William Kitchens, MD
Thoracic Surgery (Cardiothoracic Vascular Surgery) · Augusta, GANPI 1609815729
Payments from drug & device makers
Across 222 payments — averaging $38.68 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.
- Edwards Lifesciences$2K
- Atricure, Inc.$2K
- Abiomed$964
- Baxter Healthcare$378
- Abbott$292
- Artivion, Inc.$288
- plus $3K from 34 others
What the payments were for
- Travel & lodging$1,90122%
- Food & beverage$6,56676%
- Education$1201%
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Edwards Lifesciences | 25 | $1,724 |
| Atricure, Inc. | 14 | $1,547 |
| Abiomed | 13 | $964 |
| Baxter Healthcare | 6 | $378 |
| Abbott | 3 | $292 |
| Artivion, Inc. | 3 | $288 |
| Merck | 14 | $286 |
| Seagen Inc. | 14 | $228 |
| AstraZeneca | 7 | $211 |
| Takeda Pharmaceuticals U.S.A., Inc. | 9 | $201 |
| Bayer | 10 | $174 |
| Lilly USA, LLC | 11 | $163 |
| Servier Pharmaceuticals LLC | 8 | $156 |
| Incyte Corporation | 8 | $139 |
| Scpharmaceuticals Inc. | 3 | $132 |
| Boehringer Ingelheim | 5 | $131 |
| Daiichi Sankyo Inc. | 6 | $128 |
| Jazz Pharmaceuticals Inc. | 7 | $125 |
| Eisai Inc. | 6 | $120 |
| Genentech USA, Inc. | 5 | $109 |
| Angiodynamics, Inc. | 1 | $108 |
| Pfizer | 5 | $88 |
| Sanofi-aventis U.S. LLC | 1 | $85 |
| Medtronic | 1 | $84 |
| Exelixis Inc. | 4 | $77 |
| La Jolla Pharmaceutical Company | 4 | $76 |
| Bristol Myers Squibb | 3 | $72 |
| Johnson & Johnson(2 entities) | 4 | $70 |
| Amgen | 4 | $68 |
| ZOLL Services LLC (a/k/a ZOLL Lifecor Corp) | 3 | $58 |
| Novartis | 3 | $53 |
| Davol Inc. | 1 | $50 |
| Chiesi USA, Inc. | 2 | $31 |
| E.r. Squibb & Sons, L.L.C. | 2 | $30 |
| Boston Scientific | 1 | $29 |
| Geron Corporation | 1 | $28 |
| Intuitive Surgical | 2 | $25 |
| Beigene USA, Inc. | 1 | $23 |
| AVEO Pharmaceuticals, Inc. | 1 | $22 |
| Bridgebio Pharma, Inc. | 1 | $15 |
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.
- SYNERGY ABLATION SYSTEM$788
- Edwards SAPIEN 3 Transcatheter Heart Valve$653
- Impella$642
- Edwards SAPIEN 3 Ultra Transcatheter Heart Valve$582
- ATRICURE CRYOICE CRYOSPHERE CRYOABLATION SYSTEM$414
- On-X$249
- EPI-SENSE GUIDED COAGULATION SYSTEM WITH VISITRAX$221
- TISSEEL$150
- BioGlue$144
- MitraClip System$129
- COSEAL$119
How this compares
$8,588 in reported general payments places this provider in the 55th percentile of 144 thoracic surgery (cardiothoracic vascular surgery) providers in Georgia.
See all thoracic surgery (cardiothoracic vascular surgery) providers in Georgia →
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.
Other thoracic surgery (cardiothoracic vascular surgery) in Augusta
- Richard LeeAugusta$26K
- Timothy HunterAugusta$22K
- Vijaykumar PatelAugusta$16K
- Vinod ThouraniMarietta$5.6M
- Jeremy LondonSavannah$1.6M
- Robert GuytonAtlanta$1.3M
- Roberto RodriguezSavannah$1.2M
- John PuskasAtlanta$1.1M
- Mani DaneshmandAtlanta$924K
- Jeffrey MillerAtlanta$877K
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.