1 in 12 US physicians received a payment involving an opioid

~ Jason Schwartz

From the American Journal of Public Health:

Approximately 1 in 12 US physicians received a payment involving an opioid during the 29-month study. These findings should prompt an examination of industry influences on opioid prescribing.

That’s not 1 in 12 pain specialists, or 1 in 12 addiction medicine specialists, that’s 1 in 12 US physicians.

Here are more details:

Over the study period, 375,266 nonresearch payments involving a marketed opioid were made to 68,177 physicians, totaling $46,158,388. Total payments increased from $18,958,125 in 2014 to $20,996,858 in 2015, an increase of 10.7%. The number of payments increased from 145,715 in 2014 to 184,237 in 2015, an increase of 26.4%.

The 5 opioid products constituting the greatest proportion of payments were fentanyl ($21,240,794; 46.0% of total dollars), hydrocodone ($7,123,421; 15.4%), buprenorphine transdermal patch ($5,141,808; 11.1%), oxycodone ($4,487,978; 9.7%), and tapentadol ($4,296,130; 9.3%). Overall, payments for FDA-approved abuse-deterrent formulations totaled $9,352,959 (20.3%), and payments for buprenorphine or buprenorphine/naloxone marketed for addiction treatment totaled $4,561,729 (9.9%).

The median payment was low, around $50.

However, a JAMA published study reached the following conclusions about compensation as small as a meal:

Receipt of industry-sponsored meals was associated with an increased rate of prescribing the brand-name medication that was being promoted. The findings represent an association, not a cause-and-effect relationship.

Published by Jason Schwartz

I have been an addiction professional and social worker since 1994. I started blogging in 2005 as the Clinical Director at Dawn Farm. I no longer work at Dawn Farm and am now the Director of Behavioral Medicine at a community hospital, and a lecturer at Eastern Michigan University’s School of Social Work. Views expressed here are my own. Keep in mind that the field, the contexts in which the field operates, and my views have changed over time.