Christopher Kestner, MD
Orthopaedic Surgery · North Charleston, SCNPI 1912147083
Payments from drug & device makers
Across 85 payments — averaging $63.61 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.
- Stryker$1K
- Treace Medical Concepts, Inc.$982
- Acumed LLC$562
- Peerless Surgical Inc.$449
- Smith+Nephew$349
- Kerecis Limited$256
- plus $2K from 24 others
What the payments were for
- Travel & lodging$2404%
- Food & beverage$5,16796%
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Stryker(2 entities) | 15 | $1,215 |
| Treace Medical Concepts, Inc. | 14 | $982 |
| Acumed LLC | 2 | $562 |
| Peerless Surgical Inc. | 8 | $449 |
| Smith+Nephew | 6 | $349 |
| Kerecis Limited | 2 | $256 |
| Exactech, Inc. | 1 | $205 |
| Johnson & Johnson | 2 | $187 |
| Avanos Medical | 1 | $153 |
| Zimmer Biomet | 3 | $149 |
| Biotissue Holdings Inc. | 2 | $137 |
| Paragon 28, Inc. | 1 | $125 |
| Arteriocyte Medical Systems, Inc. | 1 | $108 |
| Abbott | 4 | $93 |
| Boston Scientific | 5 | $86 |
| Kuros Biosciences USA, Inc | 2 | $54 |
| Anika Therapeutics, Inc. | 1 | $39 |
| Amgen | 2 | $38 |
| Curonix LLC | 2 | $30 |
| Kowa Pharmaceuticals America, Inc. | 1 | $28 |
| Integra Lifesciences Corporation | 1 | $25 |
| Bioventus LLC | 1 | $21 |
| Si-bone, Inc. | 1 | $19 |
| Medtronic | 1 | $19 |
| Solventum Corporation | 1 | $18 |
| Davol Inc. | 1 | $18 |
| Heron Therapeutics, Inc. | 1 | $15 |
| Molnlycke Health Care US, LLC | 1 | $12 |
| Zyla Life Sciences, Inc. | 1 | $11 |
| Electronic Waveform Lab, Inc. | 1 | $4 |
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.
- ACUMED$1,358
- Kerecis SurgiClose$915
- Lapiplasty System$641
- OsteoMed$453
- Kerecis GraftGuide$229
- VANTAGE$205
- ANCHORAGE$172
- EASYFUSE$171
- ON-Q* PUMP AND ACCESSORIES$153
- MICA$150
- Regeneten$139
- ORTHOLOC$138
- Viaflow$134
- Bone Anchors with Arthroscopic Delivery System$130
- Product Portfolio$125
- HEADLESS COMPRESSION SCREWS$119
- BME NITINOL CONTINUOUS COMPRESSION IMPLANTS$119
- HAMMERLOCK$119
- LCP PLATES & SCREWS$119
- CLARIX$115
How this compares
$5,407 in reported general payments places this provider in the 60th percentile of 325 orthopaedic surgery providers in South Carolina.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Ondansetron Hcl | 67 | $425 |
| Oxycodone Hcl | 82 | $335 |
| Naproxen | 20 | $171 |
| Hydrocodone-AcetaminophenHydrocodone/Acetaminophen | 15 | $158 |
| Cephalexin | 19 | $96 |
| Tramadol Hcl | 14 | $42 |
Paid to pharmacies, not to this prescriber.
Other orthopaedic surgery in North Charleston
- Todd LansfordNorth Charleston$288K
- Christopher BattistaNorth Charleston$66K
- Richard ZimlichNorth Charleston$22K
- Daniel SullivanNorth Charleston$22K
- William SmithColumbia$7.7M
- Richard FrischMt Pleasant$1M
- Brent PonceCharleston$892K
- Chi LimSpartanburg$512K
- Nicholas GrimaldiColumbia$203K
- Richard MarksWest Columbia$176K
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.