How to read this number

Every clinician page on this site shows two figures: a procedure count published by CMS, and a percentile we calculate from that same data. This page explains what each one can and cannot tell you.

The count may be higher or lower than the actual total

The count reflects procedures billed to Original Medicare and Medicare Advantage over the most recent 12 months reported by CMS. It does not include commercial insurance, self-pay, Veterans Affairs, military health, or Medicaid. A clinician who treats many commercially insured, self-pay, or younger patients will appear lower here than their real practice volume, because those procedures are not in Medicare's data at all.

Two things push in the other direction. CMS adds up several billing codes to produce one figure, so a single count can cover more than one kind of procedure: for cataract, both lens replacement surgery and YAG laser capsulotomy. Billing variation and coding errors can also pass through the exclusions CMS applies.

So the number on the page may be higher or lower than the clinician's actual total. Which way, and by how much, depends on their patient mix and their billing. No published source states it, so we do not estimate it.

1 to 10 is a range, not a zero

When a clinician's count is 10 or below, CMS reports the range 1-10 instead of an exact number, to protect patient privacy. We show that range exactly as CMS publishes it. It does not mean zero, and a clinician who is absent from the file entirely has not been shown to perform zero procedures either. Absence is not evidence.

The percentile is the more comparable figure

Because the Medicare coverage gap affects clinicians across the board, a clinician's position relative to peers is more robust than the raw count. The percentile on our pages compares each clinician only with others of the same credential: for cataract surgery, each ophthalmologist against all 13,344 ophthalmologists CMS lists nationally. We compute it ourselves, using CMS's own comparison method with the narrower group, and each clinician page says so in its National Percentile Calculation section.

What volume can and cannot tell you

Across many types of surgery, studies have found that clinicians who perform a procedure more often tend, on average, to have better outcomes. That is why we think this number is worth publishing: it is one of the few facts about a surgeon's practice a patient can check from public records.

But a count is not a quality score. This site reports how often a procedure was billed. It does not report outcomes, complications, or whether care was appropriate, and it is not a recommendation. A higher number does not mean a better surgeon for you, and a lower number here may simply mean a practice with fewer Medicare patients. Volume is one fact among many worth discussing with your own doctor.

No trends, ever

CMS's reporting window is a rolling 12 months that shifts with every release, so consecutive releases overlap. Comparing this release's number with the last one would not measure change in anyone's practice, which is why no page on this site shows a trend, an arrow, or a change from last year.

Current data: CMS release of June 2026. Every figure on this site comes from the Medicare Care Compare clinician utilization file published by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.