On Friday, June 28, 2019 the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the 2018 Open Payments Data which covers transactions data collected from January 1, 2018 through December 31, 2018. The total dollar amount of payments totaled $9.35 billion (General Payments: $3.00 billion; Research Payments $4.93 Billion; the total records published totaled 11.40 million. The 2018 Open Payments Data shows a 4.3% increase from 2017 in the total amount of payments from applicable manufacturers and group purchasing organizations (GPO’s). and a 4.2% decrease in total payments between 2017 and 2018.
A large part of the difference in the 2018 data from 2017 comes down to reporting the ownership interest of one doctor George Lopez, MD an internal medicine physician who is chairman and founder of ICU medical. This year ICU medical reported his estimated ownership interest at $344,292,301. For some unknown reason most likely due to a clerical error according to the Open Payments Database in 2017 ICU Medical took a break from reporting Dr. Lopez, who founded the company after he lost a patient to an accidental IV disconnect. The first product he invented ClickLock, provided a locking apparatus IV systems. Since then his company has gone on to create other innovations for IV systems saving thousands of patients.
The other big mover in ownership interest was Paragon 28, Inc. The total value of their ownership interest went from $29,713,109 to $132,987,611. The physicians didn’t change so this could either be that they are doing very well or another clerical error.
Overall the 2018 data is little changed from 2017.