Open Payments Intelligence MCP — Physician-Industry Financial Relationships

Search the CMS Open Payments (Sunshine Act) database via a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server. Track financial relationships between pharmaceutical companies and physicians: speaking fees, consulting payments, royalties, research funding, and other transfers of value. This Apify Actor exposes structured payment data to AI assistants (Claude, GPT-4, Cursor), compliance systems, and investigative research pipelines — no API key required.

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What Is Open Payments?

The Physician Payments Sunshine Act (42 U.S.C. § 1320a-7h), enacted as part of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, requires pharmaceutical manufacturers, medical device companies, and group purchasing organizations (GPOs) to report all financial transfers to physicians and teaching hospitals to CMS annually. CMS publishes this data as the Open Payments program.

Coverage includes:

• General payments: Consulting fees, speaking honoraria, food and beverage, travel, gifts, royalties, entertainment, education, grants, and charitable contributions
• Research payments: Payments tied to formal clinical research agreements
• Ownership interests: Physician ownership stakes in the reporting company

The dataset covers 2013–present with an 18–24 month reporting lag. The 2022 program year data includes approximately $3.57 billion in general payments to over 600,000 physicians and 1,100+ teaching hospitals from 1,700+ reporting companies.

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Who Uses This

Healthcare Journalists & Investigative Reporters

• ProPublica's Dollars for Docs, STAT News, KFF Health News, and similar investigative teams routinely mine Open Payments to surface undisclosed conflicts of interest
• Reporters covering FDA advisory panels verify panel members' industry payments
• Local TV and newspaper health reporters personalize national pharma payment stories with local physician data
• Science journalists cross-reference payment data with published bylines and media appearances

Academic Researchers

• Medical ethics researchers studying the correlation between industry payments and prescribing patterns, publication bias, and clinical guideline authorship
• Health economists analyzing market-level pharma spending by therapeutic area and geography
• Sociologists of science studying how financial ties shape scientific consensus
• Meta-analysts screening for conflicts of interest in systematic reviews

Healthcare Compliance Officers

• Hospital and health system compliance departments screening new physician employees
• IRB administrators verifying investigator disclosures for clinical trial protocols
• Journal editors verifying author conflict-of-interest declarations
• Medical school administrators monitoring faculty external activities

Pharma & Biotech Intelligence

• KOL mapping teams quantifying which physicians receive the most funding in a therapeutic area, indicating thought leader status
• Competitive intelligence tracking competitor promotional spend by specialty and geography
• Sales operations validating that HCP engagement is properly disclosed and compliant
• Medical affairs identifying which investigators have existing industry relationships

Legal & Regulatory

• Healthcare attorneys building cases around undisclosed conflicts (whistleblower / False Claims Act)
• Expert witness firms screening proposed experts for industry financial ties
• Government investigators (OIG, state AG) auditing improper relationships
• Payers and health plans evaluating whether high-cost drug prescribers have industry financial ties

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What You Get

Each payment record contains:

Field	Description
physician_first_name	Physician/recipient first name
physician_last_name	Physician/recipient last name
physician_specialty	Physician primary specialty
company	Reporting manufacturer or GPO name
amount	Total payment amount in USD
payment_type	Nature of payment (Consulting Fee, Speaking Fee, Royalty, etc.)
year	Open Payments program year
source	Always cms.gov

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Quick Start

Batch Mode — Company Lookup

Find all payments made by a specific company in 2022:

{
  "mode": "company",
  "company": "Pfizer",
  "year": 2022,
  "limit": 100
}

Batch Mode — Physician Lookup

Find all payments received by a physician:

{
  "mode": "physician",
  "physicianName": "Smith",
  "year": 2022,
  "limit": 50
}

Batch Mode — General Search

Search with multiple filters:

{
  "mode": "search",
  "specialty": "Oncology",
  "paymentType": "Consulting Fee",
  "minAmount": 50000,
  "year": 2022,
  "limit": 50
}

MCP Server Mode (AI assistant integration)

{
  "serveMcp": true
}

Then configure your MCP client:

Claude Desktop (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "open-payments": {
      "url": "http://your-apify-run-url:4321"
    }
  }
}

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MCP Tools Reference

search_payments

Search payments with multiple filters: physician name, company, specialty, payment type, minimum amount, and year.

Parameters:

Parameter	Type	Description
physician_name	string	Physician first or last name
company	string	Company name (partial match)
specialty	string	Physician specialty
min_amount	number	Minimum payment USD
payment_type	string	Nature of payment
year	integer	Program year (default 2022)
limit	integer	Max results (1–1000, default 25)

Example MCP call:

{
  "name": "search_payments",
  "arguments": {
    "specialty": "Oncology",
    "payment_type": "Consulting Fee",
    "min_amount": 100000,
    "year": 2022,
    "limit": 20
  }
}

Example response:

[
  {
    "physician_first_name": "James",
    "physician_last_name": "Wilson",
    "physician_specialty": "Oncology",
    "company": "Bristol-Myers Squibb Company",
    "amount": 287500.00,
    "payment_type": "Consulting Fee",
    "year": "2022",
    "source": "cms.gov"
  }
]

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get_company_payments

Get all payments made by a specific company to physicians.

Parameters:

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
company_name	string	Yes	Full or partial company name
year	integer	No	Program year (default 2022)
limit	integer	No	Max results (default 25, max 1000)

Example MCP call:

{
  "name": "get_company_payments",
  "arguments": {
    "company_name": "AstraZeneca",
    "year": 2022,
    "limit": 100
  }
}

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get_physician_payments

Get all payments received by a specific physician.

Parameters:

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
physician_name	string	Yes	First name, last name, or full name
year	integer	No	Program year (default 2022)
limit	integer	No	Max results (default 25, max 1000)

Example MCP call:

{
  "name": "get_physician_payments",
  "arguments": {
    "physician_name": "Harrington",
    "year": 2022,
    "limit": 50
  }
}

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Input Parameters (Batch Mode)

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
mode	string	"search"	Query mode: search, company, physician
company	string	""	Company name filter
physicianName	string	""	Physician name filter
specialty	string	""	Physician specialty filter
paymentType	string	""	Nature of payment filter
minAmount	number	0	Minimum amount USD
year	integer	2022	Program year (2013–2022)
limit	integer	25	Max records (1–1000)
serveMcp	boolean	false	Start MCP server on port 4321

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Payment Types Reference

Open Payments uses the following nature-of-payment categories:

Category	Description
Food and Beverage	Meals, refreshments at company-sponsored events
Consulting Fee	Advisory board, strategic consulting
Speaking Fee	Promotional speaker programs, CME events
Royalty or License	Revenue from licensed IP, patents
Research	Payments tied to formal research agreements
Education	Educational materials, training
Travel and Lodging	Reimbursed travel to company events
Gift	Non-cash gifts (permitted with limits)
Charitable Contribution	Donations made on physician's behalf
Entertainment	Sporting events, concerts
Grant	Research grants not tied to a specific protocol

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API Details

This actor queries the CMS Open Payments data via the Socrata API on data.cms.gov:

• Primary endpoint: https://data.cms.gov/resource/7v3g-9rg4.json
• Query language: SoQL (Socrata Query Language) with $where, $limit, $order parameters
• Auth: None required (unauthenticated) or optional Socrata App Token for higher rate limits
• Rate limits: ~1,000 requests/hour unauthenticated; higher with App Token
• Data freshness: CMS publishes annually with 18–24 month lag
• Coverage: 2013–2022 (2023 expected in late 2024/early 2025)
• Data license: Public domain (U.S. government work, CMS)

Important caveat about API availability: The CMS Open Payments data portal has experienced intermittent availability issues as CMS migrated from openpaymentsdata.cms.gov to data.cms.gov. The actor tries multiple known endpoints before returning a graceful error. When the API is unavailable, the actor returns:

[{
  "_meta": {
    "error": "CMS Open Payments API unavailable",
    "fallback_tried": true,
    "note": "Try again later or query https://openpaymentsdata.cms.gov directly."
  }
}]

The actor never crashes — it always returns a 200 response with a valid JSON array.

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Rate Limits and Socrata App Token

To avoid rate limiting on data.cms.gov, you can obtain a free Socrata App Token:

1. Visit https://data.cms.gov/developer
2. Create an account and register an application
3. Copy your App Token
4. Set the SOCRATA_APP_TOKEN environment variable in the actor's environment configuration

With an App Token, rate limits are substantially higher for production use cases.

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Data Quality & Caveats

• Reporting threshold: Only payments above $10 are required to be reported; small transactions may be aggregated
• Delay: Data is published approximately 18–24 months after the program year ends
• Self-reported: Companies report their own payments; enforcement relies on whistleblowers and CMS audits
• Name matching: Physician names are entered by the company and may contain typos, abbreviations, or inconsistencies — fuzzy matching is used
• Specialty field: The specialty reported is the physician's self-reported primary specialty at time of registration, which may differ from their current practice
• Teaching hospitals: Payments to teaching hospitals are in a separate reporting category not covered by this actor's default dataset

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Comparison to Alternatives

Source	Data	Auth	Cost	Access
CMS Open Payments (this actor)	U.S. physician payments 2013–2022	None	Free	Socrata API
ProPublica Dollars for Docs	Curated subset, older years	None	Free	Web only
openpaymentsdata.cms.gov	Same as above	None	Free	Web/API
Komodo Health	Enriched, linked to Rx data	Auth	Enterprise	API
IQVIA	Global HCP engagement	Auth	Enterprise	API
Definitive Healthcare	Enriched physician profiles	Auth	Subscription	API

This actor is the only way to query the official CMS Open Payments Socrata API programmatically from within an AI assistant or automated pipeline.

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Common Investigative Queries

Top-Paid Oncologists from a Single Company

{"name": "search_payments", "arguments": {"company": "Merck", "specialty": "Oncology", "year": 2022, "limit": 50}}

All Speaker Bureau Payments Above $50K

{"name": "search_payments", "arguments": {"payment_type": "Speaking Fee", "min_amount": 50000, "year": 2022, "limit": 100}}

Royalty Payments to Physicians (Inventor Relationships)

{"name": "search_payments", "arguments": {"payment_type": "Royalty or License", "min_amount": 100000, "year": 2022, "limit": 50}}

A Specific Company's Total Physician Payment Activity

{"name": "get_company_payments", "arguments": {"company_name": "Novo Nordisk", "year": 2022, "limit": 500}}

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Support & Feedback

• CMS Open Payments web: https://openpaymentsdata.cms.gov
• Socrata API docs: https://dev.socrata.com/docs/endpoints.html
• CMS developer portal: https://data.cms.gov/developer
• MCP spec: https://modelcontextprotocol.io/
• Apify platform: https://apify.com

This actor is built and maintained as part of the AeternaOS SECC platform — sovereign executive command infrastructure for AI-native businesses.