How the list is ordered

The places on your results are listed in the order you choose: by distance, or by lowest cost.

The two orders

You choose the order with the Sort menu above the results.

Distance
Nearest first. Places are listed by straight-line distance from the place you searched, not by driving time. If you searched by state only, distance is measured from a central point in that state. This is the order you get until you choose another.
Lowest cost
Lowest first. Places are listed by the estimate Rede shows for each one: your estimated share if you chose a plan and Rede could apply it, otherwise the price the estimate rests on. Lowest cost needs a service to price. With none chosen, places are listed by distance.

How lowest cost is worked out

When more places match than fit on one page, Rede first chooses which ones to show. It uses a reference price for the service in each place's state, built from Medicare's fee schedules and adjusted for the area and for the usual gap between commercial prices and Medicare's. A place with no reference price is chosen last.

Rede then lists the places it chose from the lowest estimate to the highest.

If two places have the same estimate, the one that rests on a negotiated rate comes first, then one that rests on a published price or a billed charge, then the rest.

What comes first

Once you have chosen a service, the list has up to three groups, always in this order:

Places where Rede could make an estimate for you.
Places that published an amount for this service, where Rede could not make an estimate from it for you.
Places where Rede found no usable price for this service.

Inside each group, the order you chose applies. Under Lowest cost, places in the last two groups have no estimate to compare, so they are not ranked against each other. A place with no usable price is still listed, after the others, because it is still a place you can get care.

What the order uses

These are the inputs the order uses today:

Where the place is, and where you searched.
The service you chose. Lowest cost needs one.
How you pay: the plan you chose or paying without insurance, and what you told Rede you have already paid this year.
The estimate for that place: read from its published price file or from federal files when they carry a price for it, otherwise worked out by Rede from a Medicare reference price and labeled as a Rede estimate.

The filters you set (how far, in-network only, has a cash price, the kind of place) decide which places are listed. They do not change the order.

What an estimate is, and the price types behind one, are explained in How prices work.

What the order never uses

Rede's rule is that nothing can be bought to change where a place appears. None of these is ever used to order the list:

Payment of any kind.
Advertising.
A partnership with Rede.
Who funds Rede.
Who you are: your name, your account or anything else that identifies you.