title: Public Awareness of and Contact With Physicians Who Receive Industry Payments: A National Survey.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The Physician Payments Sunshine Act, part of the Affordable Care Act, requires pharmaceutical and medical device firms to report payments they make to physicians and, through its Open Payments program, makes this information publicly available.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To establish estimates of the exposure of the American patient population to physicians who accept industry payments, to compare these population-based estimates to physician-based estimates of industry contact, and to investigate Americans' awareness of industry payments.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cross-sectional survey conducted in late September and early October 2014, with data linkage of respondents' physicians to Open Payments data.
  
  
  METHODS
  A total of 3542 adults drawn from a large, nationally representative household panel.
  
  
  METHODS
  Respondents' contact with physicians reported in Open Payments to have received industry payments; respondents' awareness that physicians receive payments from industry and that payment information is publicly available; respondents' knowledge of whether their own physician received industry payments.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Among the 1987 respondents who could be matched to a specific physician, 65% saw a physician who had received an industry payment during the previous 12 months. This population-based estimate of exposure to industry contact is much higher than physician-based estimates from the same period, which indicate that 41% of physicians received an industry payment. Across the six most frequently visited specialties, patient contact with physicians who had received an industry payment ranged from 60 to 85%; the percentage of physicians with industry contact in these specialties was much lower (35-56%). Only 12% of survey respondents knew that payment information was publicly available, and only 5% knew whether their own doctor had received payments.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Patients' contact with physicians who receive industry payments is more prevalent than physician-based measures of industry contact would suggest. Very few Americans know whether their own doctor has received industry payments or are aware that payment information is publicly available.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Management and Policy, Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health, and Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, University of Pennsylvania, Nesbitt Hall, 3215 Market Street, Room 352, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA. gpkanter@drexel.edu.
authors.forename: Genevieve
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Pham-Kanter
authors.affiliation: Stanford Law School, and Department of Health Research and Policy, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Michelle M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Mello
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine and Center for Bioethics, Harvard Medical School, and Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.|National Center for Ethics in Health Care, Veterans Health Administration, Washington, DC, USA.
authors.forename: Lisa Soleymani
authors.initials: LS
authors.lastname: Lehmann
authors.affiliation: Mongan Institute for Health Policy, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Eric G
authors.initials: EG
authors.lastname: Campbell
authors.affiliation: Department of Government and Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Carpenter
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001364:Awareness; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004345:Drug Industry / Q000191:economics / Q000592:standards*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D058991:Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act / Q000191:economics / Q000592:standards*; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D017150:Public Sector / Q000191:economics / Q000592:standards*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: financial conflicts of interest; industry payments; open payments; physician payments sunshine act; physician-industry relationships