Medtech companies paid $3.62 billion for access to physicians — 10% more than drug companies did — from 2014 to 2017, according to new research.

Device company payments to surgical specialists were significantly more tied to the surgeons’ Medicare billing than payments from drug companies to specialists, according to the study, which appears in the April 2021 edition of Health Affairs.

Payments totaling more than $2.3 billion by 10 medical device firms accounted for more than two-thirds of all device payments to physicians, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University found.

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