Bouvette Max, Beveridge Stephanie, Kumar Kirtana, Ali Mehak, Dvorak Justin, Choradia Nirmal, Nipp Ryan
The University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, OK 73104, United States.
The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Oklahoma City, OK 73104, United States.
Health Aff Sch. 2025 Jul 9;3(7):qxaf140. doi: 10.1093/haschl/qxaf140. eCollection 2025 Jul.
Physician professional organizations (PPOs) engage in lobbying to advocate for their interests and influence health policy. However, trends in lobbying across specialties are not well characterized. Disproportionate spending across PPOs may affect the ability to shape healthcare legislation and ensure that all physician voices are represented.
We analyzed publicly available lobbying data from OpenSecrets.org covering 2014-2023, adjusted to 2023 USD. A total of 109 PPOs were included. Physician professional organizations were categorized as medical ( = 68), surgical ( = 29), or overlapping ( = 12), based on whether they primarily represented medical specialties, surgical specialties, or both. Physician workforce data from the AAMC were used to calculate spending per-physician. Temporal trends were assessed using a Mann-Kendall test.
Median annual PPO lobbying spending was $71 million, with a significant downward trend ( < .01, tau = -.64). Expenditures included $32 million (45%) by medical PPOs, $12 million (16%) by surgical PPOs, and $27 million (39%) by overlapping PPOs. The median annual lobbying spending per-physician was $78.
These findings suggest that PPOs have not sustained lobbying investments over time, particularly when accounting for the effects of inflation.
医师专业组织（PPOs）参与游说活动以维护自身利益并影响卫生政策。然而，各专业游说活动的趋势尚未得到充分描述。PPOs之间的支出不均衡可能会影响制定医疗保健立法的能力，并确保所有医师的声音都能得到体现。
我们分析了来自OpenSecrets.org的2014 - 2023年公开可用的游说数据，并根据2023年美元进行了调整。总共纳入了109个PPOs。医师专业组织根据其主要代表的是医学专业、外科专业还是两者都有，分为医学类（= 68个）、外科类（= 29个）或重叠类（= 12个）。使用美国医学协会（AAMC）的医师劳动力数据来计算每位医师的支出。使用曼 - 肯德尔检验评估时间趋势。
PPOs年度游说支出中位数为7100万美元，呈显著下降趋势（< 0.01，tau = -0.64）。支出包括医学类PPOs的3200万美元（45%）、外科类PPOs的1200万美元（16%）和重叠类PPOs的2700万美元（39%）。每位医师的年度游说支出中位数为78美元。
这些发现表明，随着时间的推移，PPOs并未持续进行游说投资，尤其是在考虑通货膨胀影响的情况下。
