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Gender Disparity In 2013-2018 Industry Payments To Plastic Surgeons
Meredith G. Moore, Kyle W. Singerman, Ryan M. Gobble
University of Cincinnati College of Medicine
2020-02-14
Presenter: Kyle W. Singerman
Affidavit:
Meredith Moore (medical student) conceived of this project and handled statistical analysis. Kyle Singerman gathered and analyzed data. Both students worked on drafting the abstract.
Director Name: Ryan Gobble
Author Category: Medical Student
Presentation Category: Clinical
Abstract Category: General Reconstruction
BACKGROUND: Female plastic surgeons reportedly earn 11% less than their male peers. "Hidden" compensation publicly reported under the Physician Payments Sunshine Act may exacerbate gender wage gaps. We seek to reveal the sex distribution of industry payments to board-certified plastic surgeons across all years covered by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services Open Payment Database (CMS OPD).
METHODS: We obtained the National Provider Identifier (NPI) for each surgeon in the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) member directory to record gender, then matched surgeons to CMS OPD Physician Profile ID numbers. "General Payments" data points from annual files for 2013-2018 were aggregated and joined to provider details and quantitative analysis was performed.
RESULTS: 3,864 (79.8%) reporting ≥1 industry payment were included with 3,220 male (83.3%) and 644 female (16.7%) surgeons. Over 2013-2018, female plastic surgeons received mean 56.01 payments totaling $11,530.67 each versus 65.70 payments totaling $25,469.05 for males. For each individual year, the ratio of male:female payments in dollars was 2.36 (2013), 2.69 (2014), 2.53 (2015), 2.31 (2016), 1.72 (2017), and 1.96 (2018).
CONCLUSION: During six years of recorded Open Payments data to US physicians, male plastic surgeons have received industry payments on average amounting to greater than twice the payment dollars given to female surgeons. Male plastic surgeons receive both higher frequency and greater individual transfer amounts from medical companies. Payment inequity slightly declined for 2017-2018 vs. 2013-2016. Gender-based discrepancies expose compensation disparity not captured by traditional wage gap estimations and may uncover industry engagement gender preferences.
