Poster #8 - Association between pharmaceutical industry payments and physicians’ controlled substance purchasing behavior

• In Event: Saturday Poster Luncheon

Abstract

Previous studies have found a positive association between pharmaceutical companies’ financial ties and physicians’ opioid prescribing behavior. However, no studies have examined the association between pharmaceutical companies’ promotional activities and physicians’ direct ordering of controlled drugs. This study describes whether different pharmaceutical companies’ promotional activities affect physicians’ drug purchasing behavior nationwide.

The physicians’ controlled substance purchasing records of hydrocodone, buprenorphine, fentanyl, codeine, oxycodone, dihydrocodeine, powdered opium, methadone, tapentadol, and oxymorphone come from the detailed Automation of Reports and Consolidated Order System (ARCOS) transactional data, linked to pharmaceutical companies’ promotional activities from the OpenPayments data on a physician-level, monthly-level from August 2013 to December 2014.

The panel regression results show that male physicians are associated with approximately 42.8% higher MME purchasing behavior than female physicians, all else held constant. Food-related promotional payments were associated with negative MME purchasing behavior, by 0.09% for every dollar more in food-related payments. Data also suggest that compared to nurse practitioners, physician assistants and allopathic & osteopathic physicians purchased 145% and 207% more of controlled substances, respectively.

Given the more accurate data setting of physicians’ controlled substance purchasing behavior, we can infer how pharmaceutical marketing behavior directly affects their decisions to buy controlled substances.

Author

• SunJung Yoon, University of Maryland, College Park
  Presenting Author