Who does the most procedures, and what gets paid?
The public records hold what every doctor billed Medicare, what procedure, how often, how many patients, what was charged, and what was actually paid. But it's far too large to scroll through and too detailed to add up by hand, so the obvious questions go unasked. Made easy to ask, it ranks procedures and doctors by how much they do, and reveals how much the payment varies for the very same procedure.
The detail is there, the view isn't.
The records carry a line for nearly every doctor-and-procedure combination Medicare paid for, the procedure, how many times it was done, how many patients, what was charged, what was allowed, and what was paid. Everything you'd want to know about how much work was done and what it cost is in there. The problem is sheer size, millions of lines that no spreadsheet opens and no person ranks by hand, which is why the patterns sit unexamined.
Made easy to ask, the questions become simple. You can rank procedures by how often they're done or by total dollars paid, rank doctors within a procedure, and work out the payment per procedure for the same work across different doctors and places, so the variation, who gets paid more for the identical procedure, becomes visible instead of buried in records too big to read.
Questions you can finally ask.
Each is a question you simply ask and get an answer to, not a three-week analysis project.
Which procedures drive the most Medicare payment?
Rank procedures by how often they're done and total dollars paid to see where the program's spending actually concentrates.
Who are the highest-volume doctors for a procedure?
List the doctors performing a given procedure most often, with the patients and dollars behind each.
How much does the payment vary?
Work out the payment for the same procedure across different doctors to expose how wide the spread really is.
Where is the gap between charge and payment widest?
Compare what's charged against what's allowed and paid by procedure to see where list charges run furthest from reality.
Which doctors concentrate on a single procedure?
Surface doctors whose work is dominated by one high-value procedure, a useful flag for patterns worth a closer look.
How does the payment differ by region?
Hold the procedure steady and compare the payment across regions to see how location moves the number.
What the answer pulls together.
Each doctor and procedure
A line for each doctor-and-procedure combination, so how much work was done and what was paid is comparable doctor to doctor.
How much was done
How many times each procedure was performed and how many patients it involved, the two ways to size a doctor's volume.
What was charged and paid
What was charged, what was allowed, and what Medicare paid, the figures that reveal the payment per procedure and the charge-to-pay gap.
Everything you'd want to know about who does what, and what Medicare paid, is in these records. The only thing stopping you was that they're too big to open. So I made them easy to ask.
What people ask about this.
Does a high payment mean overcharging?
No, and it shouldn't be read that way, the payment varies for legitimate reasons, how complex the case is, the setting, and regional adjustments among them. What you get is the spread for the same procedure, which is the starting point for asking why, not a verdict. The value is surfacing the outliers fast so a person can look at the ones that matter.
Is this every procedure a doctor does?
It's what Medicare paid for, a large and consistent slice but not a doctor's entire practice, since other insurers aren't in here. So read it as the Medicare view of volume and payment, which is the most consistent national lens at this level of detail. For Medicare-heavy specialties that's most of the picture; for others it's a representative sample.
How current is the answer?
It stays current on its own. When new information is published, it's already in there, so you're asking against today's picture, not a year-old extract.
Want this ranked
for your procedure?
Whether you're a payer, a practice sizing yourself up, or a researcher, I can get you the exact volume-and-payment answer you care about.