Benjamin Birney, MD
Pain Medicine · Morgantown, WVNPI 1922560424
Payments from drug & device makers
What this record shows
This record is dominated by food and beverage: $2,115 of the $2,938 with a category attached, or 72.0%. Medtronic accounts for 68.3% of it on its own, with 6 other manufacturers making up the rest. Reporting peaked in 2024 at $2,133 and has fallen 63.1% since, to $786 in 2025.
Across 43 payments — averaging $68.32 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.
- Medtronic$2K
- Vertos Medical, Inc.$326
- Si-bone, Inc.$238
- Nevro Corp.$203
- Stryker$119
- Pacira Pharmaceuticals Incorporated$27
- plus $18 from 1 others
What the payments were for
- Travel & lodging$82328%
- Food & beverage$2,11572%
Most of this is food and beverage — typically meals provided during product presentations at a clinic or hospital. Nationally that is the single largest category of reported payments by count.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Medtronic | 29 | $2,007 |
| Vertos Medical, Inc. | 4 | $326 |
| Si-bone, Inc. | 3 | $238 |
| Nevro Corp. | 4 | $203 |
| Stryker | 1 | $119 |
| Pacira Pharmaceuticals Incorporated | 1 | $27 |
| Boehringer Ingelheim | 1 | $18 |
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.
- SYNCHROMEDII$856
- mild Device Kit$264
- INCEPTIV$161
- Senza$132
- VECTRIS SURESCAN$112
How this compares
$2,938 in reported general payments places this provider in the 55th percentile of 35 pain medicine providers in West Virginia.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Hydrocodone-AcetaminophenHydrocodone/Acetaminophen | 52 | $1,307 |
| Oxycodone-AcetaminophenOxycodone Hcl/Acetaminophen | 36 | $777 |
| Oxycodone Hcl | 32 | $526 |
| Gabapentin | 27 | $278 |
Paid to pharmacies, not to this prescriber.
Other pain medicine in Morgantown
- David SaldivarMorgantown$28K
- Violet ShacklefordMorgantown$17K
- Richard VaglientiMorgantown$13K
- Brian SlaterMorgantown$6K
- Trey VanekMorgantown$2K
- Richard BowmanMorgantown$2K
- Nicole HollisMorgantown$1K
- Onyechi MegafuHuntington$37K
- Lucas BraceroCharleston$24K
- Muhammad MaazHuntington$19K
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.