THE IMPACT OF THE SUNSHINE ACT ON PHYSICIAN PRESCRIBING BEHAVIOR OVER TIME: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY

Abstract

ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of the Physician Payments Sunshine Act of 2010 on the relationship between manufacturers’ payments to physicians and their prescribing behavior. The study analyzes data from the Open Payments data and the Medicare Part D prescription data from 2014-2016, to measure the effect of the Act on behavior over time and the relationship between payments made in one year by two large drug manufacturers and the prescription rate of the drugs promoted by those manufacturers in the following year. Previous research has shown in cross-sectional studies a positive relationship between payments and the proportion of brand name drug prescriptions. The present study uses correlation and logistic regression analysis to examine how that relationship has evolved since Open Payment were first published. The main findings are that the proportion of physicians receiving drug-related industry payments to physicians has decreased from 2014 to 2016; the physicians who received only food-related payments from two large manufacturers in 2015 prescribed more of that manufacturer’s drugs in 2016 compared to those who did not receive any payments; and those who received non-food payments prescribed more than those who received only food-related payments. This association persisted when controlling for the specialty of the physician. Keywords Drug industry - physician financial relationship; Medicare part D; Sunshine Act; Open payments