R. Ahmed1,2, D. Segev2, S. Bloom1, A. Massie2, S. Eubanks1 1Florida Hospital,General Surgery,Orlando, FL, USA 2Johns Hopkins University School Of Medicine,General Surgery,Baltimore, MD, USA
Introduction: Collaboration between industry and surgeons is essential in developing new approaches to treat surgical patients. The Physician Payment Sunshine Act (PPSA) was implemented to publicly disclose financial transactions between industry and physicians, thus informing patients of potential conflicts-of-interest. The objective of this study is to characterize industry payments to surgeons.
Methods: We used the most recent PPSA data (January 2017-December 2017) to assess industry payments made to physicians listed as surgeons or surgical specialists in the CMS Open Payments website.
Results: Surgeons (N=61,2014) received a total of $660,474,480 during the 2017 fiscal year. The median (IQR) was $80 ($22-269). Among surgeons 25% received <$100; 41% received $100-$999; 26% received $1K-$10K; 7% received >$10K-$100K; and 1.6% received >$100K. The top 3 payment categories were royalties or licensing fees ($393,097,177); Consulting fees ($98,089,885); and speaker fees ($53,849,118). A total of 1,004 companies made payment to surgeons ($7 to $69,256,633), of which 10 comprised 66.5% of all payments. The highest to lowest median(IQR) payments by surgical specialty were: orthopedic surgeons $146 (37-782); pediatric orthopedic surgeons $114 (34-477); thoracic surgeons $104 (27-338); transplant surgeons $102 (26-432); neurosurgeons $98 (27-330); hand surgeons $90 (22-209); plastic surgeons $87 (24-203); vascular surgeons $77 (21-239); surgical oncologists $63 (20-198); general surgeons $56 (19-187); colorectal surgeons $55 (19-157); and critical care surgeons $55 (19-147).
Conclusion: The 2017 PPSA data demonstrate that 60% of total amount were made for royalties and licensing fees tp 3.5% of surgeons; 66 % of surgeons received <$1,000. Orthopedic surgeons were the highest paid specialists. Awareness of the PPSA data is critical for surgeons, as it provides a means to prevent potential public misconceptions about industry payments within surgeons that may affect patient trust.
