US website details $3.5bn in industry payments to doctors

US patients can now find out how much their doctors have received in gifts, fees, and other payments from drug and medical device companies on a new government website launched on 30 September.

Visitors to the “Open Payments” website (www.cms.gov/OpenPayments/index.html) can search its database for details on more than 4.4 million payments totaling $3.5bn (£2.2bn; €2.8bn), made to 546 000 US healthcare providers and over 1300 teaching hospitals. The 4.4 million records cover payments made only in the second half of 2013, from 1 August through …