Kawsar Talaat, MD
Infectious Disease · Baltimore, MDNPI 1588858740
Payments from drug & device makers
What this record shows
This record is dominated by consulting fees: $45,673 of the $45,738 with a category attached, or 99.9%. Merck accounts for 69.9% of it on its own, with 3 other manufacturers making up the rest. Among infectious disease clinicians in MD with any reported payments, this total sits in the top 10% — high for the specialty, which is a reason to read the composition above rather than the number alone.
Across 53 payments — averaging $862.97 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.
- Merck$32K
- Modernatx, Inc.$14K
- Seqirus USA Inc$45
- Pfizer$20
Across 308 payments — averaging $13,466 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.
- Pfizer$3.5M
- Sanofi Pasteur Inc.$369K
- Valneva Austria GmbH$228K
- Sanofi US Services Inc.$27K
What the payments were for
- Consulting fees$45,673100%
- Food & beverage$450%
- Gifts$200%
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Merck | 45 | $31,988 |
| Modernatx, Inc. | 6 | $13,685 |
| Seqirus USA Inc | 1 | $45 |
| Pfizer | 1 | $20 |
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.
- GARDASIL 9$8,145
- V160$5,944
- ENFLONSIA$698
How this compares
$45,738 in reported general payments places this provider in the 90th percentile of 289 infectious disease providers in Maryland.
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.
Other infectious disease in Baltimore
- Robert RedfieldBaltimore$779K
- Luciana BorioBaltimore$671K
- Mark SulkowskiBaltimore$240K
- Jonathan ZenilmanBaltimore$202K
- Robert EdelmanBaltimore$125K
- Kjell WibergBaltimore$113K
- Christine DurandBaltimore$53K
- Myron LevineBaltimore$51K
- Robert BollingerBaltimore$50K
- Richard BergBaltimore$47K
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.