Shining Sunlight on Industry Payments in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery: The Sunshine Act

Publication date: Available online 12 November 2018

Source: Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

Author(s): Yisi D. Ji, Zachary S. Peacock

Abstract

Purpose

To characterize industry payments to oral and maxillofacial surgeons (OMSs) and to determine the accuracy of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Open Payments Databases.

Methods

This was a cross-sectional study of the CMS General and Research Payments Database in 2016 for clinicians categorized as an OMS. General payments include consulting fees, honoraria, gifts, entertainment, food and beverage, travel, and education, and others. Research payments include payments associated with research. Variables collected included number of OMSs who receive payments, type of and number of payments, total amount paid, geographic distribution, and proportion of funding allotted to research. The accuracy of payee categorization was determined by verifying a random selection of 5% of those categorized as 'OMS' in the database to publicly available data. To assess impact on research productivity, the h-index of research payment recipients was calculated.

Results

A total of 6720 OMSs received industry compensation in 2016. The accuracy was 88% (297/336) in the General Payments database and 50% (4/8) in the Research payments database.

OMSs received 28456 General payments totalling $5,971,800.79. The average number of payments and amount per payment was 4.27 and $1597.60, respectively. CMS reported total Research payments of $23,592.17. The 4 verified OMSs received a total of $18,500 in research payments and had an average h-index of 3.25 (range 0 to 8).

The most common payments made were for food and beverage (80.2%), travel and lodging (5.83%), education (3.91%), compensation for services other than consulting (3.1%) and gifts (3.03%). Research accounted for 0.07% of all payments.

Conclusion

Although industry payments to OMSs were common, research funding was negligible. The majority of industry value-transfers were related to food and beverage or travel and lodging. Clinicians were accurately classified in CMS' Open Payments General database but not for Research Payments.

https://ift.tt/2TaEzgl