A study published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2007 revealed approximately 94 percent of physicians to have some type of relationship with representatives in the pharmaceutical industry.
The NEJM study was conducted through a national survey of 3167 physicians across various specialties and offers insight on the nature of the relationships between physicians and pharmaceutical companies.
The study addresses the concerns that initiated the need to improve transparency in the form of the Sunshine Act and the Open Payment Program, namely that close physician-pharmaceutical representative relationships could have adverse effects on physicians' prescribing actions.
The following list shows the frequency of various types of physician-pharmaceutical industry relationships among survey respondents, according to NEJM findings.
Gifts — 83 percent
Drug samples — 78 percent
Reimbursements — 35 percent
Payments for consulting — 18 percent
Payments for serving as a speaker or on a speakers' bureau — 16 percent
Payments for serving on an advisory board — 9 percent
Payments for enrolling patients in clinical trials — 3 percent
Any of the above relationships — 94 percent
*Editor's note: Percentages were weighted to adjust for the probability of selection within each specialty and for nonresponse.