The 2014 Open Payments database covers 11.41 million transactions between manufacturers and covered recipients (physicians and teaching hospitals), totaling $6.49 billion. With such an immense amount of data, it can be hard to make meaningful analysis of the information. Open Payments Analytics has put together a very interesting list of insights from their dive into the database with the Infographic seen bellow. While there are many takeaways from the data, here are three aspects that grabbed our attention:
(1) 49% of the physicians in the database received less than $100 total. Per the Sunshine Act, de minimis transfers of value are excluded from reporting requirements. The 2014 requirements excluded transfers of value less than $10.18, unless the aggregate amount for 2014 exceeded $101.75 during the calendar year. While some of the 49% of physicians listed may have had individual payments exceeding $10, it is safe to assume that companies are over-reporting on some of the ~300,000 physicians who received less than $100 throughout the entirety of last year.
(2) The top two physicians in the general database earned their payments from Abbott's acquisition of Topera, a medical device company focused on developing innovative electrophysiology technologies. Last year, the company received Connect’s "Most Innovative New Product Award" for its RhythmView 3D Mapping System, “based on its innovative electrophysiology platform to improve the diagnosis and treatment of complex cardiac arrhythmias including atrial fibrillation, the most common heart rhythm disorder in the world, afflicting 8 million people in the US and Europe alone.”
(3) Payments in the Gift category of Open Payments represented 0.45% of the total payments. Meals, which represented 9 million of the 11.41 million payments (79%), represented $225 million of the $6.49 billion total value (3.5%).