ArticleJournal of general internal medicine2020
Association between Opioid Prescribing in Medicare and Pharmaceutical Company Gifts by Physician Specialty.
Article in Journal of general internal medicine, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 22 citations in OpenAlex.
- Interactions with the pharmaceutical industry and the practice, knowledge and beliefs of medical oncologists and clinical haematologists: a systematic review.British journal of cancer · 2022Pooled it
- Are Financial Payments From the Pharmaceutical Industry Associated With Physician Prescribing? : A Systematic Review.Annals of internal medicine · 2021Pooled it
- Money, Meals, and Marketing in Medicine: A 13-Year Follow-Up Survey of Physicians.Clinical pharmacology and therapeutics · 2026Article
- Associations between pharmaceutical industry interactions with physicians and chronic nonmalignant pain management prescribing practices: a systematic review.Cost effectiveness and resource allocation : C/E · 2026Review
- Maximizing the Public Health Benefits of Opioid Settlements: Policy Recommendations for Equity, Sustainability, and Impact.The Milbank quarterly · 2025Article
- Associations between pharmaceutical industry payments to physicians and prescription of PARP inhibitors in the United States.Gynecologic oncology · 2024Article
- Pharmaceutical payments to Japanese board-certified dermatologists: a 4-year retrospective analysis of personal payments from pharmaceutical companies between 2016 and 2019.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Cross-sectional analysis of pharmaceutical payments to Japanese board-certified gastroenterologists between 2016 and 2019.BMJ open · 2023Article
- Lessons from Corporate Influence in the Opioid Epidemic: Toward a Norm of Separation.Journal of bioethical inquiry · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe association between pharmaceutical industry promotion and physician opioid prescribing is poorly understood. Whether the influence of industry gifts on prescribing varies by specialty is unknown.
objectiveTo examine the relationship between opioid-related gifts to physicians and opioid prescribing in the subsequent year across 7 physician specialties.
designPanel study using data from 2014 to 2016.
participants236,103 unique Medicare Part D physicians (389,622 physician-years) who received any gifts from pharmaceutical companies measured using Open Payments and prescribed opioids in the subsequent year. MAIN MEASURES: Amounts paid by pharmaceutical companies for opioid-related gifts including meals and lodging; quartile of opioid prescribing as a percent of total prescribing compared with other same-specialty physicians. KEY
resultsIn 2014-2015, 14.1% of physician received opioid-related gifts from the industry with 2.6% receiving > $100. Gifts varied by specialty and were concentrated among two pharmaceutical companies responsible for 60% of the value of opioid-related gifts. Receiving opioid-related gifts was associated with greater prescribing of opioids compared with same-specialty physicians in the next year. Primary care physicians are nearly 3.5 times as likely to be in the highest quartile of prescribing versus the lower quartiles if they were paid ≥ $100. Psychiatrists and neurologists were 7 to 13 times as likely to be in a higher quartile of opioid prescribing compared with colleagues who were paid $0 in the preceding year.
conclusionsThe value of opioid-related gifts given to physicians varies substantially by provider specialty, as does the relationship between payment amounts and prescriber behavior in the following year.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.