Has Stephen Stephan, MD received payments from drug or device companies?

Yes. Drug and device makers reported $175,343 in general payments to Stephen Stephan, MD 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 Stephen Stephan, MD 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 Stephen Stephan, MD 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.

Stephen Stephan, MD

Orthopaedic Surgery of the Spine · la Jolla, CANPI 1871088989

Payments from drug & device makers

$175,343in general payments, 2019–2025

Across 375 payments — averaging $467.58 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.

Medtronic$154K
Alphatec Spine, Inc$7K
Kuros Biosciences USA, Inc$6K
Intrinsic Therapeutics$3K
Globus Medical$2K
Stryker$1K
plus $2K from 11 others

What the payments were for

Consulting fees$27,77516%
Speaking & faculty fees$37,26721%
Grants$75,00043%
Travel & lodging$19,81311%
Food & beverage$15,4889%

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
Medtronic	265	$154,179
Alphatec Spine, Inc	29	$6,909
Kuros Biosciences USA, Inc	10	$6,476
Intrinsic Therapeutics	11	$3,016
Globus Medical(2 entities)	28	$1,824
Stryker	8	$1,148
Si-bone, Inc.	5	$520
Arteriocyte Medical Systems, Inc.	1	$315
Seaspine Orthopedics Corporation	3	$299
Orthofix Medical, Inc.	4	$261
Carl Zeiss Meditec USA, Inc.	2	$134
Ossdsign USA Incorporated	3	$73
Zimvie Inc.	1	$65
Vertex	2	$59
Neo Spine USA, Inc.	1	$34
Aroa Biosurgery Incorporated	1	$17
Bioventus LLC	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.

MAZOR X SYSTEM$102,843
STEALTHSTATION S8 PLATFORM$13,508
MagnetOs$6,152
BARRICAID ACD (ANNULAR CLOSURE DEVICE)$6,000
Other - Miscellaneous$3,858
CATALYFT PL EXPANDABLE INTERBODY SYSTEM$3,250
CD HORIZON SPINAL SYSTEM$1,039
EVEREST SPINAL SYSTEM$907
Mariner$421
XLIF$378
ZEVO ANTERIOR CERVICAL PLATE SYSTEM$325
Magellan$315
ExcelsiusGPS Robotic Navigation System$274
NorthStar$232
CLYDESDALE PTC SPINAL SYSTEM$168
ARTIC-L 3D TI SPINAL SYSTEM WITH TIONIC TECHNOLOGY$160
MEDTRONIC REUSABLE INSTRUMENTS$158
CRESCENT SPINAL SYSTEM$156
VARIAX$153
T2$153

How this compares

$175,343 in reported general payments places this provider in the 75th percentile of 288 orthopaedic surgery of the spine providers in California.

See all orthopaedic surgery of the spine providers in California →

Medicare billing

Part B allowed, 2024

$337,680

Medicare patients

663

Services billed

1,754

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
Calcitonin-SalmonCalcitonin,salmon,synthetic	20	$848
Cyclobenzaprine Hcl	91	$686
Oxycodone Hcl	61	$435
Methylprednisolone	60	$284
Oxycodone-AcetaminophenOxycodone Hcl/Acetaminophen	25	$280
Methocarbamol	23	$154
Gabapentin	14	$80

Paid to pharmacies, not to this prescriber.

Other orthopaedic surgery of the spine in la Jolla

Gregory Mundisla Jolla$3.5M
Hyun BaeSanta Monica$62.2M
Choll KimSan Diego$4M
Stacey BedermanOrange$3.7M
Neelakantan AnandLos Angeles$3.2M
Paul SlosarDaly City$3.1M
Babak Barcohanavan Nuys$2.9M
Rick DelamarterSanta Monica$2.3M
Sanjay KhuranaMarina del Rey$2.3M
Neville AlleyneOceanside$2.2M

See the full list for California →

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.

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