Has Thomas Smarz, MD received payments from drug or device companies?

Yes. Drug and device makers reported $402 in general payments to Thomas Smarz, MD across 6 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 Thomas Smarz, 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 Thomas Smarz, 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.

Thomas Smarz, MD

Nephrology · Charlotte, NCNPI 1639229206

Payments from drug & device makers

$402in general payments, 2019–2025

Across 6 payments — averaging $66.93 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.

GSK$138
Travere Therapeutics, Inc.$132
Nxstage Medical, Inc.$113
Boehringer Ingelheim$19

What the payments were for

Food & beverage$36691%
Education$369%

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
GSK	2	$138
Travere Therapeutics, Inc.	2	$132
Nxstage Medical, Inc.	1	$113
Boehringer Ingelheim	1	$19

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

$402 in reported general payments places this provider in the 30th percentile of 366 nephrology providers in North Carolina.

See all nephrology providers in North Carolina →

Medicare billing

Part B allowed, 2024

$262,715

Medicare patients

448

Services billed

8,109

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
Clonidine	33	$2,785
Sevelamer Carbonate	12	$2,741
Valsartan	19	$635
Losartan Potassium	56	$599
Amlodipine Besylate	56	$485
Lisinopril	69	$384
Furosemide	100	$322
Hydralazine Hcl	12	$187
Irbesartan	13	$147
Potassium Chloride	14	$144
Spironolactone	16	$117
Hydrochlorothiazide	25	$95
Carvedilol	15	$74
Ciprofloxacin Hcl	17	$70

Paid to pharmacies, not to this prescriber.

Other nephrology in Charlotte

Matthew ElliottCharlotte$953K
Peale ChuangCharlotte$676K
Michael EtomiCharlotte$212K
Verachai LohavichanCharlotte$53K
Daniel EdmonstonDurham$9.9M
Gregory GreenwoodWinston-Salem$4.1M
Barry FreedmanWinston Salem$3.5M
Manuel MonteroNew Bern$2.5M
Rekha JohnKinston$2.3M
Nauman ShahidGreenville$2M

See the full list for North Carolina →

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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