Reverse and Anatomic Shoulder Arthroplasty Regional Usage and Open Payment Analysis Using the Centers for Medicare...

This retrospective review aimed to assess if open payments made by industry arthroplasty companies to physicians and hospital systems were significantly affected by implant type and geographic variation.

Data was obtained from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) publicly available open payment datasets (2016-2019). Geographic locations were identified using regions as defined by the US Census Bureau. A linear regression was calculated to predict the open payment made based on the created variable region, the most used implant type (reverse vs anatomic, n > 30 to be included), and their hypothesized interaction.

A significant regression equation was found for the hypothesized interaction between implant and region, F_{(13,11 186)} = 3.446, P < .0001, with an R² of 0.005. Within the regression, the implant type alone was not significantly related to the open payment (P = .070) but only became significant when paired with the region in the South (US$5807; P < .0001) and West (US$5638; P = .0012) compared to the Northeast.

Our multivariate linear regression model revealed that reverse total shoulder implants were associated with higher open payments, but only within the South and West regions. This indicates that the contributions made by industry arthroplasty companies are a function of both implant and region.