Industry payments to dermatologists: Updates from the 2016 open payment data

Abstract

Background: Payments made to dermatologists by pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturing companies have become better understood following the advent of the Open Payments program. The purpose of this study was to analyze payments made to dermatologists in 2016 and evaluate trends in the payments from the previously published 2014 data. Methods: The Open Payments database was filtered to include only dermatologists. The general and research payments made to each dermatologist were summed and categorized using a tier system. Finally, the mean, median, and range of the payments were calculated. Results: We identified 10,744 dermatologists receiving payments totaling more than $52.9 million in 2016, up from 8,333 dermatologists receiving a total of $34.8 million in 2014. Of the dermatologists receiving payments, 77% received less than $1,000 and 1% received >$ 100,000. The ten highest paid dermatologists received about 10% of the total amount paid to dermatologists in 2016. Conclusions: Industry payments to dermatologists increased in 2016 when compared to 2014. Physician and industry relationships have the potential to facilitate growth of medical fields. However, they have the potential to threaten the trust within the patient-physician relationship. Further studies are required to determine the effects of industry payments on patient-physician relationships.