From its inception, the Physician Payment Sunshine Act has looked to establish a high level of transparency into existing financial relationships between medical professionals and medical device, pharma and biotech corporations. As the provisions are enacted in 2014, the medical community has a growing list of questions on what needs to be reported, who is required to report and what can be excluded from the CMS reports.

The Association for Medical Ethics and University of California, Irvine have joined together to host Under the Influence - Medicine in the Post Physician Payment Sunshine Act World- Changes, Challenges and Confusion, from 1 pm to 5 pm on Friday, February 28, 2014 at the Beckman Center in Irvine, Calif.

• Terry Belmont
  Chief Executive Officer, University of California, Irvine Medical Center
  Associate Vice Chancellor for Medical Center Affairs, University of California, Irvine
• Charles Burton, MD
  President of the Association for Medical Ethics, Neurosurgical Spine Specialist and Medical Director, Sentinel Medical Associates, Editor, Burtonreport.com, Former Board Member and past President NASS
• Erwin Chemerinsky, JD
  Dean of the School of Law, University of California, Irvine
• Howard Gillman, PhD
  Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor, University of California, Irvine
• Ranjan Gupta, MD
  Chair of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery Anatomy & Neurobiology and Biomedical Engineering, University of California, Irvine

• Zeev Kain, MD, MBA
  Associate Dean for Clinical Operations, Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology & Perioperative Care, and Professor of Anesthesiology & Pediatrics & Psychiatry & PM&R, University of California, Irvine
• Allan Korn, MD
  Former Chief Medical Officer at Blue Cross Blue Shield
• Scott Lederhaus, MD
  Association for Medical Ethics Board Member and Neurosurgeon, Inland
  Neurosurgery Institute and AME Board Member
• Charles Rosen, MD
  Co-Founder of the Association for Medical Ethics, Clinical Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery University of California, Irvine

The Doctors spoke to CBS about how, in some cases, PODs are transforming patient treatments as financial incentives are leading to unnecessary procedures. During the interview, Dr. Lederhaus spoke about how PODs are affecting doctors with in the spinal surgery arena. "The guys that are being egregious could make, just from putting in the implants ... perhaps in excess of a half a million dollars each, per year," Lederhaus said.