Footnotes

• Although proper physician-industry financial relationships are essential for improving patient care, they can also cause potential conflicts of interest. However, little is known about the pathologist-industry financial relationships. Using the 2013-2021 Open Payments Database, this cross-sectional study examined research and non-research payments to all pathologists in the United States. Payment data were analyzed descriptively at the individual physician level. Of 21,664 pathologists, 49.5% of all pathologists have received payments totaling $356.7 million from the healthcare industry, of which 68.2% were research payments. Median per-physician general and associated research payments (interquartile range [IQR]) were $145($49–$575) and $70,926 ($17,450–$299,285) over the nine years. The top 1% of pathologists receiving general payments received 68.0% of all general payments. Male pathologists and pathologists specializing in hematopathology were significantly more likely to receive industry payments. This study provides valuable insights into the financial relationships between pathologists and the healthcare industry.

• Handling editor Runjan Chetty.

• Contributors AM: conceptualisation; methodology; software; formal analysis; investigation; resources; data curation; writing—original draft; writing—review and editing; visualisation; study administration. SH: methodology; visualisation; writing—original draft; writing—review and editing.

• Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

• Competing interests None declared.

• Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.

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