About SurgeryCostGuide

SurgeryCostGuide is an independent research site that compiles US surgery and medical procedure costs from federal claims data, professional society benchmarks, and regional price indices. We aggregate what other sources fragment: a single state-adjusted cost figure for 62 procedures, with the source for every number cited on the page where it appears.

We are not affiliated with any hospital, surgeon, insurer, or financing company. The site carries no paid placements and accepts no editorial influence from facilities or device manufacturers.

Editor

Susan Park — Editor & Founder

Susan's background is in health-policy research and price-transparency analysis. She built SurgeryCostGuide after spending years inside the federal data ecosystem — CMS Provider Utilization files, the ASPS statistical reports, and Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Price Parities — and finding that no consumer-facing site was combining them coherently at the state level.

Editorial questions, data corrections, methodology disputes: susan@surgerycostguide.com.

What we do

For each procedure, we publish:

• A national typical cost range (25th–75th percentile) derived from ASPS and Fair Health benchmarks
• State-level estimates using BEA Regional Price Parity adjustment
• Facility-level negotiated rates from CMS Medicare data — the actual amount insurers paid, not the inflated list price
• Insurance coverage classification with notes on when each procedure is typically covered
• Medicare-specific pricing where applicable, separated from commercial rates

Every number on the site is traceable to a public dataset. See our full methodology for source links, the state-adjustment formula, and limitations.

Editorial standards

Sourcing. Every cost figure cites either CMS, ASPS, BEA, or Fair Health. We do not publish numbers from secondary sources without verifying the upstream data.

Updates. The CMS Medicare claims dataset is refreshed annually; ASPS statistics arrive in early Q2. We re-run our pipeline when each new release lands and date the regenerated content. Significant methodology changes are logged on the methodology page.

Corrections. If you find a discrepancy between our numbers and the underlying CMS or ASPS source, email susan@surgerycostguide.com. Verified corrections are typically published within a week and noted in the methodology changelog.

No medical advice. Cost data is for budgeting and comparison. Pre-authorization letters from your insurer and itemized written estimates from the facility — both of which the law requires on request — are the only definitive sources for what your specific procedure will cost.

Data sources

• CMS Medicare Provider Utilization and Payment Data — facility-level case volumes, billed charges, and Medicare-negotiated rates for every hospital and ambulatory surgery center accepting Medicare
• American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) Annual Statistics — surgeon-fee benchmarks for cosmetic and reconstructive procedures
• Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Price Parities (RPP) — state-level cost-of-living index used to adjust national figures
• Fair Health Consumer Data — cross-reference benchmarks for dental and diagnostic procedures

All four are public, government or professional-society data. None are paywalled.