Industry Payments to Clinicians, Hospitals Rose in 2016

UPDATED July 5, 2017 // Whether it was pizza, lodging, research grants, or consulting fees, payments from drug and medical device makers to clinicians and teaching hospitals increased slightly by 1.1% in 2016 , the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced today.

Total industry payments, which also include ownership and investment interests in drug and device makers, rose from $8.09 billion in 2015 to $8.18 billion in 2016. The growth rate from 2014 to 2015 was somewhat higher at 2.9%

Data on payments to clinicians and hospitals in 2016 were posted today on the CMS website.

Table. Industry Payments Reported to CMS

	Value of Payments^a	Number of Clinicians	Number of Teaching Hospitals
2013^b	$4.09 billion	481,000	1025
2014	$7.86 billion	625,000	1127
2015	$8.09 billion	632,000	1118
2016	$8.18 billion	631,000	1146
^aAmounts for 2013 through 2015 differ from those previously reported because of updates. ^bFor the last 5 months of the year.
Source: CMS

Drug and device makers are required to report to CMS what they give clinicians and hospitals under the government's Open Payments program, created by the Affordable Care Act. Lawmakers reasoned that making these transactions transparent could deter financial relationships that might tempt healthcare providers to put their self-interest above patient care. One study in JAMA Internal Medicine last year found that a single free meal from a drug company could sway a physician to prescribe the company's brand-name drug rather than a less expensive generic.

The $8.18 billion given to 631,000 clinicians and 1146 teaching hospitals last year consisted of $4.36 billion for research, $1.02 billion in the value of ownership or investment interests, and $2.8 billion in general payments that covered drug rep meals, consulting and speaking fees, travel and lodging, and the like. Drug and device makers must report any "transfer of value" of $10 or more, or transfers of value that add up to more than $100 per year.

Almost 75% of the $2.8 billion in general payments last year went to clinicians, who include not only physicians, but also dentists, optometrists, podiatrists, and chiropractors.

Visitors to the CMS Open Payments website can look up individual clinicians and hospitals to see what they have received from drug and device makers and compare their payments to national and specialty averages.

More information about the Open Payments program is available on the CMS website.

Follow Robert Lowes on Twitter @LowesRobert

Cite this: Industry Payments to Clinicians, Hospitals Rose in 2016 - Medscape - Jun 30, 2017.

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