How the rankings are made

Every count comes from one public file: CMS's Medicare Physician & Other Practitioners — by Provider and Service, 2024, with 2023 for the change column.

What is counted

For each procedure, the services a physician billed to Medicare under their own NPI for the CPT codes listed on its page, across every place of service. Where a procedure has alternative codes for the same operation (cataract surgery with or without a complex lens), they are added together. Codes that are billed together in one session are ranked separately.

Only physicians and podiatrists are ranked. Physician assistants, nurse practitioners and facilities also bill some of these codes and are left out. Ranks are shared on a tie.

What a rank does not tell you

• Quality. Higher volume is associated with better average outcomes for many operations, but a rank says nothing about any one physician's results.
• All patients. Medicare fee-for-service only, mostly people over 65. Medicare Advantage, private insurance and younger patients are not in the file.
• Small numbers. CMS withholds any count under 11, so a physician with fewer does not appear at all.
• Assisting. The file does not separate a surgeon from a physician who assisted and billed the same code.

Corrections and money

A wrong name, specialty or city comes from the physician's NPI record; write to support@surgicalvolume.com and it is checked against CMS. Counts are not edited by hand. A physician can pay $149 once per data year for unmarked certificates and a link to the practice website. That never changes a rank, and the badge is free either way.

Surgical Volume is run by ALGD LTD and is not affiliated with CMS, Medicare or any hospital.