Industry Payments to Plastic Surgeons: What Has Changed Over the Last 6 Years Following Implementation of the Physician Payments Sunshine Act?

Abstract

Background The Open Payments Program, as designated by the Physician Payments Sunshine Act is the single largest repository of industry payments made to licensed physicians within the United States. Though sizeable in its dataset, the database and user interface are limited in their ability to permit expansive data interpretation and summarization. Objectives We sought to comprehensively compare industry payments made to plastic surgeons with payments made to all surgeons and all physicians to elucidate industry relationships since implementation. Methods The Open Payments Database was queried between 2014 and 2019, and inclusion criteria were applied. These data were evaluated in aggregate and for yearly totals, payment type, and geographic distribution. Results 61,000,728 unique payments totaling $11,815,248,549 were identified over the six-year study period. 9,089 plastic surgeons, 121,151 surgeons, and 796,260 total physicians received these payments. Plastic surgeons annually received significantly less payment than all surgeons (p=0.0005). However, plastic surgeons did not receive significantly more payment than all physicians (p = 0.0840). Cash and cash equivalents proved to be the most common form of payment; Stock and stock options were least commonly transferred. Plastic surgeons in Tennessee received the most in payments between 2014-2019 (mean $ 76,420.75). California had the greatest number of plastic surgeons to receive payments (1,452 surgeons). Conclusions Plastic surgeons received more in industry payments than the average of all physicians but received less than all surgeons. The most common payment was cash transactions. Over the past six years, geographic trends in industry payments have remained stable.

Plastic Surgeons and their Financial Relationships with the Industry in the era of COVID: Insights from the Physician Payments Sunshine Act

“…Based on these financial implications, we hypothesized that industry payments to plastic surgeons would also be negatively impacted by the pandemic, similar to other financial strains faced by plastic surgeons due to COVID-19. The public reporting of payments made by industry to physicians has previously been used as a tool to study trends and provide insight on industry-provider relationships in the field of plastic surgery [7,8]. However, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on industry payments to plastic surgeons has not been previously reported.…”

Conflict of Interest and Plastic Surgery Journal Editors

“…This yearly compensation may be compared with the mean dollar value received from industry for all plastic surgeons, which is approximately $5000 annually. 18,19 This level of compensation may also be compared with other specialties. In 2019, Alexander 20 investigated industry payments to the editors-in-chief of the top 100 surgical journals as determined by impact factor.…”

“…The mean amount received by the 10 editors over the 7 years was US $90,890, or $12,984 per year. This yearly compensation may be compared with the mean dollar value received from industry for all plastic surgeons, which is approximately $5000 annually 18,19 …”

Facial plating industry payments: An analysis of the open payments database

“…The purpose is to increase transparency and limit the potential undue influence on medical decision‐making 10 . The Open Payments Database has been utilized to analyze industry payments to a number of different specialties 11–13 …”

“…10 The Open Payments Database has been utilized to analyze industry payments to a number of different specialties. [11][12][13] Although the volume of facial trauma coverage among different specialties has been studied, the connectedness of each of these surgical specialties with the facial plating industry is unclear. The management of these injuries by multiple surgical entities presents a unique opportunity to compare relationships with facial plating companies.…”