators. At the end of April, James Madara, EVP and CEO of the American Medical Association, argued in a letter to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services that handing out peer-reviewed articles from scientific journals does not represent a transfer of value, or a payment, since most physicians already have subscriptions, or institutional access to most scientific journals. Reprints, therefore, should be excluded from the reporting process.