Physical Therapy (Manual Therapy) Cost in California
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$30.47California physician fee2026 Medicare office rate- ✓Your ZIP's wage-adjusted hospital and surgery centre rates
- ✓Five nearby hospitals by name, with CMS star ratings
- ✓The add-on codes that typically land on the bill
- ✓A word-for-word script for asking for a good-faith estimate
- ✓A private link you can reopen and share
- ✓Everything in the Premium report
- ✓15 nearby hospitals instead of five
- ✓Filled good-faith-estimate request letter
- ✓Bill-negotiation letter
- ✓Printable PDF download
California Medicare physician rate (2026)
+9.9% vs nationalAverage of 29 localities. Office range $29.06–$34.91.
Your ZIP in California
A ZIP-level lookup matters more in California than in any other state; compare your area, whether that is the Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento, the Central Valley, or the rural north.
What physical therapy (manual therapy) costs at hospitals near you
Everything above is a national average. The hospital you pick in California moves the bill more than anything else you control.
Rates for your ZIP, 5 named hospitals with CMS ratings, the add-on codes, and the scheduler script.
One-off payment, no account and no subscription. You get a private link and an email. No medical records and no insurance card, ever.
What these numbers are
Every figure on this page is a 2026 Medicare allowed amount: the physician line comes from the Physician Fee Schedule adjusted by geographic practice-cost indices, and the facility totals come from the CMS hospital outpatient (OPPS) and ambulatory surgery centre rates. None of them is a hospital chargemaster price, your insurer's contracted rate, or a quote. Anesthesia, pathology, imaging reads and follow-up care are billed under their own codes when they apply, and an inpatient stay is paid a different way again.
National vs California
Where California ranks for this CPT
CPT 97140 by California locality
| Locality | Office |
|---|---|
| san jose-sunnyvale-santa clara (san benito cnty) | $34.91 |
| san jose-sunnyvale-santa clara (santa clara cnty) | $34.86 |
| san francisco-oakland-berkeley (marin cnty) | $34.25 |
| san francisco-oakland-berkeley (san francisco/san mateo/alameda/contra costa cnty) | $34.24 |
| napa | $32.61 |
| vallejo | $32.59 |
| santa rosa-petaluma | $30.97 |
| santa cruz-watsonville | $30.67 |
| los angeles-long beach-anaheim (los angeles/orange cnty) | $30.58 |
| san diego-chula vista-carlsbad | $30.55 |
| oxnard-thousand oaks-ventura | $30.37 |
| sacramento-roseville-folsom | $30.21 |
| santa maria-santa barbara | $30.13 |
| salinas | $30.08 |
| san luis obispo-paso robles | $29.62 |
| riverside-san bernardino-ontario | $29.18 |
| bakersfield | $29.12 |
| chico | $29.06 |
| el centro | $29.06 |
| fresno | $29.06 |
| hanford-corcoran | $29.06 |
| madera | $29.06 |
| merced | $29.06 |
| modesto | $29.06 |
| redding | $29.06 |
| stockton | $29.06 |
| visalia | $29.06 |
| yuba city | $29.06 |
| rest of california | $29.06 |
PE GPCI ranges from 1.096 to 1.442 in California. That index is why the same CPT is not one price statewide.
Physical Therapy (Manual Therapy) and how California is priced
California is the most finely divided state in the Medicare fee schedule, with roughly thirty payment localities drawn around metropolitan statistical areas after CMS reformed the state's locality map. The San Francisco Bay Area carries some of the highest geographic adjustments in the nation, with San Francisco, San Jose, and the East Bay each priced separately, while Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, and Sacramento have their own localities at somewhat lower levels. Rural and inland counties fall into lower-cost localities, so the same procedure can carry meaningfully different Medicare-approved amounts within a single day's drive. No other state shows this much in-state variation on the fee schedule itself.
California's markets differ sharply: the Bay Area combines high wages with heavily consolidated hospital systems, Los Angeles offers enormous choice across a sprawling region, and the Central Valley and far north face genuine access shortages. Where you are treated within the state matters more here than almost anywhere else in the country. Academic medical centers in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Sacramento handle much of the complex referral care.
This procedure: Manual therapy is the hands-on treatment code of physical therapy: joint mobilization, soft tissue work, manual stretching, and manipulation performed directly by the therapist's hands, billed in 15-minute units. It addresses stiffness, restricted joints, and muscle tightness, and typically occupies one unit within a session that also includes exercise. Patients experience it as targeted, sometimes intense, hands-on work on the problem area.
What Is Physical Therapy (Manual Therapy)?
Manual therapy is the hands-on treatment code of physical therapy: joint mobilization, soft tissue work, manual stretching, and manipulation performed directly by the therapist's hands, billed in 15-minute units. It addresses stiffness, restricted joints, and muscle tightness, and typically occupies one unit within a session that also includes exercise. Patients experience it as targeted, sometimes intense, hands-on work on the problem area.
What Affects the Cost
- –Like all timed PT codes, it bills per 15-minute unit, and it usually appears alongside therapeutic exercise units, adding a line to every visit's bill.
- –Chiropractors and PTs both bill this code, and payer rules about billing it on the same day as spinal manipulation create claim complications in chiropractic settings.
- –The share of your session spent hands-on versus exercising shifts the code mix and the total.
- –Hospital-based clinics layer facility fees on top of professional charges for identical treatment.
- –Extended courses for chronic conditions accumulate this add-on unit across dozens of visits.
Questions to Ask Before Booking
- 1.How many minutes of hands-on manual therapy will my sessions actually include?
- 2.Will this be billed alongside exercise units, and what does the combined session cost?
- 3.If I am seeing a chiropractor, will billing this with manipulation cause claim denials on my plan?
- 4.Does the treatment plan justify manual therapy at every visit, or only early on?
- 5.How does dropping or adding this unit change my per-visit cost?
Other featured procedures in California
Physical Therapy (Manual Therapy) in other states
Physical Therapy (Manual Therapy) in California: questions
The 2026 Medicare physician office rate for CPT 97140 averages $30.47 across 29 California localities, from $29.06 in CHICO to $34.91 in SAN JOSE-SUNNYVALE-SANTA CLARA (SAN BENITO CNTY). The hospital physician rate averages $30.47. Enter a ZIP for the exact locality.
Yes. CMS splits California into 29 payment localities. For this CPT the office physician fee spans $5.85 from the lowest to highest locality. A ZIP-level lookup matters more in California than in any other state; compare your area, whether that is the Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento, the Central Valley, or the rural north.
After the Part B deductible, coinsurance is usually 20% of the allowed amount: about $6 for the office physician line or $6 for the hospital physician line in California. Medigap may cover that 20%. This is not the hospital facility fee.
No. $30.47 is the Medicare physician allowed amount for CPT 97140. Anesthesia, facility fees, implants, and other CPT codes billed the same day are extra. California ranks #49 of 51 states on this physician line (10% above the national office rate of $27.72).