Top Recipient Physicians
Individual physicians who received the largest total payments from pharmaceutical and device companies.
What This Ranking Tells Us
The highest-paid physician recipients typically receive the majority of their payments through one or two categories: consulting fees for ongoing advisory roles with multiple companies, royalties from patented medical devices or technologies they invented, or large research grants for leading clinical trials. Some physicians receive millions annually, which is legal and often reflects genuine expertise — these are frequently the top specialists in their fields. However, the magnitude of some payments underscores why transparency matters in healthcare.
What the Data Shows
This ranking covers 100 entries from the CMS Open Payments Public Use Files for Program Year 2024. The top-ranked entry, CHARLES J GOODIS, reports total received of $91.1M, while the lowest entry on the list reports $1.6M — a span that captures the full range of pharmaceutical-industry engagement within this category. The aggregate total received across all 100 ranked entries sums to $582.5M, and the average is $5.8M per entry. Large gaps between the top and bottom of a ranking are normal in Open Payments data: a small number of major pharmaceutical manufacturers, large academic medical centers, or prolific research physicians typically account for a disproportionate share of total reported transfers of value.
Concentration is a key signal in this dataset. The single top entry, CHARLES J GOODIS, represents 15.6% of the total received aggregated across this ranking. The top 10 entries together represent 53.1% of the total — a useful indicator of how concentrated activity is at the high end of the distribution. In pharmaceutical payment data, high concentration at the top typically reflects a handful of companies with very broad sales forces or extensive patented product portfolios, a few academic medical centers conducting the bulk of industry-sponsored clinical research, or specialist physicians earning royalties from widely-used medical devices they helped invent. A flatter distribution, by contrast, suggests that industry engagement is more evenly spread across the sector.
Every figure on this page is drawn directly from the CMS Open Payments Public Use Files, which pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers are legally required to report under the Physician Payments Sunshine Act (Section 6002 of the Affordable Care Act). The data covers general payments, research payments, and physician ownership or investment interests. Readers can verify any individual physician or teaching hospital at openpaymentsdata.cms.gov, the official CMS search tool. This ranking surfaces reported financial relationships for transparency purposes only and does not constitute medical advice, a judgment about individual prescribing practices, or evidence of any ethical or legal violation by listed parties. Many large payments fund legitimate research, consulting, and education activities that benefit patient care.
| # | Name | Total Received |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | CHARLES J GOODIS Physician | $91.1M |
| 2 | PATRICK J EDWARDS Physician | $64.8M |
| 3 | ROBERT J MEDOFF Physician | $26.7M |
| 4 | DIMITRIOS T DIAMANDIDIS Physician | $26.1M |
| 5 | NITIN GOYAL Physician | $25.0M |
| 6 | IVAN OSORIO Physician | $17.5M |
| 7 | STEPHEN S BURKHART Physician | $17.3M |
| 8 | KEVIN T FOLEY Physician | $16.5M |
| 9 | FLAVIO H ALVAREZ Physician | $13.4M |
| 10 | ROGER P JACKSON Physician | $10.6M |
| 11 | ABDUS S SOUDAGAR Physician | $9.4M |
| 12 | WILLIAM TOSCHES Physician | $7.9M |
| 13 | DANIEL M SCHWARTZ Physician | $7.9M |
| 14 | ERIK N KUBIAK Physician | $7.5M |
| 15 | WILLIAM JAY BINDER Physician | $7.4M |
| 16 | MARK FRANKLE Physician | $7.3M |
| 17 | GEORGE PATRICK MAXWELL Physician | $7.2M |
| 18 | WILLIAM C CHAPMAN Physician | $7.2M |
| 19 | NEAL S ELATTRACHE Physician | $6.8M |
| 20 | NIRMAL BANSKOTA Physician | $5.1M |
| 21 | ANTHONY ALBERT ROMEO Physician | $4.8M |
| 22 | PETER F ULLRICH Physician | $4.8M |
| 23 | STEVEN M ROSENBERG Physician | $4.8M |
| 24 | ANTHONY I NUNEZ Physician | $4.7M |
| 25 | PAUL BRADY Physician | $4.6M |
| 26 | MARK C LOBANOFF Physician | $4.6M |
| 27 | LAWRENCE LENKE Physician | $4.0M |
| 28 | HELEN M THACKRAY Physician | $4.0M |
| 29 | REGIS WILLIAM HAID Physician | $3.9M |
| 30 | JOHN J CARBONE Physician | $3.8M |
| 31 | BENJAMIN DOMB Physician | $3.6M |
| 32 | DWIGHT D KOEBERL Physician | $3.4M |
| 33 | COLIN E POOLE Physician | $3.2M |
| 34 | EDWARD L CAIN Physician | $3.2M |
| 35 | ALEXANDER FRANK Physician | $3.1M |
| 36 | NICOLE LOPEZ-SEMINARIO Physician | $3.1M |
| 37 | RYAN J MOLIS Physician | $3.0M |
| 38 | PAUL TORNETTA Physician | $3.0M |
| 39 | LEE KAPLAN Physician | $3.0M |
| 40 | RICHARD WEACHTER Physician | $2.9M |
| 41 | PETER MILLETT Physician | $2.9M |
| 42 | JEFFREY R DUGAS Physician | $2.8M |
| 43 | CHRISTIAN S EVERSULL Physician | $2.8M |
| 44 | AARON A HOFMANN Physician | $2.6M |
| 45 | ROBERT S GORAB Physician | $2.5M |
| 46 | STANFORD LEE YU PENG Physician | $2.5M |
| 47 | PATRICK J DENARD Physician | $2.5M |
| 48 | JENNIFER KATHLEEN MEYER Physician | $2.4M |
| 49 | RASA ZARNEGAR Physician | $2.4M |
| 50 | JOHN MICHAEL PESANDO Physician | $2.4M |
| 51 | RICHARD M CHESBROUGH Physician | $2.4M |
| 52 | REUBEN GOBEZIE Physician | $2.3M |
| 53 | EVAN S LEDERMAN Physician | $2.3M |
| 54 | ASHEESH BEDI Physician | $2.3M |
| 55 | ROY SANDERS Physician | $2.3M |
| 56 | DANIEL J BERRY Physician | $2.3M |
| 57 | JOEL M MATTA Physician | $2.2M |
| 58 | THOMAS K FEHRING Physician | $2.2M |
| 59 | STEVEN L HADDAD Physician | $2.2M |
| 60 | JOHN J CALLAGHAN Physician | $2.2M |
| 61 | STUART E FROMM Physician | $2.2M |
| 62 | CLIFFORD J RUDDLE Physician | $2.2M |
| 63 | MARK W PAGNANO Physician | $2.2M |
| 64 | PETER M BONUTTI Physician | $2.1M |
| 65 | DOUGLAS A DENNIS Physician | $2.1M |
| 66 | ROGER HAJJAR Physician | $2.1M |
| 67 | MICHAEL JOHN SCIANAMBLO Physician | $2.1M |
| 68 | JORGE ORBAY-CERRATO Physician | $2.1M |
| 69 | BRADFORD PARSONS Physician | $2.1M |
| 70 | HUGH SLOAN WEST Physician | $2.0M |
| 71 | CHITRANJAN RANAWAT Physician | $2.0M |
| 72 | WILLIAM RICCI Physician | $2.0M |
| 73 | MICHAEL A MONT Physician | $2.0M |
| 74 | WILLIAM G HAMILTON Physician | $2.0M |
| 75 | THOMAS M COON Physician | $2.0M |
| 76 | GARY A GELBFISH Physician | $1.9M |
| 77 | JONATHAN G YERASIMIDES Physician | $1.9M |
| 78 | STEPHEN SHIFFMAN Physician | $1.9M |
| 79 | JOSEPH ZUCKERMAN Physician | $1.9M |
| 80 | GEORGE J HAIDUKEWYCH Physician | $1.9M |
| 81 | ADOLPH V LOMBARDI Physician | $1.9M |
| 82 | RAHMI OKLU Physician | $1.9M |
| 83 | BRIAN S COHEN Physician | $1.9M |
| 84 | STEPHEN M HOWELL Physician | $1.8M |
| 85 | ROBERT F SPETZLER Physician | $1.8M |
| 86 | CHARLIE C YANG Physician | $1.8M |
| 87 | DAVID A FRIEDMAN Physician | $1.8M |
| 88 | GUY KEZIRIAN Physician | $1.8M |
| 89 | DAVID J JACOFSKY Physician | $1.7M |
| 90 | WILLIAM JAMES HOZACK Physician | $1.7M |
| 91 | ORMONDE M MAHONEY Physician | $1.7M |
| 92 | ROBERT L BARRACK Physician | $1.7M |
| 93 | WAEL K BARSOUM Physician | $1.7M |
| 94 | ARTHUR L MALKANI Physician | $1.7M |
| 95 | ROBERT T TROUSDALE Physician | $1.7M |
| 96 | ETHAN A LERNER Physician | $1.7M |
| 97 | TIMOTHY A CHUTER Physician | $1.7M |
| 98 | STEVEN B HAAS Physician | $1.6M |
| 99 | LEAH M CARRINGTON Physician | $1.6M |
| 100 | RICHARD A HYNES Physician | $1.6M |
Source: CMS Open Payments, Program Year 2024.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can one physician receive millions from pharma?
The largest individual payments usually fall into one of three categories: royalties from patented medical devices or drug formulations (physicians who invented a widely-used device can receive ongoing royalties), principal investigator fees for leading major clinical trials, and consulting or advisory board roles with multiple companies. A physician who invented a popular surgical implant, for example, may receive royalties from every unit sold.
Can I look up my own doctor's payments?
Yes. CMS maintains a public search tool at openpaymentsdata.cms.gov where you can search for any physician or teaching hospital by name and see detailed payment records. The data includes payment amounts, categories, associated products, and the paying company. This information can inform conversations with your healthcare provider about potential conflicts of interest.
Explore More Rankings
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.
Related
Source: CMS Open Payments Database Industry payments to physicians and teaching hospitals · 2025
How to read this leaderboard
This page is generated dynamically from the latest PlainPharmaWatch snapshot of the CMS Open Payments database. Each row reflects an entity's reported total within the selected ranking dimension — companies, states, physicians, or teaching hospitals — and is recomputed on every request so values track the underlying ETL output rather than a frozen build-time copy. CMS publishes the dataset annually, with corrected snapshots issued mid-cycle when Sunshine-Act disputes change a record set. Anywhere PlainPharmaWatch presents a payment total, the figure is reconcilable to the row-level entries in the source dataset published at openpaymentsdata.cms.gov.
The Physician Payments Sunshine Act, enacted as Section 6002 of the Affordable Care Act, requires applicable manufacturers (drug, device, biological, and medical-supply makers) and applicable group purchasing organizations to report transfers of value made to physicians and teaching hospitals. Reportable categories include consulting fees, food and beverage, travel and lodging, education, gifts, speaking compensation, charitable contributions, royalties or licenses, research-related payments, and ownership or investment interests. Some categories are excluded by statute — payments under specific de minimis thresholds, research-related transfers tied to active clinical trials, and certain product samples — and these exclusions explain why aggregate figures here do not match every alternative pharma-spending measure.
Interpreting rank changes
Rank movement between annual releases reflects two distinct phenomena. Real underlying shifts occur when a manufacturer launches a major product, exits a therapeutic area, restructures its commercial organization, or settles a Department of Justice investigation that alters its marketing approach. Reporting-level shifts occur when CMS revises submission guidelines, when applicable-manufacturer definitions change, or when a previously unreported subsidiary begins consolidated reporting. PlainPharmaWatch does not attempt to attribute rank changes to either cause — that requires looking at the underlying payment-category breakdown on each company's detail page, which itself links back to the raw CMS records.
For physicians ranked individually, year-over-year rank instability is the norm: an active clinical-trial principal investigator may receive the bulk of their reported payments in one program year and far less in adjacent years. A surgeon who licenses a successful medical device may show a sudden royalty-driven spike and then stable lower amounts thereafter. Teaching-hospital rankings tend to be more stable because they reflect institution-wide aggregates across many simultaneously active research programs.
Where to look next
Click any entity name to drill into its full per-entity detail page. Company detail pages decompose total payments by category (consulting, food, royalties, etc.) and show the top recipient physicians and teaching hospitals. State detail pages show payments split between physician and teaching-hospital recipients, plus per-physician averages and recipient counts. The methodology page documents ingestion, normalization, and known limitations end-to-end. For context on the Sunshine Act itself and how the Open Payments dataset compares to alternative pharmaceutical-spending measures (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Open Payments Frequently Asked Questions, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's drug-approval registers, and academic literature on payment-prescribing correlations), the guides section walks through the relevant regulatory background.