Medicare procedure volumes now visible again
July 29, 2019
Starting in 2014, we integrated procedure information from Medicare. Procedure volume can be a crude but helpful proxy for many surgeries, with research showing that surgeons who have experience performing a procedure often have better outcomes for the procedure. Likewise, patients who need to pay out-of-pocket or who have a high-deductible might be interested in estimates of what a provider might charge. Medicare provides average price submitted by providers for a variety of procedures. To get a sense of how this looks on the search results page, try searching for a procedure like "hip replacement" or "x-ray" in a major city.
Over the last eighteen months, we have re-worked how we stored the data, and for several months, had removed the procedure information from the search results page during the transition. We are pleased to announce that the procedure information is now available on the search results page again, with the ability to sort by procedure volume or price.