Industry relationships with interventional radiologists: Who are the high payment physicians?

Chris Lee; Mihir Khunte; Kyle Tegtmeyer; Dheeman Futela; Suryansh Bajaj; Seyedmehdi Payabvash; Dheeraj Gandhi; Ajay Malhotra

doi:10.1067/j.cpradiol.2024.07.020

Industry relationships with interventional radiologists: Who are the high payment physicians?

Curr Probl Diagn Radiol. 2024 Jul 24:S0363-0188(24)00128-2. doi: 10.1067/j.cpradiol.2024.07.020. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Chris Lee¹, Mihir Khunte², Kyle Tegtmeyer³, Dheeman Futela³, Suryansh Bajaj³, Seyedmehdi Payabvash³, Dheeraj Gandhi⁴, Ajay Malhotra⁵

Affiliations

¹ Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
² Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, RI, USA.
³ Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Yale School of Medicine, USA.
⁴ Interventional Neuroradiology; Professor of Radiology, Nuclear Medicine, Neurology and Neurosurgery, University of Maryland School of Medicine, USA.
⁵ Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Yale School of Medicine, Box 208042, Tompkins East 2, 333 Cedar St, New Haven, CT 06520-8042, USA. Electronic address: ajay.malhotra@yale.edu.

PMID: 39089981
DOI: 10.1067/j.cpradiol.2024.07.020

Abstract

Purpose: To identify characteristics of interventional radiologists receiving more than $100,000 in general industry payments over a 5-year period (2017-2021).

Methods: The Open Payments database was queried to identify interventional radiologists who received more than $100,000 in consulting fees, speaker fees, education, and/or gifts over a 5-year period from 2017 to 2021. The national provider identifier registry, Scopus, and a web-based search were used to identify physician characteristics, such as demographics, research profile, leadership positions, and social media presence.

Results: From 2017-2021, 125 interventional radiologists received cumulative payments greater than $100,000 in consulting fees, speaker fees, education, and gifts. For this subset of physicians, the median (IQR) cumulative payment value was $214,380 ($141,812 - $383,740), and the total payment value was $40 million. While the highest-paid subset of physicians represented only 3 % (125/4272) of all US interventional radiologists paid by industry, the total payment value represented 66 % ($40,039,610.08/$60,859,025) of the total payment value among all interventional radiologists. 47 % (59/125) had faculty appointments and 30 % (37/125) had hospital leadership positions. 22 % (27/125) were clinical practice guideline authors, while 18 % (23/125) served on journal editorial boards and 12 % (15/125) had positions in specialty association leadership. Castle Connolly recognized 26 % (32/125) as top doctors. Among the 96 % (120/125) with published research in the past 5 years, the median (IQR) H-index was 17 (7-31). 38 % (48/125) had a presence on Twitter with a median (IQR) Kardashian index of 2.03 (0.48-6.16).

Conclusion: A small subset of interventional radiologists receive large payments from drug and medical device companies. These physicians are leaders in their field with influence in hospitals, research, associations, and social media. Further work is needed to understand how the concentration of these payments affects decisions in clinical practice and policy.

Keywords: Industry; Interventional radiology; Open payments.