A new study published in Spine examined the relationship between spine surgeons and industry.
Study authors gathered data from the Open Payments database to determine industry payment prevalence among orthopedic and neurospine surgeons. There were 5,898 spine surgeons included in the data. However, the study did not include ownership or research payments. Study authors examined training, experience, practice setting and degree type of each surgeon. Here are the findings:
1. Nearly all — 91.6 percent — of spine surgeons reported at least one financial relationship with industry.
2. On average, spine surgeons receive $994.07 from industry per year.
3. Around 6 percent of the surgeons in the database received more than $1 million from industry and accounted for 83.5 percent of all payments.
4. Factors associated with industry payments were:
● Orthopedic training
● Academic practice setting
● Male gender
● Practicing in the West or South
5. There was a strong inverse relationship between the years of experience and number of industry payments, according to a linear regression analysis.