Has Denise Lester received payments from drug or device companies?

Yes. Drug and device makers reported $8,523 in general payments to Denise Lester across 70 transactions between 2019–2025. Most Open Payments records nationally are meals worth under $20; a reported payment is not evidence of wrongdoing.

Does a payment mean Denise Lester did something wrong?

No. Federal law requires drug and device makers to report almost every transfer of value to a physician, including a $14 sandwich at a lunch presentation. Consulting fees, research funding and royalties to device inventors are ordinary, legal parts of medicine. This site reports what was disclosed; it makes no allegation.

Where does this information about Denise Lester come from?

The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Payments come from Open Payments, published under the Physician Payments Sunshine Act. Billing and prescribing figures come from the Medicare Physician & Other Practitioners and Part D Prescriber public use files for 2024.

Denise Lester

Pain Medicine · Richmond, VANPI 1447330568

Payments from drug & device makers

What this record shows

This record is dominated by food and beverage: $5,941 of the $8,523 with a category attached, or 69.7%. 14 manufacturers reported payments, led by SPR Therapeutics, Inc at 42.5% of the total. 2025 is the largest year on record at $2,080, 4.8 times the $433 reported in 2019.

$8,523in general payments, 2019–2025

Across 70 payments — averaging $121.76 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.

SPR Therapeutics, Inc$4K
MML US, Inc.$1K
Abbott$1K
Bioventus LLC$1K
Saluda Medical Americas, Inc.$378
Boston Scientific$313
plus $706 from 8 others

$450,902in research payments, 2019–2025

Across 35 payments — averaging $12,883 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.

SPR Therapeutics, Inc$451K

What the payments were for

Travel & lodging$2,58230%
Food & beverage$5,94170%

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
SPR Therapeutics, Inc	25	$3,618
MML US, Inc.	13	$1,440
Abbott	10	$1,040
Bioventus LLC	6	$1,028
Saluda Medical Americas, Inc.	2	$378
Boston Scientific	2	$313
Stimwave Technologies Incorporated	1	$180
Medtronic	2	$165
Nalu Medical, Inc.	4	$136
Si-bone, Inc.	1	$88
Ipsen Biopharmaceuticals, Inc	1	$60
Acacia Pharma Inc	1	$43
Avanos Medical	1	$19
Foundation Fusion Solutions, LLC	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

$8,523 in reported general payments places this provider in the 80th percentile of 150 pain medicine providers in Virginia.

See all pain medicine providers in Virginia →

Other pain medicine in Richmond

Michael DepalmaRichmond$17K
Aniroodh ReddyRichmond$10K
Ziv RechanyRichmond$9K
Chheany UngRoanoke$198K
Daniel KendallMc Lean$100K
Steven GershonVirginia Beach$78K
Jared DavisFishersville$45K
Nameer HaiderWoodbridge$36K
Lynn KohanCharlottesville$30K
George BaylorSalem$24K

See the full list for Virginia →

Where these figures come from

Payments: CMS Open Payments, program years 2019–2025 (publication P06302026_06032026).
Identity: NPPES NPI Registry, July 2026.

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