Ashok Babu, MD
Surgery · Nashville, TNNPI 1316142573
Payments from drug & device makers
What this record shows
The money is spread across several categories — education (41.6%), consulting fees and travel and lodging — rather than concentrated in one kind of arrangement. Intuitive Surgical accounts for 65.7% of it on its own, with 13 other manufacturers making up the rest. Reporting peaked in 2024 at $57,576 and has fallen 65.2% since, to $20,012 in 2025. Among surgery clinicians in TN 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.
Across 178 payments — averaging $709.07 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.
- Intuitive Surgical$83K
- Abbott$41K
- Abiomed$1K
- Medtronic$423
- Cvrx, Inc.$214
- LSI Solutions Inc$174
- plus $652 from 8 others
Across 1 payment — averaging $32.26 each. Payments tied to a research study. These frequently flow through the physician to a hospital or research institution rather than to the physician personally.
- Abbott$32
What the payments were for
- Consulting fees$39,00031%
- Speaking & faculty fees$9,1007%
- Travel & lodging$18,09714%
- Food & beverage$7,5186%
- Education$52,50042%
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Intuitive Surgical | 121 | $82,878 |
| Abbott | 31 | $40,524 |
| Abiomed | 8 | $1,350 |
| Medtronic(2 entities) | 4 | $423 |
| Cvrx, Inc. | 1 | $214 |
| LSI Solutions Inc | 2 | $174 |
| Livanova USA, Inc. | 2 | $131 |
| Boston Scientific | 1 | $119 |
| Corcym Inc | 1 | $111 |
| Atricure, Inc. | 2 | $105 |
| Maquet Cardiovascular L.L.C. | 2 | $91 |
| Surgical Specialties Corporation (US), Inc. (dba Corza Medical) | 1 | $60 |
| Terumo Cardiovascular Systems Corporation | 1 | $19 |
| Zimmer Biomet | 1 | $16 |
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.
- Da Vinci Surgical System$81,589
- HeartMate 3 Left Ventricular Dev$37,615
- HeartMate 3 Left Ventricular Assist Device$1,800
- Impella$1,328
- THORATEC HEARTMATE 3 LVAS IMPLANT KIT$918
- Avalus$302
- Barostim Neo System$214
- Watchman$119
- COR KNOT$115
- Tandem Life Kit$115
- Perceval$111
How this compares
$126,215 in reported general payments places this provider in the 95th percentile of 516 surgery providers in Tennessee.
Medicare billing
What this is not: this is the amount Original Medicare Part B allowed for services this provider billed in 2024. It is not their income. It excludes Medicare Advantage — now more than half of all Medicare enrollment — along with Medicaid and all commercial insurance, and it is gross practice revenue before staff, rent, supplies and malpractice premiums. CMS also suppresses any figure covering ten or fewer patients, so low-volume providers appear smaller than they are.
Most prescribed under Part D
| Drug | Claims | Cost to plans & patients |
|---|---|---|
| Mupirocin | 104 | $817 |
Paid to pharmacies, not to this prescriber.
Other surgery in Nashville
- Evelio RodriguezNashville$362K
- Mathew NinanNashville$298K
- Joseph BroucekNashville$262K
- Meredith DukeNashville$77K
- Zachary CallahanNashville$65K
- Joseph DelozierNashville$44K
- Laura LawsonNashville$36K
- Richard PierceNashville$23K
- David DyerNashville$23K
- Roshni VenugopalNashville$21K
Where these figures come from
- Payments: CMS Open Payments, program years 2019–2025 (publication P06302026_06032026).
- Billing: Medicare Physician & Other Practitioners, data year 2024. Original Medicare Part B only.
- Identity: NPPES NPI Registry, July 2026.