Radiologists have collected nearly $392 million in payment perks from vendors and other industry entities—a figure far smaller than other medical specialties, according to research published Thursday.
The figure places radiology 12th on a list of 39 specialties ranked in terms of total amount paid to physicians between 2013 and 2022. Orthopedics landed at No. 1 on the list, collecting over $1.36 billion, ahead of neurology and psychiatry ($1.32 billion) and cardiology ($1.29 billion), researchers detailed in JAMA [1].
Across all specialties, the figure totaled some $12.13 billion in payments for consulting, research, royalties and other reasons. The largest amounts were concentrated among a small number of docs—often exceeding $1 million—while most received much less (often fewer than $100).
“Despite evidence that financial conflicts of interest may influence physician prescribing and may damage patients’ trust in medical professionals, such relationships remain pervasive,” Dr. Ahmed Sayed, with Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt, and co-authors wrote March 28.
Researchers used the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Open Payments database for the study. They included all payments for consulting, other services such as speaker fees, food and beverages, travel and lodging, entertainment, education, gifts, grants, charitable contributions and honoraria. Industry entities made a total of over 85 million payments to about 57% of all 1.4 million eligible physicians.
The median payment across all specialties was $48 and nearly 94% were associated with one or more marketed medical products. About 50% of all 68,718 eligible radiologists collected a payment during the study period at a median amount of $8 (and interquartile range of $0 to $299). Meanwhile, the average amount paid to the top 0.1% of radiologists was $1.9 million. This finding mirrors a 2023 Academic Radiology study, which concluded that most industry payments are concentrated among the top 5% of physicians.
The top drugs related to industry payments across all docs included blood thinner Xarelto ($176.34 million), anticoagulant Eliquis ($102.62 million) and arthritis treatment Humira ($100.17 million). The da Vinci Surgical System ($307.52 million), Mako SmartRobotics ($50.13 million) and CoreValve Evolut ($44.79 million) were among the top medical devices.
More research on industry payments
A second study, published March 26 in Academic Radiology [2], explored potential financial conflicts of interest among physician authors of ACR Appropriateness Criteria.
Among those who received industry payments, failure to disclose any financial relationship was seen for 85% of authors in 2019, 96% in 2021, and 76% last year.
“Industry payments to authors of radiology guidelines are frequently undisclosed, and disclosure of all financial relationships, whether related to the manuscript or not, would bring greater transparency and trust in the guidelines,” Yale’s Dr. Dheeman Futela and colleagues wrote Tuesday.
Read much more from both studies at the links below.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.