Where NavMDs data comes from

NavMDs is an independent directory. Doctors and practices cannot pay to remove a review, change a patient-reported price, or buy a higher position. Some pages carry clearly labeled offers from third parties (see our affiliate disclosure); those never change what a profile says about a doctor.

• NPI. Each doctor is matched to their National Provider Identifier in the CMS NPI Registry (NPPES) using name, phone, city, state and specialty. Uncertain matches are reviewed by hand rather than published. An NPI identifies a provider; it does not by itself show licensure or board certification.
• Board certification. Shown as the doctor lists it on their public profiles. We remove the claim when the NPI registry lists a clearly different clinical specialty. Certifying boards offer no public API, so other certification claims are not independently confirmed.
• License status. When a doctor's license or account is listed as anything other than active (for example on probation, inactive or surrendered), the status is shown on the profile and the doctor cannot be booked through NavMDs.
• Federal exclusions and industry payments. Doctors are checked against the HHS Office of Inspector General exclusion list (LEIE) and against CMS Open Payments, which reports payments from drug and device makers. Payment totals are shown with the payer context CMS publishes.

Prices on a doctor's profile

Each price is the average of the total costs patients reported in their own published reviews of that doctor, grouped by procedure. Under every price the profile shows the number of reports in the average and the years those reviews were written, for example “Average of 3 patient reports · 2016–2023”. The current set holds about 16,700 cost reports for about 5,800 doctors, from reviews written between 2007 and 2024.

• Prices are not adjusted for inflation. A report from 2014 is shown at its 2014 amount, which is why the years are printed next to it.
• A price is what one or a few patients paid. It is not a quote, and it may include or exclude anesthesia, facility and implant fees depending on what the patient reported.
• Outliers. A single reported cost is removed when it is implausible for the procedure: $1,000,000 or more, placeholder values such as $999,999, at least $100,000 and three or more times the national median for that procedure, or at least $20,000 and eight or more times that median. Reconstructive, gender-affirming and bariatric procedures, which are often billed to insurance at much higher amounts, are only removed above $250,000. Removed values are kept in our records and never reappear on a refresh.
• Estimates a practice gives us, and prices published on a practice's own website, are shown in separate, labeled blocks and are never mixed into the patient-reported average.

“Typical” local price ranges

Next to a doctor's price we show where it falls against other doctors nearby: the middle half of reported prices (25th to 75th percentile) and the median, for the doctor's city when at least 4 reports exist, otherwise the state, otherwise the U.S.

State cost guides

Our state cost guides count each doctor once per procedure (their lowest reported price), so one doctor with many reviews cannot dominate a state. A procedure is shown only when at least 8 doctors in the state have a reported price; a guide is published only when the procedure it is named for meets that bar. The range shown runs from the 10th to the 90th percentile, with the 25th to 75th percentile as the typical range and the median marked. City rows appear only where at least 2 doctors have a reported price, so a single quote never stands in for a city.

A profile's rating combines the doctor's published rating and review count from public review platforms with reviews written on NavMDs. Reviews submitted on NavMDs pass automated checks for spam, abuse and authenticity, and anything uncertain is held for a person to review. We do not delete negative reviews at a doctor's request or for payment.

Statements in a profile's “In their own words” section come from the doctor's own public Instagram and TikTok posts. Each one links to the post it came from and is worded as the doctor's claim, not as NavMDs medical advice. When an account is shared by several doctors (a group practice or hospital account), a statement is attributed to a doctor only if the post names that doctor and no other.

Profiles are re-checked automatically: daily for doctors who recently claimed, edited or contacted us about their profile, monthly against the NPI registry and the federal exclusion list for every doctor, and quarterly against each practice's website, review platforms and social accounts. Differences are either applied automatically, queued for a person to review, or flagged, depending on the field.

If something on a profile is wrong, email support [at] navmds.com or claim the profile. A correction a doctor or office gives us is locked, so a later data refresh cannot overwrite it.