Richard Vasak, MD
Trauma Surgery · Pasadena, CANPI 1215213103
Payments from drug & device makers
What this record shows
The money is spread across several categories — education (51.5%), travel and lodging and food and beverage — rather than concentrated in one kind of arrangement. Intuitive Surgical accounts for 60.9% of it on its own, with 6 other manufacturers making up the rest. Reporting peaked in 2023 at $3,397 and has fallen 55.7% since, to $1,504 in 2024.
Across 23 payments — averaging $337.76 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.
- Intuitive Surgical$5K
- TELA Bio, Inc.$2K
- Zimmer Biomet$956
- Access Pro Medical, LLC$156
- Portola Pharmaceuticals, LLC$123
- Z-medica, LLC$30
- plus $13 from 1 others
What the payments were for
- Travel & lodging$2,59933%
- Food & beverage$1,16915%
- Education$4,00051%
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 | 6 | $4,733 |
| TELA Bio, Inc. | 9 | $1,757 |
| Zimmer Biomet | 4 | $956 |
| Access Pro Medical, LLC | 1 | $156 |
| Portola Pharmaceuticals, LLC | 1 | $123 |
| Z-medica, LLC | 1 | $30 |
| Johnson & Johnson | 1 | $13 |
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
$7,768 in reported general payments places this provider in the 75th percentile of 119 trauma surgery providers in California.
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 trauma surgery in Pasadena
- Kaveh NajafiPasadena$9K
- Sebastian SchublOrange$480K
- Antonio CoirinModesto$212K
- Nicole KopariFresno$90K
- Ruby SkinnerSanta Maria$66K
- Jennifer HubbardFresno$26K
- Amber JonesCastro Valley$19K
- Kaushik MukherjeeLoma Linda$19K
- Gudata HinikaParamount$18K
- Rohit SharmaSanta Barbara$17K
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.