Samuel Stulberg, MD
Orthopaedic Surgery · Chicago, ILNPI 1891740148
Payments from drug & device makers
What this record shows
This record is dominated by royalties or licence payments: $837,872 of the $851,674 with a category attached, or 98.4%. 9 manufacturers reported payments, led by Aesculap AG at 52.9% of the total. Reporting peaked in 2020 at $512,375 and has fallen 99.9% since, to $373 in 2025. Among orthopaedic surgery 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.
Across 74 payments — averaging $11,509 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.
- Aesculap AG$451K
- Stryker$382K
- Smith+Nephew$10K
- Tracpatch Health, Inc$7K
- Zimmer Biomet$881
- Next Science LLC$518
- plus $128 from 3 others
What the payments were for
- Royalty or licence$837,87298%
- Food & beverage$3,7770%
- Other$10,0251%
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Aesculap AG | 1 | $450,741 |
| Stryker | 30 | $381,973 |
| Smith+Nephew | 1 | $10,025 |
| Tracpatch Health, Inc | 19 | $7,408 |
| Zimmer Biomet | 16 | $881 |
| Next Science LLC | 4 | $518 |
| Think Surgical, Inc. | 1 | $56 |
| Intuitive Surgical | 1 | $43 |
| Solventum Corporation | 1 | $29 |
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
$851,674 in reported general payments places this provider in the 95th percentile of 844 orthopaedic surgery providers in Illinois.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Mupirocin | 44 | $316 |
| Amoxicillin | 68 | $255 |
| Diclofenac Sodium | 28 | $207 |
Paid to pharmacies, not to this prescriber.
Other orthopaedic surgery in Chicago
- Aaron RosenbergChicago$12.4M
- Anish KadakiaChicago$2.1M
- Wellington HsuChicago$1.7M
- Ken YamaguchiChicago$1.7M
- Guido MarraChicago$1.2M
- Hue LuuChicago$1.1M
- Alpesh PatelChicago$917K
- Richard BergerChicago$618K
- Ari KazChicago$343K
- Steven GitelisChicago$324K
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.