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What Can We Learn from the Latest “Open Payments” Data?

April 1, 2021
April 1, 2021

By Kevin Kovalsky, COI Product Manager, Compliance Solutions, HealthStream and Bill Sacks, Vice President, COI Product Management, HealthStream

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services published a new trove of payment data on June 30, 2017. Since 2013, the “Open Payments” database, created under the Affordable Care Act, has been used to collect and publish information about payments from medical device and drug companies to physicians and teaching hospitals. All payments above $10.00 are reported in various categories, including speaking fees, travel, research, gifts, and meals.

Under the theory that “Sunshine is the best disinfectant”, the hope was that publishing detailed information about industry payments to physicians would have a prophylactic effect on potential conflicts of interest. There was speculation that some physicians would stop taking money from big pharma if they had to answer questions about those payments from skeptical patients. Perhaps payments would be funneled more directly into research, rather than to physicians themselves?

So what does the latest data show? What kinds of trends can be seen? While it is difficult to draw conclusions based on the year to year fluctuations in payment data, we can begin to see trends by analyzing the data over three years.

What the Data Tells Us

The total dollar value of reported payments from industry has increased slightly, to $8.18 billion in 2016 from $8.09 billion in 2015 and $7.86 billion in 2014. In each of those years, more than 50% of all dollars went to research. Interestingly, the number of companies making payments dropped by more than 6%, from 1,614 in 2014 to 1,481 in 2016. Since few companies completely stop payments to physicians once they have started, this raises some interesting questions about consolidation in the industry. At the same time, the number of physicians accepting payments stayed level, dropping by a fraction from 632,000 in 2015 to 631,000 in 2016.

While total payments directed to research increased by 7.1% from 2014 to 2016, the amount paid directly to physicians for research decreased by 7.1%, from more than $102 million in 2014 to $95 million in 2016. From 2014 to 2016, general (non-research) payments to physicians also saw a slight decline, from $2.11 billion in 2014 to $2.07 billion in 2016.

While some have expressed concern at the 6.0% year to year jump in payments to physicians classified as “ownership or investment interests” (from $962 million in 2015 to more than $1.0 billion in 2016), the three-year trend is negative, with an overall 8.1% decline from 2014 to 2016.

While it is too early to tell if these trends will continue, it is clear that while the Open Payments database has not adversely affected the overall funding of industry research, it may be causing some physicians to take fewer direct payments, which could reduce, in some small way, the potential for conflicts of interest in medicine.

Learn more about HCCS solutions related to the Open Payments Database and managing conflicts of interest.