Speaker fees by specialty: what CMS Open Payments data shows
In Pharmagin’s analysis of CMS Open Payments program-year 2025 records, the median speaker payment was $2,100 in internal medicine, $3,000 in dermatology, and $3,150 in ophthalmology. The data shows what companies reported paying. Use it as context for a client’s FMV policy, next to its tiers and caps.
What the brief gives you
- Payment-level speaker-fee distributions for the requested specialty.
- Median and interquartile range, with record counts and the dataset year.
- A method note covering the source, included categories, limitations, and data age.
Each brief covers one specialty or market and is sent by email.
Request a specialty brief
Include the specialty or market you want to review and the Pharmagin team will follow up with the available payment-data brief.
Request by emailOr email [email protected].
Use the benchmark alongside your organization’s policy and approval process.
The market behind the numbers
CMS published program-year 2025 Open Payments data in June 2026: $14.67 billion in payments and ownership interests across 17.07 million records.
- $14.67BReported payments and ownership interests · PY202517.07M records across physicians, NPPs, and teaching hospitals
- $3.92BGeneral payments · PY2025Speaker fees and meals are reported here
- $786.0MSpeaker-fee payments · PY2025264,193 payment records in Pharmagin’s analysis
Source: CMS Open Payments data overview. The $786.0M figure is Pharmagin’s analysis of the public dataset, not an official CMS total. It includes $111.4M paid to teaching hospitals; payments to HCPs alone were $674.6M. Figures describe payment records, not whole engagements; one honorarium can span several records.
Reproduce the analysis
- Use the CMS PY2025 General Payments dataset, ID
fb0b1734-1410-429d-92f6-3f4b35218e5e, through the public CMS dataset API. - Filter
nature_of_payment_or_transfer_of_valuefor records containingfaculty. In PY2025 this returns the two speaker-payment categories and 264,193 payment records. - Pull
covered_recipient_specialty_1, the nature-of-payment field, andtotal_amount_of_payment_usdollars. Group specialty by the second segment of the pipe-delimited taxonomy; keep unspecified specialties visible in the overall total. - Calculate record count, sum, median, 25th percentile, 75th percentile, and 90th percentile at the payment-record level. Publish specialty results only where the record count is at least 200.
- Validate the filtered record count against 264,193 before publishing. This method was run on October 7, 2026, against PY2025.
See the CMS Open Payments methodology and data dictionary for CMS field definitions and reporting caveats. Specialty values are reported taxonomy data, and some records do not identify a specialty.
Program year 2025 data
Read sample specialty results carefully
| Specialty | Payment records | Median | Interquartile range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Internal Medicine | 87,246 | $2,100 | $1,000–$3,574 |
| Dermatology | 19,689 | $3,000 | $1,600–$4,250 |
| Ophthalmology | 4,637 | $3,150 | $1,700–$5,500 |
The full analysis covers 34 specialties with at least 200 payment records.
From benchmark to rule
A benchmark informs the cap. The client’s SOP sets it. A typical rule ties each speaker’s honorarium to a tier and an annual cap. Pharmagin checks that cap when the speaker is chosen: a speaker over the cap can’t be added.
Over the cap? Can't be added.
Common questions
Does Open Payments data set fair market value for speaker fees?
No. It shows what companies reported paying. Fair market value comes from each company's own FMV policy, set for example by speaker tier, and reviewed by its compliance team.
Why can one honorarium appear as several records?
A company can report one engagement as more than one payment, so these figures describe payment records, not whole engagements.
When is new Open Payments data published?
CMS publishes each program year by June 30 of the next year, after companies submit (February 1 to March 31) and HCPs review it (April 1 to May 15).
Benchmarks can inform your FMV policy. They are not legal advice.
Connect the benchmark to your client's review.
Use descriptive market data alongside the client's documented FMV policy, tiers and caps, named approval process, and program-specific context. Keep the evidence and the decision with that review.