Has Elsa Pao received payments from drug or device companies?

Yes. Drug and device makers reported $8,108 in general payments to Elsa Pao across 51 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 Elsa Pao 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 Elsa Pao 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.

Elsa Pao

Optometrist · Oakland, CANPI 1932112612

Payments from drug & device makers

What this record shows

The money is spread across several categories — consulting fees (36.3%), travel and lodging and food and beverage — rather than concentrated in one kind of arrangement. Alcon accounts for 85.2% of it on its own, with 6 other manufacturers making up the rest. 2025 is the largest year on record at $4,324, 2.9 times the $1,489 reported in 2019. Among optometrist clinicians in CA 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.

$8,108in general payments, 2019–2025

Across 51 payments — averaging $158.98 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.

Alcon$7K
Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc.$655
Coopervision Inc.$207
Optos, Inc.$172
ABB Con-cise Optical Group LLC$132
Visioneering Technologies, Inc.$18
plus $17 from 1 others

$1,019,539in research payments, 2019–2025

Across 1,291 payments — averaging $789.73 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.

Alcon Research LLC$1M
Coopervision Inc.$12K

What the payments were for

Consulting fees$2,94036%
Travel & lodging$2,85835%
Food & beverage$2,31028%

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
Alcon	21	$6,908
Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc.	20	$655
Coopervision Inc.	4	$207
Optos, Inc.	1	$172
ABB Con-cise Optical Group LLC	3	$132
Visioneering Technologies, Inc.	1	$18
Bausch & Lomb Americas Inc.	1	$17

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

$8,108 in reported general payments places this provider in the 95th percentile of 6,778 optometrist providers in California.

See all optometrist providers in California →

Other optometrist in Oakland

Avanti GhanekarOakland$61K
Steve YoelinNewport Beach$4.1M
Matthew GellerSpring Valley$3.5M
Melissa EricksonDavis$522K
Omid KhodaiLake Forest$499K
Jason TuSan Diego$351K
Scott SchachterPismo Beach$312K
Alicia LauSan Diego$300K
Vin DangBakersfield$284K
Steven FerrucciSepulveda$272K

See the full list for California →

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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