Has Michael Merkley, MD received payments from drug or device companies?

Yes. Drug and device makers reported $1,513 in general payments to Michael Merkley, MD across 27 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 Michael Merkley, 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 Michael Merkley, 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.

Michael Merkley, MD

Orthopaedic Surgery · Peoria, ILNPI 1114928942

Payments from drug & device makers

$1,513in general payments, 2019–2025

Across 27 payments — averaging $56.05 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.

Stryker$397
Zimmer Biomet$332
Johnson & Johnson$248
Arthrex$235
Wardlow Enterprises$130
Ferring Pharmaceuticals Inc.$110
plus $61 from 2 others

What the payments were for

Travel & lodging$997%
Food & beverage$1,41493%

Most of this is food and beverage — typically meals provided during product presentations at a clinic or hospital. Nationally that is the single largest category of reported payments by count.

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
Stryker	6	$397
Zimmer Biomet	2	$332
Johnson & Johnson	5	$248
Arthrex	2	$235
Wardlow Enterprises	2	$130
Ferring Pharmaceuticals Inc.	7	$110
Bioventus LLC	2	$32
Orthofix Medical, Inc.	1	$29

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.

Persona$188
BLUEPRINT PATIENT SPECIFIC INSTRUMENTATION$133
AEQUALIS PERFORM REVERSED$125
ATTUNE$125

How this compares

$1,513 in reported general payments places this provider in the 35th percentile of 844 orthopaedic surgery providers in Illinois.

See all orthopaedic surgery providers in Illinois →

Medicare billing

Part B allowed, 2024

$200,329

Medicare patients

413

Services billed

2,568

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
Celecoxib	47	$644
Hydrocodone-AcetaminophenHydrocodone/Acetaminophen	14	$93
Clindamycin Hcl	19	$87
Cephalexin	35	$82

Paid to pharmacies, not to this prescriber.

Other orthopaedic surgery in Peoria

Miguel RamirezPeoria$336K
James MaxeyPeoria$196K
Peter BonuttiEffingham$24.3M
Steven HaddadGlenview$12.6M
Aaron RosenbergChicago$12.4M
Treg BrownHerrin$6.6M
Kamal IbrahimOakbrook Terrace$4.9M
Wayne GoldsteinMorton Grove$4.9M
Steven MatherDowners Grove$4.3M
Steven MardjetkoMorton Grove$4.3M

See the full list for Illinois →

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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