CMS Open Payments Lookup + NPI Enrichment (Sunshine Act)

One event per payment record from CMS Open Payments, the Sunshine Act database of payments from drug and device makers to physicians, other practitioners and teaching hospitals. Filter by manufacturer, recipient NPI list, state, specialty, program year and minimum amount. Each record is joined to the NPPES NPI registry, so you get the recipient's current taxonomy code, practice address and phone next to what the manufacturer reported. It's built for compliance audits, conflict-of-interest reviews, litigation research and KOL mapping. It's a lookup, not a data dump.

Pricing: pay per event. payment-matched: $0.03 per payment record returned. Zero matches costs you nothing.

Input

{"dataset": "general", "manufacturer": "medtronic", "state": "CA",
 "min_amount": 1000, "limit": 200}

Give at least one of manufacturer, npis, state or specialty. Leave program_year empty for the latest published year. Set dataset to research for research payments; those records carry the study name and ClinicalTrials.gov ID.

Example output (one dataset item per payment)

{"dataset": "general", "program_year": 2025, "record_id": "1212037411",
 "change_type": "NEW", "payment_date": "2025-06-27", "amount_usd": 36.0,
 "number_of_payments": 1, "nature_of_payment": "Education",
 "form_of_payment": "In-kind items and services",
 "manufacturer": "Medtronic, Inc.", "manufacturer_id": "100000000106",
 "recipient_type": "Covered Recipient Non-Physician Practitioner",
 "recipient_npi": "1528536174", "recipient_name": "BRIANA GWALTNEY",
 "recipient_specialty": "Physician Assistants & Advanced Practice Nursing Providers|Nurse Practitioner|Family",
 "recipient_city": "Brattleboro", "recipient_state": "VT", "recipient_zip": "05301",
 "products": ["INTERSTIM"], "study_name": null, "clinicaltrials_gov_id": null,
 "dispute_status": "No", "publication_date": "2026-06-30",
 "npi_status": "A",
 "npi_taxonomy_code": "363LF0000X", "npi_address": "100 WASON AVE STE 120",
 "npi_city": "SPRINGFIELD", "npi_state": "MA", "npi_zip": "01107",
 "npi_phone": "413-241-2100"}

In that record the payment was reported in Vermont, but NPPES shows the provider now practicing in Massachusetts. That gap is what the join is for.

Output fields

One dataset item per result. Every field is always present (empty or null when the source has no value). The fields are defined in .actor/dataset_schema.json.

Field	Type	Description
dataset	string	general or research payments
program_year	integer	Open Payments program year
record_id	string	CMS Open Payments record ID
change_type	string	CMS change type (NEW, CHANGED, UNCHANGED, ADDED)
payment_date	string	Date of payment, YYYY-MM-DD
amount_usd	number	Total amount of payment, USD
number_of_payments	integer	Number of payments in the total (general only)
nature_of_payment	string	Nature of payment, e.g. Food and Beverage, Consulting Fee (general only)
form_of_payment	string	Form of payment or transfer of value
manufacturer	string	Applicable manufacturer or GPO making the payment
manufacturer_id	string	CMS ID of the manufacturer or GPO
recipient_type	string	Covered recipient type (physician, NPP, teaching hospital)
recipient_npi	string	Covered recipient NPI (research: principal investigator 1 when blank)
recipient_name	string	Recipient name as reported to CMS
recipient_specialty	string	Primary specialty string as published by CMS Open Payments (source: CMS; not edited)
recipient_city	string	Recipient city as reported to CMS
recipient_state	string	Recipient state as reported to CMS
recipient_zip	string	Recipient ZIP (5 digits)
products	array	Related drugs, biologicals, devices or supplies (up to 5)
study_name	string	Research study name (research only, max 500 chars)
clinicaltrials_gov_id	string	ClinicalTrials.gov identifier (research only)
dispute_status	string	Whether the record is disputed for publication
publication_date	string	CMS publication date, YYYY-MM-DD
npi_status	string	NPPES: enumeration status (A = active)
npi_taxonomy_code	string	NPPES: primary taxonomy code

The NPPES join outputs the taxonomy code only. Code descriptions come from the NUCC Health Care Provider Taxonomy code set, which NUCC licenses for commercial use, so this Actor doesn't output them. recipient_specialty is the specialty string exactly as CMS publishes it in Open Payments, credited to CMS. | npi_address | string | NPPES: practice location address | | npi_city | string | NPPES: practice location city | | npi_state | string | NPPES: practice location state | | npi_zip | string | NPPES: practice location ZIP (5 digits) | | npi_phone | string | NPPES: practice location phone |

Runs stop cleanly at your max-charge limit, so nothing is pushed past what you agreed to pay for. If an NPI isn't in NPPES, its npi_* fields are empty and the payment is still returned. If CMS renames a column the run fails loudly (schema: in the status message) rather than returning half-empty records.

About the data

CMS publishes each program year's data by June 30 of the following year and refreshes it in January. Payments are what reporting manufacturers and GPOs attested to. In CMS's words: "CMS does not comment on what relationships may be beneficial or potential conflicts of interest. CMS publishes the data attested to by reporting entities. The data is open to individual interpretation." A payment record doesn't by itself show an improper relationship. Check dispute_status before relying on a record.

Need provider records without payments? Try NPI Provider Lookup & Enrichment.

Source: CMS Open Payments datastore API (public, U.S. government work) and the CMS NPPES NPI Registry API v2.1 (public).