Factors Associated with Various Types of Industry Payments to Academic Spine Surgeons in the Open Payments Database.

Abstract

Retrospective Cohort Study. The objective of this study was to investigate associations between spine surgeon characteristics and different types of industry payments. Industry funding has played an important role in research and technological innovation within spine surgery, and industry payments supporting research have risen significantly in comparison to funding from other sources. To our knowledge, no studies have investigated academic spine surgeon characteristics associated with different categories of industry payments. A query was conducted of the North American Spine Society (NASS) Spine Fellowship Directory from 2021-2022 to identify all orthopaedic or neurosurgical spine fellowship selection committee members. A PubMed search was utilized to collect information on surgeon academic productivity up through December 31, 2021. We then conducted a query of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) open payments website from 2015-2021 to collect payment records of spine fellowship selection committee members. On linear regression analysis, total publications (8,203, P<0.001), attending years (48,823, P<0.001), and publication rate (57,528, P=0.017) were associated with higher general payments. Southeast spine surgeons (80,043, P=0.038) and fellowship directors (79,874, P=0.007) were associated with more research payments. Total publications (7,409, P<0.001), attending years (47,100, P<0.001), and publication rate (47,511, P=0.040) were significantly associated with higher royalties. Having a Twitter/X account (60,800, P=0.018), being a director (51,605, P=0.034), total publications (492, P<0.001), and publication rate (6,444, P<0.001) were all predictive of greater consulting payments. Spine surgeons who are experienced, academically productive, fellowship directors, and engage with social media receive greater payments on average than their peers across various payment types. As industry influence continues to make its way into healthcare, experienced leaders in their respective fields will shoulder the responsibility to integrate private innovation in an effective and scientifically rigorous manner.