Glossary NPI
NPI
Also known as:
national-provider-identifierBiopharmaHealthcare
Definition
National Provider Identifier — the 10-digit number US healthcare providers, individual and organizational, use to identify themselves in standard transactions; issued by CMS through NPPES and public in the NPI Registry
The join key of US healthcare data: claims, prescribing, and provider directories all carry it, and it is why a find-a-provider experience can be built on a public dataset rather than a vendor feed. Type 1 is an individual, Type 2 an organization.
The provider's number, and the key that makes healthcare datasets joinable. Public by design — a provider's NPI is not their PII — which is what lets a directory be built on the registry without a data agreement.