Samuel Hester, MD
Internal Medicine · Asheville, NCNPI 1700145067
Payments from drug & device makers
Across 38 payments — averaging $18.44 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.
- Salix Pharmaceuticals, A Division Of Bausch Health US, LLC$72
- Pfizer$66
- Insulet Corporation$66
- AbbVie$63
- Novo Nordisk$52
- Lilly USA, LLC$52
- plus $328 from 10 others
What the payments were for
- Food & beverage$701100%
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Salix Pharmaceuticals, A Division Of Bausch Health US, LLC | 4 | $72 |
| Pfizer | 4 | $66 |
| Insulet Corporation | 2 | $66 |
| AbbVie | 4 | $63 |
| Novo Nordisk | 4 | $52 |
| Lilly USA, LLC | 3 | $52 |
| Amarin Pharma, Inc. | 2 | $49 |
| Takeda Pharmaceuticals U.S.A., Inc. | 2 | $48 |
| Sanofi-aventis U.S. LLC | 2 | $44 |
| Bayer | 2 | $41 |
| Biohaven Pharmaceutical Holding Company Ltd. | 2 | $34 |
| Amgen | 2 | $29 |
| Boehringer Ingelheim | 2 | $26 |
| Medtronic | 1 | $24 |
| AstraZeneca | 1 | $18 |
| Johnson & Johnson | 1 | $16 |
How this compares
$701 in reported general payments places this provider in the 65th percentile of 3,302 internal medicine providers in North Carolina.
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.
Most prescribed under Part D
| Drug | Claims | Cost to plans & patients |
|---|---|---|
| Pantoprazole Sodium | 12 | $136 |
| Furosemide | 12 | $35 |
| Azithromycin | 11 | $20 |
Paid to pharmacies, not to this prescriber.
Other internal medicine in Asheville
- Manesh PatelDurham$27.2M
- Saad UsmaniCharlotte$16.2M
- Christina KennellyCharlotte$15.4M
- John RubinoRaleigh$13M
- Adam DevoreDurham$11.8M
- Krishnakumar UdayakumarDurham$11M
- Sylvia ShoffnerCary$7.1M
- Wayne HarperRaleigh$6.7M
- Joseph MoranStatesville$6.7M
- April SalamaDurham$6.5M
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.