Trend in industry payments to infectious disease physicians in the United States: a seven-year analysis of non-research payments from Open Payments Database between 2014 and 2020

Abstract

Objectives

To evaluate the trend in non-research payments made by the industries to the infectious disease physicians in the United States since the launch of the Open Payments Database and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods

Descriptive analysis was performed for the non-research payments made to all infectious disease physicians listed in the Open Payments Database between 2014 and 2020. Using the generalized estimating equation models with panel-data of monthly and yearly payment per physician, the payment trend since the inception of the Open Payments Database and during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic were evaluated.

Results

A total of 7901 (81.5%) infectious disease physicians received $156,837,987 in non-research payments between 2014 and 2020. Median annual payments were $197‒$220. Monthly non-research per-physician payments and number of physicians with payments rapidly decreased by 58.6% (95% confidence interval [95% CI]: 49.7%‒65.9%, p<0.001) and by 54.4% (95% CI: 52.7%‒56.1%, p<0.001) at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, respectively. However, the per-physician payments and number of physicians with payments slightly increased every month right after onset of the pandemic. Both per-physician payments and the number of physicians with payments decreased by 2.6 (95% CI: 0.45%‒4.7%, p=0.018) and 2.0 (95% CI: 1.6‒2.4, p<0.001) since the inception of the Open Payments, respectively.

Conclusions

The non-research payments and number of infectious disease physicians accepting payments had decreased since the inception of the Open Payments Database. Furthermore, the non-research payments to infectious disease physicians suddenly decreased by more than half due to the COVID-19 pandemic.