Colonoscopy clinicians
CMS lists 17,004 clinicians with a primary specialty of Gastroenterology, Internal Medicine, Family Practice, or General Practice who have billed Medicare for at least one colonoscopy (details below).
States and territories
# of clinicians performing colonoscopies
- Alabama 246
- Alaska 46
- Arizona 338
- Arkansas 137
- California 1,808
- Colorado 298
- Connecticut 268
- Delaware 59
- District of Columbia 117
- Florida 1,227
- Georgia 507
- Guam 2
- Hawaii 81
- Idaho 105
- Illinois 769
- Indiana 382
- Iowa 158
- Kansas 167
- Kentucky 218
- Louisiana 234
- Maine 85
- Maryland 414
- Massachusetts 537
- Michigan 460
- Minnesota 346
- Mississippi 133
- Missouri 353
- Montana 89
- Nebraska 149
- Nevada 105
- New Hampshire 98
- New Jersey 709
- New Mexico 96
- New York 1,554
- North Carolina 564
- North Dakota 51
- Ohio 628
- Oklahoma 142
- Oregon 231
- Pennsylvania 860
- Puerto Rico 224
- Rhode Island 69
- South Carolina 278
- South Dakota 55
- Tennessee 312
- Texas 1,250
- U.S. Virgin Islands 11
- Utah 145
- Vermont 27
- Virginia 479
- Washington 385
- West Virginia 93
- Wisconsin 326
- Wyoming 15
A clinician who practices in more than one state is counted in each state.
Understanding CMS Data
CMS's "Colonoscopy" category combines specific billing codes for colonoscopy to calculate the number of times each clinician billed Medicare for a "Colonoscopy." These include screening colonoscopy, diagnostic colonoscopy, and colonoscopy with biopsy or polyp removal. CMS's list also includes flexible sigmoidoscopy and laparoscopic appendectomy, so a clinician's count may include those procedures. CMS counts one procedure per patient per day, so a colonoscopy that included both a biopsy and a polyp removal counts once. 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 colonoscopies a clinician performed during the reporting period. Lastly, only clinicians with a primary specialty of Gastroenterology, Internal Medicine, Family Practice, or General Practice (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 33,690 clinicians in its "Colonoscopy" category. This section covers the 17,004 with a primary specialty of Gastroenterology, Internal Medicine, Family Practice, or General Practice (as reported to Medicare) and leaves out the other 16,686.
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 General Surgery, Colorectal Surgery, Physician Assistant and Nurse Practitioner. We use CMS's percentile formula, but restrict the comparison group to clinicians with a primary specialty of Gastroenterology, Internal Medicine, Family Practice, or General Practice, 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 colonoscopy 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 "13% 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 Gastroenterology, Internal Medicine, Family Practice, or General Practice at or below it. The shaded block covers the 2,202 clinicians CMS reports as 1-10, because CMS suppresses counts below 11. The axis runs from 0 to 1,538, 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.
Source: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (October 2, 2026 release).
| Percentile | Colonoscopies billed to Medicare |
|---|---|
| 20th | 21 |
| 30th | 37 |
| 40th | 52 |
| 50th | 70 |
| 60th | 90 |
| 70th | 116 |
| 80th | 150 |
| 90th | 209 |
| Highest | 1,538 |
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.