Life Science Transparency Reporting Obligations in Massachusetts and Relevant Requirement Changes
Each year since 2010, Life science companies are required to report data pertaining to interactions with Health Care Providers and other types of Prescribers. The Massachusetts disclosure report is due on July 1st, which includes transactions that took place within the prior calendar year. There is an annual fee of $2000 that is due along with registration to the Department of Public Health.
The report collects information on the Covered Recipient, Type of Interaction, and Transfer of Value amount. The report itself is aggregated by the covered recipient and interaction type. The transfer of value amount per interaction must be at least $50. Massachusetts publishes a “Covered Recipients List” each year that lists the Recipients to be reported.
Reporting entities can find more information of what is to be reported as well as any exclusions on the MA state website:
https://www.mass.gov/info-details/pharmaceutical-code-of-conduct-requirements
https://www.mass.gov/how-to/submit-disclosure-reports-for-the-pharmaceutical-code-of-conduct
Federal Pre-emption
Life Science companies are required to report similar information federally each year through the CMS Open Payments platform. Massachusetts, along with other states that have transparency reporting requirements, state in their policies to exclude data already reporting federally. In 2021, CMS Open Payments widened their scope of what type of HCPs were to be reported on which, in turn, impacted who was to be reported to the US states.
The Massachusetts website clearly states that “any data reported via the Federal Sunshine Act should not be reported to Massachusetts”. It proceeds to also include a list of Provider Roles (credentials) that are to be excluded from the report. These include but are not limited to Physicians, Physicians Assistants, Nurse Practitioners, and Teaching Hospitals.
Covered Recipient List Changes
As stated earlier, each year Massachusetts publishes a “Covered Recipients List”. This is an extensive list of Recipient info including their MA License number and MA Covered Recipient ID. In 2023, while prepping the report for calendar year 2022, reporting entities saw a significant drop in the number of Recipients on the published list. Many noticed that recipients with License Type “Registered Nurse” were no longer on the list. It was interesting that they were present beforehand as RNs are not known as “Prescribers” since they cannot prescribe, dispense, or purchase prescription drugs or medical devices in Massachusetts. After communicating directly with MA, it was learned that many APRNS had a license Type listed as “RN” which is why they were on the Covered Recipient List to begin with. Since Prescribing nurses are in scope for Federal reporting, they were removed by MA.
This year, in 2025, as report prep is underway for calendar year 2024, a similar situation occurred. The Covered Recipient list shrunk by more than 350,000 recipients. It was confirmed by Massachusetts that they decided to remove certain License Types this year, including physicians, as they were only kept on the list for legacy reasons.
Future Report Updates
Besides the Covered Recipient List updates and Federal Pre-emption, reporting entities have not seen many updates made to the original reporting requirements over the years. Massachusetts did, however, post a small excerpt this year on their website which outlined a change coming for 2026 reporting: “Starting 2026, disclosures without a license type and license number will not be accepted. Please collect all due information at or prior to the event or transaction”. It will be interesting to see how this new requirement will impact future reporting to MA as there have clearly been companies submitting transactions without these values in the past.