R. D. Rampp1, J. R. Porterfield2, H. Chen2, A. Asban2, G. E. McFarland2 1University Of Tennessee Health Science Center,Chattanooga/Department Of Surgery/College Of Medicine,Chattanooga, TN, USA 2University Of Alabama at Birmingham,Department Of Surgery/School Of Medicine,Birmingham, Alabama, USA
Introduction: The Physician Payments Sunshine Act, effective as of 2013, requires manufacturers of pharmaceuticals, biologics, and devices to track and report certain payments and items of value given to U.S. physicians and U.S. teaching hospitals. A “payment” may include cash, food, entertainment, gifts, travel, honoraria, funding, grants, stock, royalties, and licensing fees, among others. The act was written to include fellows but exclude residents. However, many residents are still reported to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). We hypothesized that a considerable portion of residents can be found on the publicly-accessible website. Furthermore, we suspect most residents are unaware of the act and have unknowingly accepted any form of payments.
Methods: All general surgery residents from a large tertiary medical center were searched on the CMS open payments database. Of the residents found on the site, the total cost of payments, total number of payments, and the nature of payments were documented. The residents were surveyed to determine if they were aware of the Sunshine Act and if they were reported in the database.
Results: Of the 45 categorical surgical residents, 9 (20%) were found in the CMS database. Of these 9, one (11%) was aware of the Sunshine Act and that their payments received were being tracked. The median amount received was $50.12 (range: $13-$782). The median total number of payments was 2 (range 1-8). The nature of all payments was in the form of food and beverage.
Conclusion: The Sunshine Act was created to increase the transparency of financial relationships between physicians, teaching hospitals, and pharmaceutical manufacturers and uncover potential conflicts of interest. However, we discovered the vast majority of residents were unfamiliar with the act, let alone individually-identified in the CMS database. Increased efforts should be made to raise awareness among residents and provide transparency to those susceptible to being reported.