A federal database launched four years ago to offer transparency into payments that physicians receive from industry has produced a troubling side effect — diminished trust among Americans in their doctors.
A survey of almost 1,400 adults found a nearly 3% decline in trust among individuals after learning about the Open Payments database — regardless of whether they knew their own doctors had received payments from industry — and lower overall trust in the medical profession. Moreover, their trust in their doctors fell even though just 13% knew payment information was publicly available, according to earlier findings from the same survey.
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