The Physician Payment Sunshine Act (PPSA) went into effect on August 1, 2013, and with it comes a few notable changes to CME. As part of our continued efforts in research and funder development within the CME industry, Global has taken the initiative in analyzing the complexities and ambiguity of the new guidelines. In April 2013, Global released a video blog clarifying what payments are now reportable, as well as suggestions for reporting meals and listing faculty names in grant requests. Now that the August 1^st deadline has arrived, we want to ensure that each of our partners fully understands the provisions of the act and the effect that they have on CME accredited programs. Over the past few weeks, we have been working closely with funders to understand their new policy and regulation changes in response to the PPSA. We have had a number of funders respond to our inquiries, and we will continue to hold discussions over the coming weeks. In the meantime, we encourage you to review our initial policy updates listed below when planning your CME event. We will continue to distribute policies and guidelines to our partners as they are released. While many providers have not released their PPSA guidelines or policy changes, we want to remind our partners that while planning your CME event there are three important guidelines to follow to ensure that your CME activity meet the exemption criteria as laid out by the CMS:

• The provider or event is accredited/certified by the ACCME, AAFP, ADA, AMA, or the AOA.
• The manufacturer does not select the covered recipient speaker or provide the third party (CME provider) with a distinct, identifiable set of individuals to be considered as speakers for the CME program
• The applicable manufacturer does not directly pay the covered recipient speaker

Preview of PPSA Funder Policy Updates Chart