Location decision tool
The same operation pays differently in every market
Medicare adjusts payment for geography through published indices. Pick your specialty and see how its real top procedures price across all 109 official payment localities. A labeled, official-data view of payment geography, not a cost-of-living verdict.
Common questions
What exactly is being ranked?
Each specialty's top Medicare-paid procedures are priced in every official Medicare payment locality using that locality's GPCIs (the geographic indices CMS applies to work, practice expense, and malpractice RVUs). The index shows where identical clinical work collects more or less from Medicare.
Is this cost of living?
No. It's practice-payment geography. A locality can pay 10% more while costing 40% more to live in. Weigh it together with state taxes, commercial payer mix, malpractice environment, and housing, which this tool deliberately does not blend in.
Why do high-cost cities rank high?
GPCIs partially compensate for local practice costs (rent, wages, malpractice premiums), so expensive markets index above 100%. The statutory 1.0 work-GPCI floor also lifts rural localities. Neither is a verdict on take-home value.
Where does the data come from?
CMS's official PFS relative value files and GPCI Addendum E, refreshed by the same automated pipeline as the RVU calculator; the dataset version is published on the methodology page.