The CMS open source data: where you, the patient, can search how much money pharma paid your provider.

I posted about this last spring, but it is worthy of a refresher course. If you want to know how much money your provider has been paid/given benefits by pharma, this is the best first place to go.  Second is look at what meds you are getting.  How many are new brand name drugs versus generic?  That is another “tell”.  Caveat here: there are some drugs for some things that are new to the market and do not have a generic equivalent yet.  Cancer drugs are a big one.  If someone made a brand new never seen before drug that got patented, it may be the only drug out there to treat whatever type of cancer you have.  In my world of psychiatry, there are numerous drugs to treat each condition, with plenty of generic options available.

So searching the CMS database:

https://openpaymentsdata.cms.gov/

I even volunteer to go first.  Here is a screenshot of what the CMS data says they “gave” me in 2021.  The 2022 data isn’t up yet. It usually updates in late spring each year.   I did not receive any payments from pharma, this is a product of pharma ordering “buffet style lunches” and if you are in the office that day,  your name goes on the list as “received food”.  A pharma rep brings lunch DAILY to my office. They also drop off snacks, cookies, sonic shakes, etc. And if you are in the building working, your name goes on the “received food” list. And then you go into this database. When I realized THAT was happening, I told every drug rep to not put my name on anything because I am not eating their food, and my name should not be on any list that says I did.  I will keep checking when 2022 comes out because the number should be zero!!! And in the interest of transparency, when 2022 data is posted, I will gladly post what mine says.

So to put this into perspective, they are marking down that I am eating $20-40 worth of food at each of their “visits”.  Even if I don’t talk to them or see them!!!  Even if they do not step foot in the building and just had food delivered!  Even if I did not eat a bite of their food.   

Now, here is an example of someone else in my field, same specialty, different office, in another state.  Now, that 44 grand is NOT food.  That is paid for speaking money.  Promoting the drug.  You can see on the graph below, he was raking in over $100k back in 2015, and his totals took a nose dive in 2020.  No speaking gigs due to covid!!!

There are providers making upwards of $100k right now speaking for pharma.  Use the link above and search your provider.  If they work for a hospital system, it may get thrown into the hospital system itself not each provider.  If their total is less than 2 grand, it is probably lunches they drag in.  If their total is above 5 grand, they are employed by a pharma company to speak for the drug and by default, probably prescribing a lot of it.  You can see what company paid them how much money, search the drug company, and see if the meds you take are on that drug company’s list.  The more you know.