Has Robert Kushner received payments from drug or device companies?

Yes. Drug and device makers reported $515,503 in general payments to Robert Kushner across 375 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 Robert Kushner 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 Robert Kushner 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.

Robert Kushner

Internal Medicine · Chicago, ILNPI 1346278314

Payments from drug & device makers

What this record shows

This record is dominated by consulting fees: $384,319 of the $515,503 with a category attached, or 74.6%. 14 manufacturers reported payments, led by Novo Nordisk at 50.5% of the total. Among internal medicine clinicians in IL with any reported payments, this total sits in the top 5% — high for the specialty, which is a reason to read the composition above rather than the number alone.

$515,503in general payments, 2019–2025

Across 375 payments — averaging $1374.67 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.

Novo Nordisk$261K
Novo Nordisk AS$106K
Boehringer Ingelheim$56K
Currax Pharmaceuticals LLC$22K
Vivus LLC$16K
Eli Lilly$14K
plus $41K from 8 others

$148,744in research payments, 2019–2025

Across 48 payments — averaging $3098.84 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.

Novo Nordisk AS$132K
Aspire Bariatrics, Inc.$17K

What the payments were for

Consulting fees$384,31975%
Speaking & faculty fees$31,1616%
Grants$1,5000%
Travel & lodging$90,87618%
Food & beverage$7,6141%
Education$320%

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
Novo Nordisk	135	$260,572
Novo Nordisk AS	42	$105,744
Boehringer Ingelheim	62	$56,307
Currax Pharmaceuticals LLC	18	$21,639
Vivus LLC	2	$16,400
Eli Lilly	38	$13,566
Novo Nordisk Health Care AG	7	$12,315
Regeneron	17	$11,280
Astrazeneca UK Limited	4	$6,452
AbbVie	6	$6,444
Pfizer	4	$4,553
Kvk-tech, Inc.	38	$160
Esperion Therapeutics, Inc.	1	$47
Lilly USA, LLC	1	$23

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.

Saxenda$48,620
CONTRAVE$21,454
QSYMIA$16,400
Wegovy$15,879
MOUNJARO$623
ZEPBOUND$623

How this compares

$515,503 in reported general payments places this provider in the 95th percentile of 5,182 internal medicine providers in Illinois.

See all internal medicine providers in Illinois →

Other internal medicine in Chicago

Merle DiamondChicago$1.1M
Romeo UrsuaChicago$420K
Peter O DonnellChicago$318K
George UrbanChicago$258K
Kristen PallokChicago$256K
George NissanChicago$252K
Luke LaffinChicago$162K
Daniel CatenacciChicago$161K
Hiren ShahChicago$144K
Toral PatelChicago$125K

See the full list for Illinois →

Where these figures come from

Payments: CMS Open Payments, program years 2019–2025 (publication P06302026_06032026).
Identity: NPPES NPI Registry, July 2026.

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