Physicians payment in the United States between 2014 and 2018: An analysis of the CMS Open Payments database
The Open Payments database reports payments made to physicians by industry. Given the potential for financial conflicts of interest relating to patient outcomes, further scrutiny of these data is valuable. Therefore, the objective of this study was to analyze physician-industry relationships by spec...
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| Veröffentlicht in: | PLOS ONE Jg. 16; H. 6; S. e0252656 |
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| Hauptverfasser: | , , , |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Sprache: | Englisch |
| Veröffentlicht: |
United States
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
02.06.2021
Public Library of Science |
| Schlagworte: | |
| ISSN: | 1932-6203, 1932-6203 |
| Online-Zugang: | Volltext |
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| Zusammenfassung: | The Open Payments database reports payments made to physicians by industry. Given the potential for financial conflicts of interest relating to patient outcomes, further scrutiny of these data is valuable. Therefore, the objective of this study was to analyze physician-industry relationships by specialty type, payment type, geospatial trend, and longitudinal trend between 2014–2018. We conducted an observational, retrospective data analysis of payments from the Open Payments database for licensed United States physicians listed in the National Plan & Provider Enumeration System (NPPES). Datasets from 2013–2018 were joined using the Python programming language. Aggregation and sub-setting by characteristics of interest was done in R to calculate means and frequencies of reported general physician payments from industry across different specialties, locations, timeframes, and payment types. Normalization was applied for numbers of physicians or payments. Geospatial statistical hot spot analysis was conducted in ArcGIS. 51.73 million payment records were analyzed. In total, 50,047,930 payments were issued to 771,113 allopathic or osteopathic physicians, representing $8,702,631,264 transferred from industry to physicians over the five-year period between 2014 and 2018. The mean payment amount was $179, with a standard deviation of $12,685. Variability in physicians’ financial relationships with industry were apparent across specialties, regions, time, and payment type. A limited match rate between records in the NPPES and Open Payments databases may have resulted in selection bias of trends related to physician characteristics. Further research is necessary, particularly in the context of changing industry payment trends and public perceptions of the appropriateness of these relationships. |
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| Bibliographie: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 14 content type line 23 Competing Interests: TKM and MC are employees of the startup company S-3 Research LLC. S-3 Research is a startup funded and currently supported by the National Institutes of Health – National Institute on Drug Abuse through a Small Business Innovation and Research contract for opioid-related social media research and technology commercialization. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. Author reports no other conflict of interest associated with this manuscript and have not been asked by any organization to be named on or to submit this manuscript. RC and NS report no conflicts of interest or financial relationships associated with this manuscript. |
| ISSN: | 1932-6203 1932-6203 |
| DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0252656 |