Payments to doctors in California

What was reported

$2.4 billion

General payments

$2,363,016,569

Made outside a research agreement.

8,095,985

Payments

Separate general payments. CMS’s record lists the kind of each.

$93.0 million

Research payments

$93,012,070

Funding for studies, usually paid to an institution with a doctor named on it. Shown apart from general payments and never added to them.

171,711

Doctors and practitioners

People CMS holds at least one reported payment for with a California address. Not a count of doctors in California, which neither source publishes — so nothing here is divided by it.

13.7%

Share of the national total

Of $17.3 billion in general payments reported nationally.

General payments per clinician in California across program years

What California’s doctors prescribed under Medicare

A second CMS file records what doctors prescribed rather than what they were paid. In 2024, 143,204 prescribers with a California address filled 151,834,237 Medicare Part D prescriptions costing $27,319,985,138 — 9.5% of the $288.4 billion Medicare paid nationally. None of that money went to the doctors. It is what Medicare, its plans and patients paid pharmacies for what they wrote.

151,834,237

Prescriptions filled

Claims, counting every refill. 2024 only, not the period above.

$27.3 billion

What the drugs cost

$27,319,985,138

Paid to pharmacies by Medicare, its plans and patients. Not income for any doctor.

9.5%

Share of the national drug cost

Of $288.4 billion Medicare paid nationally in 2024.

143,204

Prescribers

People CMS published a Part D row for. CMS drops a prescriber-drug row under eleven claims, so a doctor who prescribed little of everything is not here — and this is not a count of doctors in California.

4,885,026

Opioid prescriptions

Of 59,133,014 nationally. CMS withheld the opioid count from 350,416 prescribers, so this is a floor rather than a total.

The state is the practice address CMS holds for the prescriber, not where the patient lives or the pharmacy stands. Unlike the payment figures above, every Part D claim is attributed to a state, so these rows do add up to the national total — the gap described further down this page is an Open Payments gap and not this one. Prescribers ranked by claims, by what their prescriptions cost and by opioid claims are national lists.

California elsewhere on the Factbook

• Reported crime Crime and justice

  Offenses reported to police by type, the trend, and the reporting coverage.

• Most dangerous cities in California Crime and justice

  What each agency serving 25,000 or more reported, ranked. Agency populations overlap, so these do not add up to the state.

• Prison population Crime and justice

  People held under the state’s correctional authority, and the imprisonment rate. A different publisher counting a different thing.

• Arrests by race, sex and age Crime and justice

  Arrests as the FBI’s participating agencies reported them, with what the figures can and cannot support at the top.

• Hate crime Crime and justice

  Incidents reported to the FBI by bias motivation, as counts — the collection publishes no participation share, so there is no rate to compare states on.

• Federal obligations Federal spending

  What federal agencies obligated against a place of performance in the state, per resident and by agency.

• Registered nonprofits Nonprofits

  How many organizations the IRS lists in the state, what they report as revenue, and which kinds of work they do.

• Immigration courts Immigration and the border

  The EOIR courts sitting in the state, what they completed and still have pending, and how far apart their asylum grant rates are. The courts, not the state’s residents: a detention court hears cases from far outside it.

• Farm program payments Farm subsidies

  What the Farm Service Agency paid through the state’s county offices, by program and by recipient. The offices that administered the payments, not a count of farms: a recipient addressed elsewhere is counted where they were paid.

• Paycheck Protection Program loans PPP loans

  The PPP loans SBA guaranteed to businesses operating in the state, by county, with how many carry a forgiveness amount and how many were charged off. Loans, not businesses: a business with two draws is two loans.

• Population, age, income and origin Demographics

  The Census Bureau's population estimates year by year, with births, deaths and migration, and age, income, poverty, housing and origin from the American Community Survey, each with its margin of error.

• Public schools Schools

  Pupils, schools and teachers, the largest districts, what districts spend per pupil and where the money comes from, and the colleges that take federal student aid.

• Banks and credit unions Banks and credit unions

  The FDIC-insured banks headquartered in the state and their offices, and the credit unions based there and their sites, each per resident and against every other state.

• Housing Housing

  The homes under HUD’s rental assistance programs in the state, by program and county, and its tax-credit housing, each per resident and against every other state.

• Mortgage lending Mortgage lending

  The mortgage applications, loans and denials lenders reported in the state under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, and its largest lenders and counties.

• Cost of living Cost of living

  BEA’s price level for the state against the nation, for goods, rents, utilities and other services, and its metro areas beside it.

• County health County health

  CDC’s model-based estimates of adult health, risk behaviors and prevention for every county in the state, each with its 95% interval.

• College athletics Sports

  Every college in the state that reported to the Equity in Athletics survey, ranked by its athletics revenue, with its expenses, athletes and athletic aid.

• Federal civilian workforce Federal salaries

  Federal civilian employees stationed in the state by agency and occupation, with the pay OPM publishes and the share it withholds.

• The California Factbook entry Across the Factbook

  Every measure the Factbook publishes for this state in one place, each with where it ranks among the others and the record it came from.

The immigration link above is EOIR’s courts, which sit in this state. CBP’s encounters are not by state and will not be: its sectors and field offices are areas of responsibility rather than a geography, and assigning them to states would be a claim the data does not make. Immigration and the border.

What this page does not show

• Where the work happened. The state is the practice address CMS holds for the doctor, not the place the payment was earned or the patient was seen.
• Doctors CMS holds no state for. 435 of 1,693,971 profiles carry no state, holding $3,697,188 in general payments. They are in the national total and on no state page, which is why the 51 state pages do not sum to it.
• Anything about influence. The record says what was paid and by whom, and this page makes no claim beyond that.