Has Steven Hale, MD received payments from drug or device companies?

Yes. Drug and device makers reported $3,975 in general payments to Steven Hale, MD across 46 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 Steven Hale, 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 Steven Hale, 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.

Steven Hale, MD

Orthopaedic Surgery · Lake Charles, LANPI 1205059763

Payments from drug & device makers

What this record shows

This record is dominated by travel and lodging: $2,570 of the $3,975 with a category attached, or 64.7%. Stryker accounts for 82.7% of it on its own, with 7 other manufacturers making up the rest. Reporting peaked in 2021 at $1,844 and has fallen 69.6% since, to $562 in 2025. That places this record below the midpoint for orthopaedic surgery clinicians in LA, where the typical reported total is $3,274.

$3,975in general payments, 2019–2025

Across 46 payments — averaging $86.41 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.

Stryker$3K
Arthrex$205
Curonix LLC$141
Smith+Nephew$106
ALON Medical Technology$82
AbbVie$79
plus $75 from 2 others

What the payments were for

Travel & lodging$2,57065%
Food & beverage$1,40535%

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
Stryker	21	$3,287
Arthrex	12	$205
Curonix LLC	2	$141
Smith+Nephew	2	$106
ALON Medical Technology	1	$82
AbbVie	5	$79
Johnson & Johnson(2 entities)	2	$59
Vericel Corporation	1	$16

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.

MAKO$2,883

How this compares

$3,975 in reported general payments places this provider in the 50th percentile of 286 orthopaedic surgery providers in Louisiana.

See all orthopaedic surgery providers in Louisiana →

Medicare billing

Part B allowed, 2024

$499,391

Medicare patients

1,521

Services billed

33,170

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	90	$533
Meloxicam	81	$215
Diclofenac Sodium	11	$158
Celecoxib	16	$142
Tramadol Hcl	56	$138
Methylprednisolone	21	$137
Amoxicillin	54	$91
Sulfamethoxazole-TrimethoprimSulfamethoxazole/Trimethoprim	29	$85
Gabapentin	13	$67
Oxycodone-AcetaminophenOxycodone Hcl/Acetaminophen	15	$64

Paid to pharmacies, not to this prescriber.

Other orthopaedic surgery in Lake Charles

Thomas AxelradLake Charles$75K
Michael GarittyLake Charles$30K
James JacksonLake Charles$26K
Christopher HarrodBaton Rouge$3M
Vinod DasaKenner$1.9M
Pierce NunleyShreveport$1.8M
Jorge IsazaBaton Rouge$1.2M
Neil MakiThibodaux$620K
Robert ZuraNew Orleans$597K
Kevin McCarthyBaton Rouge$594K

See the full list for Louisiana →

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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