Physicians' financial data under the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, also known as the "Open Payments" program, was released to the public Tuesday. While many physicians won't find their data in the local news, chances are their patients or others they know will ask them about it.

Following are three questions physicians will most likely receive and sample talking points for giving a thoughtful response:

1. Why do physicians get money or items of value from the industry?

Physicians interact with the industry in many ways, including as consultants, speakers, researchers or recipients of "items of value." These interactions generally benefit patients. For instance, physicians often receive items of value, such as medical journal reprints or certain patient education materials.

2. Don't relationships with the industry influence physicians' decisions and recommendations?

The medical profession always is aware of the potential for conflicts of interest. But a relationship with the industry doesn't automatically mean that a physician's judgment has been influenced inappropriately. Industry support for research and development has been essential for developing new interventions and technologies to improve patient care and reduce health care costs.

3. How could individual physicians be justified in accepting large sums of money from the industry?

While there probably are some instances when physicians received money that, in retrospect, they should not have accepted, there are legitimate reasons that a physician could be listed as having accepted a large sum of money. For instance, many physicians receive funds to support clinical trials, an essential component of advancing medical knowledge around specific conditions and treatments.

Physicians can download more detailed talking points (log in) from the AMA website to help inform these conversations.

Data accuracy concerns

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is withholding one-third of the data from the initial public release as a result of concerns about accuracy. Much of the remaining two-thirds of data that was released in the public database has yet to be verified by physicians and other covered recipients.

Physicians who weren't able to review their data by the Sept. 11 deadline to flag any disputed information in the initial public data release should do so now. The deadline to file disputes for any inaccurate information that should be corrected in the next data release is Dec. 31. View instructions for doing so on the AMA's Sunshine Act Web page.

Want to know what the AMA has been doing about this issue?

Read how the AMA has been advocating for an overhaul of how the Sunshine Act has been implemented.

In addition, the AMA issued a media guide ahead of the Sept. 30 data release and is encouraging the media to make sure their reports about this data are presented in an accurate and informative way.