Reporting Of Pharma Payments To APRNs To Start In 2017

A state initiative that would have required drug companies and device manufacturers to start reporting their payments to advance practice registered nurses (APRNs) this year has been delayed to 2017. The original APRN legislation, passed in 2014, called for quarterly reporting beginning in July 2015. That law was amended this spring to push back the start date and require only annual reporting, after urging from the pharmaceutical industry, state officials said. The delay comes as an APRN at a pain clinic in Derby, Heather Alfonso, awaits sentencing on charges that she received kickbacks from the drug company Insys Therapeutics in exchange for prescribing a potent painkiller intended for cancer patients. The payments to Alfonso for promoting the drug were not reported publicly under federal rules because APRNs are not included in the Physician Payment Sunshine Act, which requires public reporting of drug company payments only to physicians and teaching hospitals.