Industry Payments in Cardiology: A Cross-sectional Analysis of Open Payments Data

Background: The goal of Open Payments and the Physician Payments Sunshine Act is to foster transparency and accountability to help stakeholders better understand financial ties between physicians and teaching hospitals and the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. Objective: To evaluate the nature of industry relationships among cardiologists using the Open Payments database. Methods: The authors used the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Open Payments data for calendar year 2015 to evaluate the financial relationship between cardiologists and medical industries (manufacturers of medications, devices, biologics, and medical supplies). The database used in this specific investigation included general payments reported for 2015. Payments were broken down by totals, type, company, and range. Results: In the 2015 calendar year, 81,977 payments were made to 12,078 cardiologists, amounting to $13,906,167.43. The minimum payment made to a cardiologist was $1.16 and the maximum, $2,805,825. The most frequent category was $11 to $50, with 53,722 payments made (65.5%), followed by less than $10, with 12,307 payments made (15.0%). Conclusion: Payments to cardiologists were highly variable. Additional studies regarding the effects of these payments may be warranted.