Has Joseph Cline, MD received payments from drug or device companies?

Yes. Drug and device makers reported $12,525 in general payments to Joseph Cline, MD across 34 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 Joseph Cline, MD 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 Joseph Cline, MD 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.

Joseph Cline, MD

Adult Reconstructive Orthopaedic Surgery · Wake Forest, NCNPI 1922453703

Payments from drug & device makers

What this record shows

This record is dominated by education: $10,096 of the $12,525 with a category attached, or 80.6%. Smith+Nephew accounts for 89.2% of it on its own, with 6 other manufacturers making up the rest. Reporting peaked in 2022 at $5,653 and has fallen 93.9% since, to $344 in 2025.

$12,525in general payments, 2019–2025

Across 34 payments — averaging $368.39 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.

Smith+Nephew$11K
Stryker$518
Zimmer Biomet$428
Johnson & Johnson$200
Medtronic$133
Medical Device Business Services, Inc.$44
plus $32 from 1 others

What the payments were for

Travel & lodging$7236%
Food & beverage$1,70714%
Education$10,09681%

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
Smith+Nephew	12	$11,170
Stryker	7	$518
Zimmer Biomet	8	$428
Johnson & Johnson	3	$200
Medtronic	1	$133
Medical Device Business Services, Inc.	2	$44
Pacira Pharmaceuticals Incorporated	1	$32

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

Too few adult reconstructive orthopaedic surgery providers in North Carolinato place this figure against a meaningful peer group, so we don't.

Medicare billing

Part B allowed, 2024

$230,484

Medicare patients

421

Services billed

13,146

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
Celecoxib	421	$12,789
Diclofenac Sodium	340	$3,365
Meloxicam	104	$542
Oxycodone Hcl	79	$492
Methylprednisolone	34	$258
Gabapentin	33	$227
Cefadroxil	13	$215
Tramadol Hcl	33	$71
Amoxicillin	57	$51
Methocarbamol	12	$33
Clindamycin Hcl	11	$22

Paid to pharmacies, not to this prescriber.

Other adult reconstructive orthopaedic surgery in Wake Forest

David PollockBermuda Run$4.8M
Thorsten SeylerDurham$2.2M
Adam BrekkeDurham$86K
John ShieldsWinston Salem$78K
Andrew SchwartzDurham$75K
Jason NorcrossHickory$55K
Eric DilboneMorrisville$28K
Walter FruehWilmington$26K
David CaseyPinehurst$20K
Charles LongHendersonville$18K

See the full list for North Carolina →

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.

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