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Fonteum Data GlossaryRegulatory

Sunshine Act: Definition and Healthcare Context

Full name: Physician Payments Sunshine Act

The Physician Payments Sunshine Act (Section 6002 of the Affordable Care Act) requires applicable manufacturers and group purchasing organizations to report to CMS all payments or transfers of value made to physicians and teaching hospitals. CMS collects and publicly discloses this data through the Open Payments program. The law was enacted to increase transparency about financial relationships between health care industry and practitioners. Reportable transfers include research payments, honoraria, entertainment, consulting fees, gifts, and speaker program payments.

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Last updated: 2026-07-11Reviewed by: Dr. Jennifer Montecillo, MD — Gullas College of Medicine, 2019. Non-practicing medical reviewer.

How it’s used

  • CMS Open Payments: the Sunshine Act is the statutory basis for the Open Payments data that Fonteum ingests to annotate provider financial disclosure records.
  • CMS Open Payments program: CMS operates Open Payments as the disclosure system that carries out the Sunshine Act's reporting mandate, publishing manufacturer and GPO payments annually.
  • Affordable Care Act (Section 6002): the Sunshine Act is codified within the ACA, the federal law Fonteum cites as the provenance basis for physician financial-relationship data.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Sunshine Act?
The Sunshine Act (Section 6002 of the ACA) requires drug and device manufacturers and GPOs to report all payments and transfers of value to physicians and teaching hospitals to CMS.
What is the relationship between the Sunshine Act and Open Payments?
The Sunshine Act is the law that mandates reporting. Open Payments is CMS's system for collecting, verifying, and publicly disclosing those reports.
Is the Sunshine Act the same as Open Payments?
Not exactly. The Sunshine Act is the statute; Open Payments is the CMS program that implements it.

Related terms

Authoritative sources

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What’s on file, by the numbers

Platform snapshot · 2026-08-30

13.4Mproviders & companiesProviders, organizations, owners, and facilities on file
26.2Msource-linked factsSource-linked field facts in the dated platform snapshot
90sources with dataDistinct snapshot source IDs with at least one positive record count
16fresh sourcesDistinct source IDs whose latest positive-data snapshot falls within the preceding 45 days
111sources integratedActive registry rows; integration does not establish a load
13state Medicaid jurisdictionsDistinct states represented in the state-exclusions serving table

Integrated, with-data, and fresh-observation counts are separate. No platform-wide source-completeness count is published. Completeness is source-specific and must be evaluated against the named source's expected scope. State coverage is a separate jurisdiction measure.

Source authority is record-specific

Use the issuer named on the record.

Fonteum spans federal, state, and global public publishers. A source page or returned record identifies its issuer and dataset where that metadata is available. A platform registry count does not assign every page to one authority or establish loaded, fresh, or complete coverage.

Browse source records and their stated limitations →

Reproducible by design

Inspect the evidence each published figure actually supplies.

Source and date

Research pages expose the named public file and observation date where those fields are available. Source-file SHA-256 coverage is separate; facts do not currently link deterministically to signatures.

Available derivation

Studies with a retained release and committed derivation link the SQL or method used. Other studies state the evidence and reproduction limits they actually have.

Daily observations

Dated table row-count observations can detect local drift. They do not imply that an upstream publisher released or Fonteum ingested new data that day.

Named medical review

Reviewed by Jennifer Montecillo, MD, medical reviewer. Non-practicing medical reviewer.

Read the full provenance and attestation methodology →

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