Breast cancer surgery clinicians
CMS lists 5,421 clinicians with a primary specialty of General Surgery or Surgical Oncology who have billed Medicare for at least one mastectomy procedure (details below).
States and territories
# of clinicians performing mastectomies
- Alabama 146
- Alaska 36
- Arizona 96
- Arkansas 55
- California 534
- Colorado 93
- Connecticut 64
- Delaware 12
- District of Columbia 22
- Florida 352
- Georgia 191
- Guam 3
- Hawaii 34
- Idaho 40
- Illinois 204
- Indiana 138
- Iowa 79
- Kansas 66
- Kentucky 107
- Louisiana 98
- Maine 24
- Maryland 83
- Massachusetts 102
- Michigan 160
- Minnesota 126
- Mississippi 85
- Missouri 104
- Montana 26
- Nebraska 48
- Nevada 40
- New Hampshire 29
- New Jersey 132
- New Mexico 35
- New York 292
- North Carolina 167
- North Dakota 27
- Northern Mariana Islands 1
- Ohio 222
- Oklahoma 58
- Oregon 85
- Pennsylvania 188
- Puerto Rico 68
- Rhode Island 14
- South Carolina 95
- South Dakota 24
- Tennessee 163
- Texas 377
- U.S. Virgin Islands 3
- Utah 48
- Vermont 15
- Virginia 129
- Washington 119
- West Virginia 48
- Wisconsin 140
- Wyoming 27
A clinician who practices in more than one state is counted in each state.
Understanding CMS Data
CMS's "Mastectomy" category combines specific billing codes for breast surgery to calculate the number of times each clinician billed Medicare for a "Mastectomy." These include partial removal of the breast (lumpectomy); removal of the whole breast, with or without underarm lymph nodes; breast reconstruction after mastectomy; implant and implant-capsule procedures; breast lift and reduction; placement of a radiation device during surgery; and surgery for enlarged male breast tissue. CMS reports only procedures that clinicians billed to Original Medicare and Medicare Advantage. Therefore, CMS's procedure volume data does not include procedures that clinicians may have performed on patients who have other health care coverage (e.g., commercial insurance, self-pay, or the VA). Billing variation and coding errors can also affect CMS's data. Therefore, the number of procedures that CMS reports for a clinician may be higher or lower than the actual number of mastectomy procedures a clinician performed during the reporting period. Lastly, only clinicians with a primary specialty of General Surgery or Surgical Oncology (as reported to Medicare) are presented.
Source: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (October 2, 2026 release).
National Percentile Calculation
Who this section includes
CMS lists 11,394 clinicians in its "Mastectomy" category. This section covers the 5,421 with a primary specialty of General Surgery or Surgical Oncology (as reported to Medicare) and leaves out the other 5,973.
How the percentile works
CMS publishes its own percentile for this data using a single, national pool that also includes clinicians with other primary specialties, such as Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Physician Assistant and Nurse Practitioner. We use CMS's percentile formula, but restrict the comparison group to clinicians with a primary specialty of General Surgery or Surgical Oncology, so our number answers a narrower question: how does this clinician's procedure volume compare with other clinicians who billed Medicare for at least one mastectomy procedure and reported one of those as their primary specialty?
CMS reports a count between 1 and 10 as "1-10" to protect patient privacy. Every clinician with a 1-10 count sits below every clinician with an exact count, so a clinician page shows their percentile as "56% or below" in the October 2, 2026 release.
Reading the volume chart
Reading the curve: find a volume along the bottom, and the line gives the percentile of clinicians with a primary specialty of General Surgery or Surgical Oncology at or below it. The shaded block covers the 3,027 clinicians CMS reports as 1-10, because CMS suppresses counts below 11. The axis runs from 0 to 263, the highest count CMS reports in the group, and gives low counts more room than high ones so the whole range fits. The labels under the axis mark the 25th percentile, the median and the 75th percentile; the 25th percentile and the median fall inside the 1-10 range.
Source: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (October 2, 2026 release).
| Percentile | Mastectomy Procedures billed to Medicare |
|---|---|
| 60th | 13 |
| 70th | 20 |
| 80th | 29 |
| 90th | 46 |
| Highest | 263 |
About CMS data releases
CMS refreshes this data "on a quarterly basis, as technically feasible." Each release counts procedures over what CMS describes as "a one-year observation window, with a lookback beginning three months prior to the present day", allowing three months for claims to be submitted and processed. CMS does not publish the start and end dates of the window behind any release, and consecutive releases may cover overlapping periods, or the same period with later-arriving claims added.