Physical Therapy (Therapeutic Exercise) Cost in California
Therapeutic exercises
$31.95California 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 $30.47–$36.61.
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 (therapeutic exercise) 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 97110 by California locality
| Locality | Office |
|---|---|
| san jose-sunnyvale-santa clara (san benito cnty) | $36.61 |
| san jose-sunnyvale-santa clara (santa clara cnty) | $36.56 |
| san francisco-oakland-berkeley (marin cnty) | $35.92 |
| san francisco-oakland-berkeley (san francisco/san mateo/alameda/contra costa cnty) | $35.91 |
| napa | $34.20 |
| vallejo | $34.18 |
| santa rosa-petaluma | $32.48 |
| santa cruz-watsonville | $32.16 |
| los angeles-long beach-anaheim (los angeles/orange cnty) | $32.07 |
| san diego-chula vista-carlsbad | $32.04 |
| oxnard-thousand oaks-ventura | $31.85 |
| sacramento-roseville-folsom | $31.68 |
| santa maria-santa barbara | $31.60 |
| salinas | $31.55 |
| san luis obispo-paso robles | $31.06 |
| riverside-san bernardino-ontario | $30.59 |
| bakersfield | $30.53 |
| el centro | $30.48 |
| chico | $30.47 |
| fresno | $30.47 |
| hanford-corcoran | $30.47 |
| madera | $30.47 |
| merced | $30.47 |
| modesto | $30.47 |
| redding | $30.47 |
| stockton | $30.47 |
| visalia | $30.47 |
| yuba city | $30.47 |
| rest of california | $30.47 |
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 (Therapeutic Exercise) 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: Therapeutic exercise is the foundational hands-on-guidance code of physical therapy: strength, range-of-motion, and flexibility exercises prescribed and supervised by a PT to restore function after injury or surgery. It is billed in 15-minute units, so a typical session includes two to four units of this code, often mixed with other billed services. Expect active work: you exercise while the therapist coaches, corrects form, and progresses the program visit by visit.
What Is Physical Therapy (Therapeutic Exercise)?
Therapeutic exercise is the foundational hands-on-guidance code of physical therapy: strength, range-of-motion, and flexibility exercises prescribed and supervised by a PT to restore function after injury or surgery. It is billed in 15-minute units, so a typical session includes two to four units of this code, often mixed with other billed services. Expect active work: you exercise while the therapist coaches, corrects form, and progresses the program visit by visit.
What Affects the Cost
- –Billing is per 15-minute unit, so the number of units per visit, not just the number of visits, drives your bill.
- –A full rehab course after surgery commonly spans 10 to 36 visits, making the per-visit total a recurring weekly expense.
- –Hospital-owned therapy clinics attach facility fees that private PT practices do not.
- –Sessions usually combine this code with others like manual therapy (97140), stacking multiple billed lines per visit.
- –High-deductible plan members often find cash-pay PT packages cheaper than their negotiated insurance rates.
Questions to Ask Before Booking
- 1.How many units do you typically bill per session, and what will each visit cost me?
- 2.How many PT visits does my plan allow per year, and does that count all therapy types combined?
- 3.Do you need to get authorization after a certain number of visits?
- 4.What is your cash rate per visit, and is it cheaper than my insurance rate before my deductible is met?
- 5.How much of each session will be one-on-one with the therapist versus independent exercise?
Other featured procedures in California
Physical Therapy (Therapeutic Exercise) in other states
Physical Therapy (Therapeutic Exercise) in California: questions
The 2026 Medicare physician office rate for CPT 97110 averages $31.95 across 29 California localities, from $30.47 in CHICO to $36.61 in SAN JOSE-SUNNYVALE-SANTA CLARA (SAN BENITO CNTY). The hospital physician rate averages $31.95. Enter a ZIP for the exact locality.
Yes. CMS splits California into 29 payment localities. For this CPT the office physician fee spans $6.14 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. $31.95 is the Medicare physician allowed amount for CPT 97110. 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 $29.06).