Rachid Assina, MD
Neurological Surgery · Short Hills, NJNPI 1770744872
Payments from drug & device makers
What this record shows
This record is dominated by food and beverage: $4,356 of the $6,999 with a category attached, or 62.2%. Stryker accounts for 64.6% of it on its own, with 12 other manufacturers making up the rest. Reporting peaked in 2020 at $2,920 and has fallen 96.6% since, to $99 in 2024.
Across 57 payments — averaging $122.79 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.
- Stryker$5K
- Globus Medical$1K
- Baxter Healthcare$370
- Medtronic$156
- Abbott$154
- Centinel Spine, LLC$92
- plus $382 from 7 others
Across 4 payments — averaging $3770.00 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.
- Stryker$15K
What the payments were for
- Consulting fees$2,62538%
- Travel & lodging$190%
- Food & beverage$4,35662%
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 | 26 | $4,525 |
| Globus Medical(2 entities) | 13 | $1,320 |
| Baxter Healthcare | 4 | $370 |
| Medtronic | 2 | $156 |
| Abbott | 1 | $154 |
| Centinel Spine, LLC | 1 | $92 |
| Bioventus LLC | 1 | $77 |
| Electronic Waveform Lab, Inc. | 2 | $70 |
| Royal Biologics, Inc. | 2 | $68 |
| Nevro Corp. | 1 | $64 |
| Zimmer Biomet | 2 | $52 |
| Johnson & Johnson | 1 | $32 |
| Alphatec Spine, 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
$6,999 in reported general payments places this provider in the 60th percentile of 174 neurological surgery providers in New Jersey.
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 neurological surgery in Short Hills
- Robert HearyNewark$1M
- Harshpal SinghHackensack$677K
- Ira GoldsteinMontclair$344K
- Karthik MadhavanCherry Hill$291K
- Simon SalernoWall Township$275K
- Shabbar DanishNeptune$267K
- Adam LipsonUnion$187K
- Mohammed KhanOradell$178K
- Steven YocomCamden$153K
- Jeremy SteinbergerTeaneck$106K
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.