Masaki Tsukashita, PhD
Thoracic Surgery (Cardiothoracic Vascular Surgery) · Pittsburgh, PANPI 1386923944
Payments from drug & device makers
What this record shows
The money is spread across several categories — food and beverage (41.0%), speaking fees and travel and lodging — rather than concentrated in one kind of arrangement. Abiomed accounts for 60.1% of it on its own, with 10 other manufacturers making up the rest. Reporting peaked in 2019 at $5,536 and has fallen 85.3% since, to $814 in 2025.
Across 64 payments — averaging $125.43 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.
- Abiomed$5K
- Medtronic$1K
- Lemaitre Vascular, Inc.$403
- Abbott$361
- Edwards Lifesciences$326
- Atricure, Inc.$255
- plus $437 from 5 others
Across 15 payments — averaging $1040.34 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.
- Abbott$16K
What the payments were for
- Speaking & faculty fees$3,00037%
- Travel & lodging$1,73522%
- Food & beverage$3,29241%
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Abiomed | 25 | $4,825 |
| Medtronic | 13 | $1,419 |
| Lemaitre Vascular, Inc. | 5 | $403 |
| Abbott | 8 | $361 |
| Edwards Lifesciences | 3 | $326 |
| Atricure, Inc. | 3 | $255 |
| La Jolla Pharmaceutical Company | 1 | $123 |
| AstraZeneca | 1 | $121 |
| Johnson & Johnson(2 entities) | 3 | $107 |
| Artivion, Inc. | 1 | $66 |
| Livanova USA, Inc. | 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.
- Impella$3,989
- Valiant Navion$692
- Arctic Front$311
- RESTOREFLOW$242
- ACC2 CARDIAC CRYOSURGICAL SYSTEM$139
- COBRA FUSION ABLATION SYSTEM$139
- Valiant Captivia$136
- THORATEC HEARTMATE 3 LVAS IMPLANT KIT$134
- GIAPREZA$123
- HeartWare HVAD$109
- SYNERGY ABLATION SYSTEM$104
How this compares
$8,027 in reported general payments places this provider in the 60th percentile of 314 thoracic surgery (cardiothoracic vascular surgery) providers in Pennsylvania.
See all thoracic surgery (cardiothoracic vascular surgery) providers in Pennsylvania →
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Metoprolol Tartrate | 13 | $45 |
Paid to pharmacies, not to this prescriber.
Other thoracic surgery (cardiothoracic vascular surgery) in Pittsburgh
- Inderpal SarkariaPittsburgh$248K
- Benny WekslerPittsburgh$161K
- Nicholas BakerPittsburgh$138K
- Walter McGregorPittsburgh$124K
- Rajeev DhuparPittsburgh$65K
- Robert KormosPittsburgh$53K
- David KaczorowskiPittsburgh$47K
- Hiroyuki TsukuiPittsburgh$45K
- Hiran FernandoPittsburgh$34K
- Stephen BaileyPittsburgh$33K
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.