P87. Have industry consulting payments to orthopedic spine surgeons continued to correlate with academic productivity? Revisiting the physician payments sunshine act

• Published in: The spine journal 2022-09, Vol.22 (9), p.S168-S168
• Main Authors: Kirchner, Gregory Joseph, Kim, Raymond, Carlisle, Kathryn, Mellen, James, Weddle, John, Bible, Jesse E.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1529-9430; 1878-1632
• DOI: 10.1016/j.spinee.2022.06.344

Early data from the Physician Payments Sunshine Act revealed orthopedic spine surgeons are among the most highly compensated physicians by product manufacturers. Additional analyses demonstrated a strong correlation between payment number and magnitude and academic productivity. To investigate the association between changes in industry consulting fees and academic productivity among orthopedic spine surgeons in 2016 and 2019. Retrospective cohort analysis. Median consulting fees in 2016 and 2019; difference in consulting fees, total publication number, and h-index between 2016 and 2019. The General Payments database within the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Open Payments Database was queried for consulting fees paid to orthopedic surgeons in 2016. Each surgeon's professional profile was then searched online for surgeon gender, academic affiliation and fellowship training. The Scopus database was used to determine year of first publication, number of publications and h-index for 2016 and 2019. All orthopedic surgeons who completed a spine fellowship and collected a consulting fee in 2016 were again searched within the General Payments database for 2019 consulting payments. Surgeon gender, region, years since first publication and h-index were compared independently for influence on consulting fees in both 2016 and 2019. Multivariate linear regression was then performed to determine independent associations between these variables and difference in consulting payments between 2016 and 2019. A total of 656 orthopedic spine surgeons received $15,013,278 (median 10,775, interquartile range [IQR] 22,678) in industry consulting payments in 2016, while 414/656 (63.1%) of these surgeons received a consulting payment in 2019 for a total of 10.9% less at $13,382,610 (median 5,913, IQR 24,883; p < 0.001). Between 2016 and 2019, there was an increase in median number of publications (5, IQR 20 vs 7, IQR 29.8; p < 0.001) and h-index (3, IQR 10 vs 5, IQR 12; p < 0.001). Univariate analysis demonstrated that surgeons within the top quartile of publications and h-index in 2016 received more in consulting fees in both 2016 (median $17,545, IQR 44,052 vs median $8,875, IQR 18,675; p < 0.001) and 2019 (median $15,250, IQR 38,441 vs median 4,500, IQR 38,441; p < 0.001). Multivariate linear regression demonstrated a statistically significant inverse relationship between years since first publication and median difference in consulting fees between 2016 and 2019 (p