Has Kakarla Chalam, MD received payments from drug or device companies?

Yes. Drug and device makers reported $826 in general payments to Kakarla Chalam, MD across 9 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 Kakarla Chalam, 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 Kakarla Chalam, 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.

Kakarla Chalam, MD

Ophthalmology · Loma Linda, CANPI 1336112812

Payments from drug & device makers

$826in general payments, 2019–2025

Across 9 payments — averaging $91.76 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.

Alcon$573
Carl Zeiss Meditec, Inc.$127
AbbVie$59
Optos, Inc.$42
Novartis$25

What the payments were for

Travel & lodging$57369%
Food & beverage$22127%
Education$152%
Entertainment$172%

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	1	$573
Carl Zeiss Meditec, Inc.	2	$127
AbbVie(2 entities)	2	$59
Optos, Inc.	3	$42
Novartis	1	$25

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

$826 in reported general payments places this provider in the 40th percentile of 2,513 ophthalmology providers in California.

See all ophthalmology providers in California →

Medicare billing

Part B allowed, 2024

$430,286

Medicare patients

492

Services billed

2,805

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
Bromfenac Sodium	12	$3,087
Prednisolone Acetate	40	$1,725
Brimonidine Tartrate-TimololBrimonidine Tartrate/Timolol	11	$1,605
Tobramycin-DexamethasoneTobramycin/Dexamethasone	27	$1,164
Neomycin-Polymyxin-DexamethNeomycin/Polymyxin B/Dexametha	21	$499
Timolol Maleate	23	$115
Dorzolamide-TimololDorzolamide Hcl/Timolol Maleat	12	$105
Latanoprost	27	$104

Paid to pharmacies, not to this prescriber.

Other ophthalmology in Loma Linda

John AffeldtLoma Linda$1.1M
Nisha AcharyaSan Francisco$33M
David WirtaNewport Beach$18.4M
Michael IpPasadena$10.2M
Raymond DouglasBeverly Hills$9.7M
Sherif El HaraziGlendale$9.2M
Daniel SchwartzSan Francisco$8M
Nikolas Londonla Jolla$6.1M
Michael BerlinWest Hollywood$5.7M
Steven JacobsonLos Angeles$4.7M

See the full list for California →

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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