Choua Thao, MD
Hospitalist · Phoenix, AZNPI 1053653576
Payments from drug & device makers
What this record shows
This record is dominated by food and beverage: $1,057 of the $1,518 with a category attached, or 69.6%. 14 manufacturers reported payments, led by Steris Corporation at 30.4% of the total. 2025 is the largest year on record at $944, 4.5 times the $209 reported in 2019. Among hospitalist clinicians in AZ 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 17 payments — averaging $89.31 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.
- Steris Corporation$462
- Abiomed$288
- Stryker$144
- GSK$126
- AstraZeneca$117
- Olympus America Inc.$101
- plus $282 from 8 others
What the payments were for
- Travel & lodging$46230%
- Food & beverage$1,05770%
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Steris Corporation | 1 | $462 |
| Abiomed | 3 | $288 |
| Stryker | 1 | $144 |
| GSK | 2 | $126 |
| AstraZeneca | 1 | $117 |
| Olympus America Inc. | 1 | $101 |
| Intuitive Surgical | 1 | $83 |
| Genentech, Inc. | 1 | $75 |
| ERBE USA Inc | 1 | $30 |
| Veran Medical Technologies, Inc. | 1 | $25 |
| AbbVie | 1 | $21 |
| Covidien LP | 1 | $17 |
| Medtronic | 1 | $16 |
| Mylan Specialty L.p. | 1 | $15 |
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
$1,518 in reported general payments places this provider in the 95th percentile of 578 hospitalist providers in Arizona.
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.
Other hospitalist in Phoenix
- Zinnia DaasPhoenix$2K
- Kurtis BradleyPhoenix$2K
- Charlton HaerterPhoenix$2K
- Kalyani MoolaPhoenix$2K
- Tingrui WangPhoenix$2K
- Sarah CorralPhoenix$1K
- Suchismita DashPhoenix$1K
- Sarah SalamaPhoenix$1K
- Joel FreedmanPhoenix$1K
- Navneet JalalPhoenix$1K
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.