Kale Merrell, DPM
Foot & Ankle Surgery · Spearfish, SDNPI 1437647344
Payments from drug & device makers
What this record shows
This record is dominated by education: $1,076 of the $1,625 with a category attached, or 66.2%. Southern Edge Orthopaedics, Inc. accounts for 66.2% of it on its own, with 6 other manufacturers making up the rest. Reporting peaked in 2019 at $1,090 and has fallen 94.4% since, to $61 in 2023. That places this record below the midpoint for foot & ankle surgery clinicians in SD, where the typical reported total is $3,662.
Across 20 payments — averaging $81.25 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.
- Southern Edge Orthopaedics, Inc.$1K
- Stryker$178
- Treace Medical Concepts, Inc.$165
- Organogenesis Inc.$142
- Hydrofera LLC$32
- Smith+Nephew$18
- plus $14 from 1 others
What the payments were for
- Food & beverage$54934%
- Education$1,07666%
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Southern Edge Orthopaedics, Inc. | 1 | $1,076 |
| Stryker | 2 | $178 |
| Treace Medical Concepts, Inc. | 4 | $165 |
| Organogenesis Inc. | 9 | $142 |
| Hydrofera LLC | 2 | $32 |
| Smith+Nephew | 1 | $18 |
| Polarityte, Inc. | 1 | $14 |
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.
- INBONE$124
How this compares
$1,625 in reported general payments places this provider in the 30th percentile of 23 foot & ankle surgery providers in South Dakota.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Clotrimazole | 12 | $342 |
| Clotrimazole-BetamethasoneClotrimazole/Betamethasone Dip | 13 | $105 |
Paid to pharmacies, not to this prescriber.
Other foot & ankle surgery in Spearfish
- Garret WobstAberdeen$79K
- Ruth MoenSioux Falls$14K
- James JohnstonAberdeen$10K
- Tyler HarrellBrookings$9K
- Kayla YazhariYankton$6K
- Scott TornessWatertown$5K
- Gabriel RodriguezSioux Falls$5K
- Ryan PrusaBrookings$4K
- Eric WoolleyWatertown$4K
- Jonathan YazhariYankton$4K
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.