Deborah Forst, MD
Neurology · Boston, MANPI 1770800146
Payments from drug & device makers
What this record shows
This record is dominated by consulting fees: $525 of the $525 with a category attached, or 100.0%. Every reported general payment came from a single manufacturer, Merck. That places this record below the midpoint for neurology clinicians in MA, where the typical reported total is $350.
Across 1 payment — averaging $525.00 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.
- Merck$525
Across 23 payments — averaging $3007.61 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.
- AbbVie$37K
- Daiichi Sankyo Inc.$30K
- Bristol Myers Squibb$2K
- Taiho Oncology, Inc.$500
What the payments were for
- Consulting fees$525100%
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Merck | 1 | $525 |
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.
- LENVIMA$525
How this compares
$525 in reported general payments places this provider in the 50th percentile of 761 neurology providers in Massachusetts.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Duloxetine Hcl | 16 | $426 |
| Gabapentin | 15 | $237 |
| Levetiracetam | 11 | $156 |
Paid to pharmacies, not to this prescriber.
Other neurology in Boston
- Christopher WrightBoston$2.5M
- Thomas ScammellBoston$617K
- Alfred SandrockBoston$490K
- Pushpa NarayanaswamiBoston$420K
- Roy FreemanBoston$390K
- Michael LevyBoston$387K
- Leeann BurtonBoston$325K
- Ilena GeorgeBoston$316K
- Andrew BudsonBoston$304K
- Denis BalabanBoston$297K
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.