Who Paid My Doc
Albert Lai
Pain Medicine Placentia, CA Medical Doctor
NPI 1154385961 CMS profile 278709
1041 E Yorba Linda Blvd, Ste 210, Placentia, CA 92870
General payments
$11,298
Research payments
$0
Ownership & investment interest
$0
Research they led as principal investigator
$23,641
Through program year 2025, Albert Lai of Placentia, CA is reported in the CMS Open Payments database as having received $11,298 across 223 general payments and $0 in research payments paid to them. Separately, studies naming them as principal investigator received $23,641 in research payments, paid to institutions rather than to them.
No combined total General, research and ownership are kept apart. Each is reported under its own rules, and ownership is not money that moved at all but the value of a stake held. A meal, a clinical trial grant and a shareholding do not add up to anything meaningful, so this site does not add them. The principal-investigator line is research money paid to institutions for studies they led — not to them — and is not added to anything either.
General payments for this record sit in the 83rd percentile of Pain Medicine profiles with reported payments. Percentile describes the distribution, not the conduct.
By program year
7 rows| Year | Kind | Relative to this record's peak year | Amount | Records |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | General | $24 | 1 | |
| 2024 | General | $436 | 20 | |
| 2023 | General | $1,108 | 44 | |
| 2022 | General | $804 | 34 | |
| 2021 | General | $490 | 26 | |
| 2020 | General | $331 | 13 | |
| 2019 | General | $8,105 | 85 |
Beside peers
- Albert Lai
- Pain Medicine median
- Middle half of Pain Medicine
- National median
In program year 2025, general payments to Albert Lai were reported at $24. Among 757 Pain Medicine profiles paid that year, the median was $470 and the middle half received between $146 and $1,462.
Show as a table
| Year | Albert Lai | Pain Medicine median | Middle half | National median |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | $8,105 | $506 | $144–$1,566 | $163 |
| 2020 | $331 | $315 | $96–$934 | $114 |
| 2021 | $490 | $452 | $134–$1,237 | $132 |
| 2022 | $804 | $475 | $124–$1,407 | $149 |
| 2023 | $1,108 | $480 | $136–$1,384 | $160 |
| 2024 | $436 | $521 | $164–$1,511 | $164 |
| 2025 | $24 | $470 | $146–$1,462 | $169 |
Breakdown
A payment can name more than one product, so these amounts overlap and do not add up to the general-payment figure.
Prescribing to Medicare patients
Part D · data year 2024 · 39 drugsPart D claims
2,064
Drug cost
$163,155
Branded share of claims
37.2%
| Drug | Type | Relative to their largest | Claims | Drug cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oxycontin Oxycodone Hcl | Brand | 62 | $57,248 | |
| Oxycodone-Acetaminophen Oxycodone Hcl/Acetaminophen | Brand | 153 | $21,703 | |
| Oxymorphone Hcl Er Oxymorphone Hcl | Brand | 11 | $15,366 | |
| Botox Onabotulinumtoxina | Brand | 19 | $13,536 | |
| Belbuca Buprenorphine Hcl | Brand | 15 | $10,828 | |
| Hydrocodone-Acetaminophen Hydrocodone/Acetaminophen | Brand | 330 | $8,074 | |
| Morphine Sulfate Er Morphine Sulfate | Brand | 152 | $4,595 | |
| Sumatriptan | Generic | 22 | $4,169 | |
| Buprenorphine | Generic | 20 | $3,934 | |
| Oxycodone Hcl | Generic | 155 | $3,729 |
The 10 drugs with the highest cost, of 39 counted.
Drug cost is what was paid for the drugs at the pharmacy — by Medicare, the patient and others — and is not money to the prescriber. Medicare Part D only: drugs dispensed to Medicare beneficiaries. A drug with fewer than 11 claims for this prescriber is not published, so a missing drug does not mean zero. The medians are for the 1,476 Part D prescribers listed as Interventional Pain Management; they describe a distribution and say nothing about conduct.
Billing to Medicare
Part B · data year 2024 · 53 billing codesPaid by Medicare
$232,213
Medicare patients
363
Services billed
3,969
| Condition among their Medicare patients | Relative to the most common | Share of patients |
|---|---|---|
| Arthritis | 75% | |
| High blood pressure | 72% | |
| Depression | 41% | |
| Diabetes | 35% | |
| Chronic kidney disease | 28% | |
| Ischemic heart disease | 26% | |
| Osteoporosis | 23% | |
| COPD | 19% |
| Drug given in the clinic | Where | Patients | Services | Paid by Medicare |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Injection, dexamethasone sodium phosphate, 1 mg J1100 | Office | 68 | 1,321 | $118 |
| Injection, bupivicaine, not otherwise specified, 0.5 mg J0665 | Office | 38 | 55 | $1 |
Medicare Part B only: services billed to Medicare. Rows covering fewer than 11 beneficiaries are not published. Only drugs given in the clinic are itemised here; the rest of what this provider billed is in the total above.
Payments and prescribing
2 products · payments 2024Two separate records. The payments come from Open Payments and the claims from Medicare. They are set side by side because they name the same product; they do not show that a payment affected a prescription.
| Product | Paid by | Related payments | Part D claims | Part B services |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PROLATE |
|
$255 | — | — |
| NALOCET |
|
$64 | — | — |
A dash means Medicare published no figure for this doctor and product — fewer than 11 claims, or the product is not covered under that part — which is not the same as none. Payments are general payments only; one that names several products is split evenly between them, so an amount is payments related to the product, not money paid for it.
Records
223 reportedEvery payment, record by record
Date, company, amount, what it was for and the product named — filter by year, kind and company, or download as CSV.
Related records
Pain Medicine in California
Practitioners in the same specialty and state, ranked by reported value.
All Pain Medicine
Everyone recorded under this specialty, nationwide.
Doctors in California
Every practitioner in the state with a reported payment.
How to read this page
What each amount means, and what it does not mean.
What this means
U.S. law requires drug and medical device manufacturers to report payments and transfers of value they make to physicians and teaching hospitals. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services publishes that record each year. This page shows what was reported about this person, and nothing else.
An ownership interest is different from the other two. It is not a payment: it is a stake — shares, options, a partnership holding — that a physician or an immediate family member held in a manufacturer during that year. The figure shown is what the stake was reported to be worth.
Research payments frequently pass through a clinician to the institution running a trial, and rarely represent personal income. They should be read differently from general payments.