It’s an uptick over 2014 payment totals.
Drugmakers and medical device companies continued to dole out billions of dollars in payments to physicians and hospitals last year, according to new government data released last week. In fact, the $7.52 billion that the industry paid in 2015 is a slight uptick from 2014, when firms paid $7.49 billion (these figures include about $1 billion in investment interest).
The Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, contained a provision called the Physician Payments Sunshine Act which established a public database of how much biopharma and device manufacturer money goes to doctors and medical institutions. This Open Payments hub is meant to help understand the financial relationships between the drug and broader health industries, including how such relationships may influence doctors’ behavior.
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