Spine surgeon conflict of interest disclosure discrepancies between a national conference and the open payments database.

BACKGROUND

Financial relationships between physicians and the medical device industry are common. These relationships can potentially influence research, education, and patient care. The purpose of this study was to evaluate inconsistencies between physician disclosures and the Open Payments database for a national spine conference.

METHODS

Disclosures of participants in the 2023 North American Spine Society (NASS) conferences were compared with the Open Payments database. Discrepancies were noted whenever a participant had a company listing on their Open Payments page that was not reported in their disclosure in the NASS Disclosure Index. Simple statistics were reported as a frequency and percentage for categorical variables, and median and interquartile range (IQR) were used for continuous variables. Pearson correlations were run to investigate associations between the number of reportable companies, the number of discrepancies, and general payment amounts.

RESULTS

A total of 432 participants met the inclusion criteria, with the majority having discrepancies between their self-reported disclosures and the Open Payments database (84.2%, N=364/432). Regarding surgeons with a discrepancy, 80.2% (N=292/364) failed to report payments of less than 1,000 USD. Physicians affiliated with a larger number of reportable companies were associated with an increased number of discrepancies (p<.001, =0.832) and a greater general payment amount (p=.012, =0.126).

CONCLUSIONS

Discrepancy rates between what surgeons disclosed at NASS 2023 and what companies reported to Open Payments were high. However, the majority of these discrepancies that the physicians failed to report were low in value, falling below 1,000 USD. As a potential means to mitigate these discrepancies, it is imperative that physicians review their Open Payments page prior to disclosure submission.