Who Paid My Doc
Joseph Mele
Plastic Surgery Walnut Creek, CA Medical Doctor
NPI 1851388003 CMS profile 356136
130 La Casa Via, Building 2, Suite 206, Walnut Creek, CA 94598
General payments
$9,498
Research payments
$3,750
Ownership & investment interest
$0
Research they led as principal investigator
$2,300
Through program year 2025, Joseph Mele of Walnut Creek, CA is reported in the CMS Open Payments database as having received $9,498 across 93 general payments and $3,750 in research payments paid to them. Separately, studies naming them as principal investigator received $2,300 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 86th percentile of Plastic Surgery profiles with reported payments. Percentile describes the distribution, not the conduct.
By program year
11 rows| Year | Kind | Relative to this record's peak year | Amount | Records |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | General | $2,264 | 10 | |
| 2024 | General | $1,576 | 12 | |
| 2023 | General | $1,620 | 17 | |
| 2022 | General | $928 | 13 | |
| 2022 | Research | $250 | 1 | |
| 2021 | General | $1,434 | 18 | |
| 2021 | Research | $1,250 | 1 | |
| 2020 | General | $315 | 6 | |
| 2020 | Research | $500 | 1 | |
| 2019 | General | $1,360 | 17 | |
| 2019 | Research | $1,750 | 7 |
Beside peers
- Joseph Mele
- Plastic Surgery median
- Middle half of Plastic Surgery
- National median
In program year 2025, general payments to Joseph Mele were reported at $2,264. Among 3,701 Plastic Surgery profiles paid that year, the median was $379 and the middle half received between $138 and $1,100.
Show as a table
| Year | Joseph Mele | Plastic Surgery median | Middle half | National median |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | $1,360 | $371 | $122–$1,483 | $163 |
| 2020 | $315 | $158 | $52–$438 | $114 |
| 2021 | $1,434 | $249 | $87–$752 | $132 |
| 2022 | $928 | $274 | $102–$793 | $149 |
| 2023 | $1,620 | $299 | $113–$891 | $160 |
| 2024 | $1,576 | $361 | $124–$1,062 | $164 |
| 2025 | $2,264 | $379 | $138–$1,100 | $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 · 2 drugsPart D claims
33
Drug cost
$239
Branded share of claims
39.4%
| Drug | Type | Relative to their largest | Claims | Drug cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cephalexin | Generic | 20 | $128 | |
| Hydrocodone-Acetaminophen Hydrocodone/Acetaminophen | Brand | 13 | $110 |
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 700 Part D prescribers listed as Plastic Surgery; they describe a distribution and say nothing about conduct.
Records
103 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.
Other Plastic Surgery in California
Related records
Plastic Surgery in California
Practitioners in the same specialty and state, ranked by reported value.
All Plastic Surgery
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.