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

Yes. Drug and device makers reported $2,788 in general payments to Michael Samuel, MD across 64 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 Samuel, 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 Samuel, 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 Samuel, MD

Retina Specialist · Palm Desert, CANPI 1730175670

Payments from drug & device makers

What this record shows

Almost everything reported here is food and beverage — 100.0% of the total across 64 separate payments, which is the pattern of a clinician who attends manufacturer presentations rather than one with a consulting arrangement. It is spread thinly across 16 manufacturers, the largest accounting for just 17.0% — the pattern of someone who eats at a lot of different presentations. 2025 is the largest year on record at $695, 2.3 times the $306 reported in 2019. That places this record below the midpoint for retina specialist clinicians in CA, where the typical reported total is $3,667.

$2,788in general payments, 2019–2025

Across 64 payments — averaging $43.56 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.

Alimera Sciences, Inc.$475
Heru, Inc.$405
Amgen$332
Genentech USA, Inc.$308
Mallinckrodt Hospital Products Inc.$225
Rxsight Inc$211
plus $833 from 10 others

$207,879in research payments, 2019–2025

Across 54 payments — averaging $3849.61 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.

Roche TCRC, Inc.$125K
Apellis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.$33K
Janssen Research & Development, LLC$23K
AbbVie$11K
Regeneron$7K
Boehringer Ingelheim$6K
plus $1K from 1 others

What the payments were for

Food & beverage$2,788100%

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
Alimera Sciences, Inc.	12	$475
Heru, Inc.	1	$405
Amgen	5	$332
Genentech USA, Inc.	11	$308
Mallinckrodt Hospital Products Inc.	14	$225
Rxsight Inc	4	$211
Bausch & Lomb, A Division Of Bausch Health US, LLC	2	$190
Bausch & Lomb Americas Inc.	1	$174
Astellas Pharma US Inc	2	$165
AbbVie	3	$99
Novartis	4	$84
Carl Zeiss Meditec USA, Inc.	1	$30
Heidelberg Engineering, Inc.	1	$26
Apellis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.	1	$25
Alcon	1	$22
Optos, Inc.	1	$19

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.

How this compares

$2,788 in reported general payments places this provider in the 40th percentile of 187 retina specialist providers in California.

See all retina specialist providers in California →

Medicare billing

Part B allowed, 2024

$2,040,155

Medicare patients

944

Services billed

13,438

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
Prednisolone Acetate	281	$7,838
Latanoprost	514	$5,166
Brimonidine Tartrate	118	$2,885
Ofloxacin	219	$2,107
Ketorolac Tromethamine	104	$1,767
Dorzolamide-TimololDorzolamide Hcl/Timolol Maleat	71	$1,270
Timolol Maleate	91	$816
Dorzolamide Hcl	28	$687
MoxifloxacinMoxifloxacin Hcl	14	$245
ErythromycinErythromycin Base	14	$210

Paid to pharmacies, not to this prescriber.

Other retina specialist in Palm Desert

Dilsher DhootSanta Barbara$1.9M
Ehsan RahimyStanford$1.5M
Darius MoshfeghiPalo Alto$1.4M
Nathan SteinleSanta Barbara$1.1M
Roger GoldbergWalnut Creek$1.1M
Baruch KuppermannIrvine$1M
Carlos Medina MendezSacramento$548K
Michael JavaheriBeverly Hills$540K
Esther KimSanta Ana$367K
Diana DoStanford$318K

See the full list for California →

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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