Years ago at another publication, one of my former colleagues made one of the greatest rookie mistakes a person could make during their career. He triumphantly displayed how much money he was being paid to several reporters in the newsroom.

The pandemonium was classic. Many marched up to management and demanded salary adjustments, using this poor naïve writer's pay as a "negotiating" ground.

I wonder if something similar to this scenario will play out when the Physican Payment Sunshine Act will go into effect. I realize that med-tech said that it doesn't mind the transparency, but are companies considering the kind of backlash this will have from paid consultants, who now have a sense of what their competitors are getting paid?

I really didn't start thinking about this point until after I had a conversation with Michaeline Daboul president/CEO MMIS, a company that designs systems that enable organizations to manage and exchange data, earlier this month.

"When all this information gets published in a public online database and everybody from pro-publica to individuals start combing through this data, companies are going to have big PR nightmares," Daboul said in an April 15th interview with Medical Device Daily. "They're going to have customers who're going to be upset with them. You're going to have situations where you have customers that say, you didn't tell me you were going to tell the world that you bring us lunch every week."

While it might seem a bit simplistic, these kinds of issues can create a rift between med-tech firms and their clients, Daboul pointed out.

And I agree, whole-heartedly. It's going to be interesting when this hits the fan. But I wonder, med-tech, are you truly ready for total transparency?