Who Paid My Doc
Guide ยท Updated 14 September 2026
How much do drug and device companies pay doctors each year?
Drug and medical device companies report billions of dollars in payments to U.S. doctors and teaching hospitals every year; the latest program year's figures, kept separate by kind of money, are below.
The totals for program year 2025
In program year 2025, 1,797 drug and device manufacturers and group purchasing organisations reported the following, to 1,023,318 named recipients, including 1,327 teaching hospitals:
General payments
$3.9 billion
Research payments
$9.5 billion
Ownership interests
$1.3 billion
Exact figures: general payments $3,923,550,963, research payments $9,497,235,059, ownership interests $1,250,199,170.
Why there is no single “total paid to doctors”
You will often see one headline number for how much drug companies pay doctors. It is almost always the three kinds of money added together, which mixes consulting fees and meals with clinical trial funding and the value of shares. Those are different things, so this site shows them side by side and never sums them. Research payments, in particular, largely fund studies and are often paid to hospitals and research organisations rather than to individual doctors.
Most payments are small; most money is not
The typical general payment record is a meal. The largest amounts are concentrated in a much smaller number of royalty, licence, consulting and speaking arrangements. So an average payment per doctor would describe almost nobody — the rankings in each program year show how far the top of the record is from the middle. What counts as a payment breaks the year down by what the money was for.
Where to go next
- Program year 2025 in full, including where the money went by state.
- Doctors who received the most in general payments and the most research funding.
- Which companies report paying the most.
- Check a specific doctor.
Figures are reproduced from CMS Open Payments as reported by companies. They are not verified or corrected by us, and they change when CMS republishes a program year.
Common questions
How much do drug companies pay doctors each year?
Billions of dollars. This page shows the latest program year from Open Payments, split into general payments, research payments and ownership interests, which should not be added together.
How much does the average doctor receive from drug companies?
An average is misleading here. Most records are small, such as meals, while a small number of royalty and consulting arrangements account for much of the money. Looking up individual doctors is more informative.
Are payments to teaching hospitals included?
Yes. Teaching hospitals are covered recipients, and their payments are reported separately from the individual clinicians who work there.
Look it up yourself
More guides
All guidesCheck if your doctor gets paid by drug companies
Look up any U.S. doctor in the federal Open Payments record in under a minute: what to search, how to find the right person, and how to read what you see.
What is Open Payments?
Open Payments is the federal database of money that drug and device companies report paying to doctors and teaching hospitals. What it is, where it came from, and what is in it.
General vs research vs ownership
Open Payments splits money into three kinds that follow different rules. What each one covers, and why they should never be added together.
Does a payment mean wrongdoing?
A listing in Open Payments is not an accusation. Why these payments are legal and common, what they can and cannot tell you, and how to read them fairly.