Luciano Vargas, MD
Payments from drug & device makers
What this record shows
This record is dominated by travel and lodging: $1,985 of the $2,578 with a category attached, or 77.0%. Intuitive Surgical accounts for 88.2% of it on its own, with 4 other manufacturers making up the rest. 2025 is the largest year on record at $1,119, 3.6 times the $313 reported in 2021.
Across 22 payments — averaging $117.17 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.
- Intuitive Surgical$2K
- Boston Scientific$140
- Abbott$124
- Davol Inc.$25
- Medtronic$15
Across 2 payments — averaging $462.20 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.
- Transmedics, Inc.$924
What the payments were for
- Travel & lodging$1,98577%
- Food & beverage$59223%
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Intuitive Surgical | 18 | $2,273 |
| Boston Scientific | 1 | $140 |
| Abbott | 1 | $124 |
| Davol Inc. | 1 | $25 |
| Medtronic | 1 | $15 |
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.
- Da Vinci Surgical System$2,022
- EXALT Model D$140
- ESPRIT$124
How this compares
$2,578 in reported general payments places this provider in the 65th percentile of 197 surgery providers in Nebraska.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| CreonLipase/Protease/Amylase | 15 | $59,415 |
Paid to pharmacies, not to this prescriber.
Other surgery in Omaha
- Dmitry OleynikovOmaha$180K
- Gary AnthoneOmaha$71K
- Moriah WrightOmaha$37K
- Andy YangOmaha$36K
- Brad WintersteinOmaha$30K
- Ali KhiabaniOmaha$29K
- Benjamin GramsOmaha$21K
- Thomas WhiteOmaha$19K
- Michael HoveyOmaha$19K
- Susanne SasseOmaha$16K
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.