Has Tong Zhu, MD received payments from drug or device companies?

Yes. Drug and device makers reported $3,590 in general payments to Tong Zhu, MD across 142 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 Tong Zhu, 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 Tong Zhu, 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.

Tong Zhu, MD

Pain Medicine · Saint Louis, MONPI 1184853152

Payments from drug & device makers

What this record shows

This record is dominated by food and beverage: $2,308 of the $3,590 with a category attached, or 64.3%. 17 manufacturers reported payments, led by Abbott at 42.8% of the total. Reporting peaked in 2019 at $2,082 and has fallen 90.5% since, to $198 in 2025.

$3,590in general payments, 2019–2025

Across 142 payments — averaging $25.28 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.

Abbott$2K
Vertos Medical, Inc.$803
Pfizer$219
Boston Scientific$204
Biohaven Pharmaceutical Holding Company Ltd.$185
Medtronic$145
plus $498 from 11 others

What the payments were for

Travel & lodging$1,28236%
Food & beverage$2,30864%

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
Abbott	46	$1,536
Vertos Medical, Inc.	4	$803
Pfizer	31	$219
Boston Scientific	8	$204
Biohaven Pharmaceutical Holding Company Ltd.	31	$185
Medtronic	1	$145
Amgen	2	$139
AbbVie	5	$95
Saluda Medical Americas, Inc.	2	$54
Valinor Pharma, LLC	3	$51
Elite Orthopedics, LLC	2	$46
Collegium Pharmaceutical, Inc.	2	$32
Bioventus LLC	1	$20
Novartis	1	$19
Daiichi Sankyo Inc.	1	$17
Vertex	1	$14
Arbor Pharmaceuticals, Inc.	1	$12

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

$3,590 in reported general payments places this provider in the 55th percentile of 124 pain medicine providers in Missouri.

See all pain medicine providers in Missouri →

Medicare billing

Part B allowed, 2024

$144,307

Medicare patients

302

Services billed

2,768

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	322	$9,956
Buprenorphine	20	$6,646
Oxycodone-AcetaminophenOxycodone Hcl/Acetaminophen	127	$5,659
Pregabalin	105	$3,583
Oxycodone Hcl	96	$2,070
Gabapentin	137	$1,653
Naloxone Hcl	27	$1,641
Calcitonin-SalmonCalcitonin,salmon,synthetic	17	$1,000
Tramadol Hcl	104	$849
Acetaminophen-CodeineAcetaminophen With Codeine	35	$612
Cyclobenzaprine Hcl	26	$428
Baclofen	40	$371
Morphine Sulfate ErMorphine Sulfate	18	$357
Methadone Hcl	25	$295
Tizanidine Hcl	13	$163

Paid to pharmacies, not to this prescriber.

Other pain medicine in Saint Louis

Vinicius Tieppo FrancioSaint Louis$35K
Jooyoung MaengSaint Louis$25K
Nabil AhmadSaint Louis$21K
Katharine GurbaSaint Louis$18K
Jeremy ThompsonSaint Louis$11K
Alexander BeyzerSaint Louis$11K
Hamed SadeghipourSaint Louis$10K
Hess PanjetonSaint Louis$6K
Xiaobin YiSaint Louis$6K
Nicole ShinSaint Louis$6K

See the full list for Missouri →

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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