Stephen Esses, MD
Orthopaedic Surgery of the Spine · Houston, TXNPI 1760489595
Payments from drug & device makers
Across 8 payments — averaging $75.92 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.
- Spinesource, Inc.$432
- Alphatec Spine, Inc$54
- Relievant Medsystems, Inc.$33
- Abbott$33
- ERMI LLC$21
- Boston Scientific$19
- plus $14 from 1 others
What the payments were for
- Travel & lodging$43271%
- Food & beverage$17529%
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Spinesource, Inc. | 1 | $432 |
| Alphatec Spine, Inc | 2 | $54 |
| Relievant Medsystems, Inc. | 1 | $33 |
| Abbott | 1 | $33 |
| ERMI LLC | 1 | $21 |
| Boston Scientific | 1 | $19 |
| Wound Management Technologies, Inc | 1 | $14 |
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.
- Catamaran Sacroiliac Joint Fixation System$432
How this compares
$607 in reported general payments places this provider in the 10th percentile of 207 orthopaedic surgery of the spine providers in Texas.
See all orthopaedic surgery of the spine providers in Texas →
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Hydrocodone-AcetaminophenHydrocodone/Acetaminophen | 72 | $585 |
| Meloxicam | 20 | $70 |
| Tramadol Hcl | 11 | $10 |
Paid to pharmacies, not to this prescriber.
Other orthopaedic surgery of the spine in Houston
- David WimberleyHouston$2.2M
- Shah-Nawaz DodwadHouston$710K
- Leonard KibuuleHouston$669K
- Vivek KushwahaHouston$632K
- Robert MohrHouston$352K
- Bernhard MeyerHouston$238K
- Ra'kerry RahmanHouston$188K
- Ryan StuckeyHouston$181K
- Rex MarcoHouston$174K
- Richard FrancisHouston$156K
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.