Abstract
Purpose :
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected industry payments to physicians in several specialties, but its effect on payments to ophthalmologists has not been studied. We performed a cross-sectional study using information from the Open Payments Database to observe changes in industry payments to ophthalmologists before and after the onset of the pandemic.
Methods :
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Open Payments Database was queried for all ophthalmologists who received payments between 2018 and 2021. Pre-Covid was defined as 2018-2019 while post-Covid was defined as 2020-2021. Payment date, value, type, company making payment, and state of recipient were recorded. Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) modeling was used to assess significance.
Results :
Total industry payments to ophthalmologists from 2018-2021 amounted to $817,892,866.90 paid to 20,832 ophthalmologists. Over $580 million (71.4%) was for research-related payments and the remainder for general payments (28.6%). Before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the mean research payment to ophthalmologists ($7,108.64±35,783.04) was significantly less than after onset of the pandemic ($10,311.15±57,428.66, p<.001). The mean general payment was significantly higher before the pandemic ($400.73±36,928.76) compared to during the pandemic ($293.61±5,361.57, p=0). Within the general category, the mean payments for consulting fees, education, faculty or speakers, food and beverage, gifts, honoraria, royalty or license, and travel and lodging all decreased significantly, while the mean payment for entertainment increased significantly (all p<0.05). Variation was also observed in changes in mean industry payments post-COVID-19 based on state and company.
Conclusions :
These findings suggest that there were significant changes in the industry payments made to ophthalmologists following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. While generally payments seemed to significantly decrease, future investigations should look to discern underlying reasons for the fluctuating directionality of these changes by specific type of payment, state, and company.
This abstract was presented at the 2023 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in New Orleans, LA, April 23-27, 2023.