Industry Payments to Teaching Hospitals for Orthopaedic Medical Devices: An Analysis from 2016 to 2021

Background The U.S. Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services (CMS) reports payments from industry companies to physicians and teaching hospitals through the Open Payments database. We explore the relationship between industry and teaching hospitals regarding industry payments for orthopaedic medical devices. Objective To explore changes in orthopaedic surgery research payments to teaching hospitals by analyzing CMS Open Payments data. Methods Orthopaedic surgery payments between 2016 and 2021 were analyzed using the CMS Open Payments database. Teaching hospitals were identified from the database as a covered payment recipient and the hospital name was recorded. Payment amount, industry company name, device category, and the name, state, and geographical region of the teaching hospital were recorded for each payment. Results There were 1,270 payments recorded to 90 teaching hospitals. The median payment value has no trend (R=0.014; p=0.618). The largest number of payments were made to UH Cleveland Medical Center (Cleveland, OH) (12.0%), followed by Charleston Area Medical Center (Charleston, WV) (6.6%) and Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital (Lebanon, NH) (6.3%). Vertos Medical (21.5%) and Medical Device Business Services (21.3%) made the most industry payments to teaching hospitals. Industry payments were primarily made towards devices utilized for the lower extremity (64.3%) and spine (29.3%). Lower extremity devices had a median payment value of $1,393.75, while devices used for the spine had a median payment value of $800.00 (p<0.001). Conclusion There is no apparent trend in the annual median payment to teaching hospitals from orthopaedic medical device companies.