William Cockerham, MD
Surgery · Chattanooga, TNNPI 1952395915
Payments from drug & device makers
What this record shows
This record is dominated by education: $9,500 of the $15,254 with a category attached, or 62.3%. Intuitive Surgical accounts for 83.0% of it on its own, with 13 other manufacturers making up the rest. Reporting peaked in 2020 at $6,215 and has fallen 89.9% since, to $630 in 2025.
Across 74 payments — averaging $206.13 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.
- Intuitive Surgical$13K
- Integra Lifesciences Corporation$527
- Smith+Nephew$509
- TELA Bio, Inc.$355
- Avita Medical Americas, LLC$249
- Lifenet Health$212
- plus $748 from 8 others
Across 5 payments — averaging $2197.00 each. Payments tied to a research study. These frequently flow through the physician to a hospital or research institution rather than to the physician personally.
- Elekta, Inc.$6K
- Icad, Inc$5K
What the payments were for
- Travel & lodging$2,38516%
- Food & beverage$3,36922%
- Education$9,50062%
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Intuitive Surgical | 37 | $12,653 |
| Integra Lifesciences Corporation | 4 | $527 |
| Smith+Nephew | 13 | $509 |
| TELA Bio, Inc. | 3 | $355 |
| Avita Medical Americas, LLC | 1 | $249 |
| Lifenet Health | 1 | $212 |
| Hologic Sales And Service, LLC | 2 | $175 |
| Medtronic | 5 | $152 |
| Davol Inc. | 1 | $143 |
| Conmed Corporation | 1 | $102 |
| Merck | 3 | $74 |
| Silk Road Medical, Inc. | 1 | $57 |
| Bard Peripheral Vascular, Inc. | 1 | $29 |
| Olympus America Inc. | 1 | $17 |
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.
- Da Vinci Surgical System$7,938
- DAVINCI XI$4,000
- INTEGRA$1,201
- INTEGRA DERMAL REGENERATION TEMPLATE$445
- PRIMATRIX$312
- OviTex Reinforced Bioscaffold With Permanent Polymer (OviTex)$264
- RECELL$249
- Cohealyx$249
- PERMEADERM$249
- TheraGenesis Wound Matrix$212
- Phasix Mesh$143
- OMNIGRAFT$133
- SURGIMEND$133
- GRAFIX PL$120
- Grafix XC$120
- Stravix$120
- STRAVIX PL$120
- AIRSEAL$102
How this compares
$15,254 in reported general payments places this provider in the 85th percentile of 516 surgery providers in Tennessee.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Oxycodone-AcetaminophenOxycodone Hcl/Acetaminophen | 87 | $227 |
| Ondansetron Hcl | 48 | $174 |
| Tramadol Hcl | 20 | $30 |
Paid to pharmacies, not to this prescriber.
Other surgery in Chattanooga
- Jaime Ponce-PortugalChattanooga$412K
- Nadine RamppChattanooga$30K
- John GwinChattanooga$24K
- Heath BroussardJackson$688K
- Eric WallaceCookeville$529K
- John RobertsonJohnson City$432K
- Evelio RodriguezNashville$362K
- Mathew NinanNashville$298K
- Joseph BroucekNashville$262K
- Linda HanGermantown$252K
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.