Has Ashok Akula received payments from drug or device companies?

Yes. Drug and device makers reported $9,811 in general payments to Ashok Akula across 71 transactions between 2019–2025. Most Open Payments records nationally are meals worth under $20; a reported payment is not evidence of wrongdoing.

Does a payment mean Ashok Akula did something wrong?

No. Federal law requires drug and device makers to report almost every transfer of value to a physician, including a $14 sandwich at a lunch presentation. Consulting fees, research funding and royalties to device inventors are ordinary, legal parts of medicine. This site reports what was disclosed; it makes no allegation.

Where does this information about Ashok Akula come from?

The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Payments come from Open Payments, published under the Physician Payments Sunshine Act. Billing and prescribing figures come from the Medicare Physician & Other Practitioners and Part D Prescriber public use files for 2024.

Ashok Akula

Hospitalist · la Crosse, WINPI 1730491960

Payments from drug & device makers

What this record shows

The money is spread across several categories — grants (51.0%), food and beverage and travel and lodging — rather than concentrated in one kind of arrangement. Abbott accounts for 64.4% of it on its own, with 18 other manufacturers making up the rest. 2025 is the largest year on record at $6,382, 2.3 times the $2,754 reported in 2022. Among hospitalist clinicians in WI with any reported payments, this total sits in the top 5% — high for the specialty, which is a reason to read the composition above rather than the number alone.

$9,811in general payments, 2019–2025

Across 71 payments — averaging $138.18 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.

Abbott$6K
Medtronic$2K
Boston Scientific$457
Stryker$286
Abiomed$178
Penumbra, Inc.$145
plus $675 from 13 others

What the payments were for

Grants$5,00051%
Travel & lodging$1,81418%
Food & beverage$2,62427%
Education$3734%

General payments by program year

Who reported the general payments

Companies are grouped under their corporate parent — a single manufacturer often files under several CMS reporting entities. Research and ownership payments are counted separately and are not in this table.

Company	Payments	Total
Abbott	25	$6,317
Medtronic	7	$1,752
Boston Scientific	2	$457
Stryker	7	$286
Abiomed	5	$178
Penumbra, Inc.	2	$145
ZOLL Services LLC (a/k/a ZOLL Lifecor Corp)	4	$120
Shockwave Medical, Inc	2	$112
Philips North America LLC	1	$88
Bridgebio Pharma, Inc.	3	$66
Teleflex LLC	3	$64
E.r. Squibb & Sons, L.L.C.	2	$57
Actelion Pharmaceuticals US, Inc.	2	$33
Chiesi USA, Inc.	1	$28
Novo Nordisk	1	$28
Cordis US CORP.	1	$23
Lantheus Medical Imaging, Inc.	1	$23
Novartis	1	$18
Heartflow, Inc.	1	$17

What the payments were tied to

Products named in the reported payments. Only payments of $100 or more are attributed here — the typical reported payment nationally is a meal worth about $16, and listing those product-by-product would be noise.

How this compares

$9,811 in reported general payments places this provider in the 95th percentile of 679 hospitalist providers in Wisconsin.

See all hospitalist providers in Wisconsin →

Most prescribed under Part D

Drug	Claims	Cost to plans & patients
Atorvastatin Calcium	11	$72

Paid to pharmacies, not to this prescriber.

Other hospitalist in la Crosse

Olatunde Olala Crosse$4K
Mohamed Osmanla Crosse$3K
Suren Ravurila Crosse$704
Muhammad Bilal AbidMilwaukee$89K
Aradhana PathakMilwaukee$45K
Ankur SegonMilwaukee$35K
Siddhartha SinghMilwaukee$26K
Carlos MendezMilwaukee$18K
Harsimran SekhonMilwaukee$11K
Umair BajwaMilwaukee$8K

See the full list for Wisconsin →

Where these figures come from

Payments: CMS Open Payments, program years 2019–2025 (publication P06302026_06032026).
Identity: NPPES NPI Registry, July 2026.

Is this you, or does something look wrong? →