BREAKING NEWS: CMS Delays Sunshine Data Capture

No Data Capture Required in 2012

Surprise, surprise:  CMS missed its regulatory deadline to promulgate final Sunshine regulations and has announced more delays.  Despite Senators Grassley and Kohl urging CMS to issue a final rule governing the law by June (see letter), so that data collection can begin this year, CMS just announced via a May 3, 2012 blog post that it will issue final Sunshine Act regulations “later this year” and will not require data collection by applicable manufacturers and applicable group purchasing organizations before January 1, 2013.

This should come as welcome news to the industry, which has had growing concern about the content and timing of the final rules.  One can only hope that with this additional time the agency can rectify many of the shortcomings set forth in the proposed rules.