Physician Payments by Companies With AI-Powered Medical Devices Increasing
Manufacturers of AI- and machine learning (ML)–enabled medical devices paid out $120.2 million to health care professionals and hospitals between 2017 and 2023, according to a research letter published today in JAMA. The total payments included $59.1 million in research payments and $61.1 million in general payments such as consulting fees.
These values may be an underestimate, however, as just 79 of the 846 devices listed on the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) AI/ML-Enabled Medical Device List were linked with health care payments.
“This is likely a consequence of gaps in disclosure requirements, inconsistent compliance, and ambiguities in the regulatory classification of AI tools,” wrote David-Dan Nguyen, M.D.C.M., M.P.H., of the University of Toronto, and colleagues, who compiled this data using the FDA’s list and the Open Payments Database.
Among the 53,137 health care professionals who received payments, cardiologists and radiologists took in the most, at $46.6 million and $20.4 million, respectively. Psychiatrists and neurologists (as a group) received $7.9 million in payments, of which about 80% was for research.
Another finding of note was that while annual research payments remained stable across the analysis period, annual general payments doubled during this time—from $6.6 million in 2017 to $13.3 million in 2023.
“This rate of growth contrasts with the overall trend in payments from pharmaceutical and traditional medical device manufacturers, which have declined over time,” the researchers noted. “These findings highlight the need for greater transparency as AI/ML technologies are adopted into clinical practice.”
For related information, see the Psychiatric Services article “National Trends in and Concentration of Industry Payments to U.S. Psychiatrists, 2015–2021
