Gender Disparities in Industry Payments among Vascular Surgeons from 2016 to 2022
Aaron Litvak1, Zachary R Zottola1, Joshua T Geiger1
1Division of Vascular Surgery, Department of Surgery, Rochester, NY, University of Rochester.
Background:
Industry partnerships represent an important aspect of vascular surgery, providing opportunities for professional growth, research, and innovation. It is well established that female surgeons earn less than their male counterparts at all specialties and ranks. This study investigated whether these gender payment disparities carried into vascular surgery industry partnerships.
Methods:
A retrospective study was performed analyzing the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Open Payments Database from which all general and research payment data from 2016 to 2022 was collected. Gender was assigned based on the US National Provider Identifier (NPI) Registry. Total annual payment per surgeon for each year was calculated and compared between male and female vascular surgeons. Each year's per surgeon total was then averaged to provide the average annual payment per surgeon, across the 7 years of data and similarly compared between genders. The same analysis was then conducted for the top 10% of female earners compared to the top 10% of male earners. NPI enumeration date was then used to calculate years of experience for each surgeon and used to stratify data to normalize for surgeon experience. The median data were analyzed using Wilcoxon rank-sum testing due to non-normal distributions.
Results:
From 2016 to 2022, 456,931 payments were made to 5,839 vascular surgeons, of which 901 (15.4%) were female and 4,938 (84.6%) males. On yearly analysis, the median total annual payments made to male surgeons were 1.2-1.7x higher than female surgeons (P < 0.05 for all years except 2021) (median average annual payment: $478.97 vs $545.30, P < 0.001). Among the top 10% of earners in each gender, males made 2.2-3.9x more than females on the yearly analysis (P < 0.05 for all years) ($12,008.04 vs $27,052.71, P < 0.001). When stratified for experience, there was no significant difference between genders for those with less than 7 years of experience (residency and fellowship trainees). However, female surgeons earned significantly less in the 7-11.5-year cohort ($506.29 vs $713.11, P = 0.01) and in the 11.5-16-year cohort ($732.09 vs $895.01, P = 0.02). There was no significant difference in the >16-year cohort.
Conclusion:
These data demonstrate that female vascular surgeons receive less industry payment than males, with a larger pay gap among the top 10% of earners. Disparities remain even after adjusting for experience, although less so among the most senior surgeons.
