For ACCME-accredited providers, publishing/medical education companies still lead the pack in commercial support dollars, though they too saw a drop of almost 9 percent over the previous year. The runner-up, the medical school category, was down 13 percent, as were medical associations and societies, which saw an almost 22 percent decline. One would have to assume that the in-kind support for government and military CME providers represents a hefty chunk of the decrease that category saw in commercial support, which dropped from almost $260,000 to $26,650. Then again, less than 1 percent of government and military providers’ total income comes from commercial support, so it’s likely not a big issue for them either way. Hospitals, insurance companies, and other nonprofits also reported decreases in commercial support in 2011.

A category of ACCME-accredited providers called “not classified” seems to be the biggest beneficiary of commercial support, getting the largest percentage of its revenues from commercial support and producing the largest percentage of commercially supported activities. Nonprofit associations are on the other end of the scale, receiving the second-smallest percentage of their revenues from commercial support and putting on the second-fewest commercially supported activities (behind government and military providers). Medical schools, which get about half of their income from commercial support, use it to produce only about 20 percent of their activities.

Not surprisingly, total income also was down for most ACCME-accredited provider types, though publishers/medical education companies and hospitals managed to squeak out slight 2 percent and 3 percent increases, respectively.