Type 1 vs Type 2 NPI: how to read an NPI record for sales and recruiting
What Type 1 and Type 2 NPIs are, what an NPI record and its taxonomy code tell you, and why the address on an NPI is often not where the provider works today.
Supreet Gupta, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer, Dmand AI
Short answer
A Type 1 NPI identifies an individual provider, such as a physician or nurse practitioner, and each person gets one for life. A Type 2 NPI identifies an organization, such as a hospital or group practice, and one organization can hold many. Both are 10-digit numbers in the public NPPES registry, which has no email field.
Almost every guide to Type 1 and Type 2 NPIs is written for providers applying for one or billers putting one on a claim. This one is for the people who read NPI records from the outside: sales, marketing and recruiting teams that use them to find, segment and reach providers. It covers what each type is, how to read a record, and what the record will not tell you.
What is the difference between a Type 1 and Type 2 NPI
The National Provider Identifier is the HIPAA standard identifier for health care providers: a 10-digit number with a check digit at the end and no built-in meaning about the provider.1 There are two types.2
| Question | Type 1 NPI | Type 2 NPI |
|---|---|---|
| Who gets it | Individual providers, including sole proprietors | Organizations: hospitals, group practices, nursing homes, labs, pharmacies |
| How many | One per person, for life | One or more per organization, including subparts |
| Examples | Physician, nurse practitioner, physician assistant, pharmacist | Hospital, multi-specialty group, home health agency |
| Record shows | The person's name, credential, addresses, taxonomy and licenses | The organization's name, addresses, taxonomy and an authorized official |
| What sellers use it for | Finding and identifying individual clinicians | Identifying sites and organizations, not the people in them |
What is a Type 1 NPI and who gets one
A Type 1 NPI belongs to an individual health care provider: a physician, nurse practitioner, physician assistant, dentist, pharmacist or therapist, among others. Sole proprietors also use a Type 1. Each person can have only one.2
Covered providers, those who bill electronically under HIPAA, must get an NPI, and providers who are not covered may get one.3 The NPI stays with the person for life. NPPES never reassigns an NPI, even after it is deactivated.4
What is a Type 2 NPI, and why one hospital can have many
A Type 2 NPI belongs to an organization: a hospital, group practice, nursing home, home health agency, lab, pharmacy or similar entity. An organization can hold more than one.2
Organizations can get separate NPIs for subparts, such as an outpatient lab, a hospital pharmacy or an outpatient department.3 That is why NPI counts are not facility counts. One hospital can hold many Type 2 NPIs, so count hospitals by their CMS Certification Number instead.
Can a provider have both a Type 1 and a Type 2 NPI
Yes. CMS says an individual who has incorporated, for example as a professional corporation or LLC, can hold a Type 1 NPI for themselves and a Type 2 NPI for the corporation.2
You will see this often with physicians who own their practice. The Type 1 record tells you about the doctor, and the Type 2 record tells you about the practice entity.
How to look up an NPI number in the NPPES NPI Registry
The NPPES NPI Registry is the free public lookup run by CMS.
Open the NPI Registry
Go to npiregistry.cms.hhs.gov.
Search by number or name
Enter an NPI, or a provider's or organization's name with a state.
Narrow by type and taxonomy
Choose individual or organization, and filter by taxonomy description or city.
Open the record
Read the type, addresses, taxonomy and other identifiers.
For volume, use the API or the download
The registry API returns records as data, and CMS publishes a full file each month.
What an NPI record shows, and what it never shows
The public NPPES data is set by a 2007 CMS notice on what may be disclosed. It includes names, credentials, mailing and practice location addresses with phone and fax numbers, taxonomy codes, other identifiers, enumeration and last-update dates, and license numbers and states. For organizations, it also includes the authorized official's name, title and phone number.5
Several fields are useful for sales and recruiting:
- Practice location address. Where the provider says they practice, as opposed to the mailing address.
- Primary taxonomy. The provider's self-selected specialty.
- License states. Where a clinician is licensed, which matters for recruiting.
- Enumeration date. When the NPI was issued, a rough signal of career stage.
- Last updated date. How recently the provider touched the record.
- Sole proprietor flag. Whether the provider runs their own practice.
- Authorized official (Type 2). A named person at the organization, with a title.
The record never shows Social Security numbers, tax IDs for individuals or dates of birth.5 It also has no email field, so it cannot tell you how to email a provider. See how to find a doctor's email address.
What an NPI taxonomy code tells you about a provider
A taxonomy code is a 10-character code for a provider's type, classification and specialization. The code set is maintained by the National Uniform Claim Committee (NUCC) and released twice a year, in January and July.6 The current version is 26.1, from July 2026.7
| Code | Description | NPI type |
|---|---|---|
| 207Q00000X | Family Medicine | Type 1 |
| 363L00000X | Nurse Practitioner | Type 1 |
| 208M00000X | Hospitalist | Type 1 |
| 193200000X | Multi-Specialty Group | Type 2 |
| 282N00000X | General Acute Care Hospital | Type 2 |
| 282NC0060X | Critical Access Hospital | Type 2 |
Providers can list several taxonomy codes in NPPES but must mark one as primary.6 Example codes come from the CMS crosswalk.8
How to use taxonomy codes to build a list of providers or facilities
Taxonomy codes are the fastest way to cut the NPPES file into a target list: all family medicine physicians in a state, all nurse practitioners in a metro area, all critical access hospitals.
Know the limits before you rely on one:
- Self-selected. Providers pick their own codes, and CMS does not check them against training.
- More than one. A provider can list several, so filter on the primary code or on any code, and know which you chose.
- Out of date. A primary code chosen years ago may not match what the provider does now.
- Organization, not people. A Type 2 code describes the organization, not the clinicians who work there.
Why the address on an NPI record is often not where the provider works today
The NPI is the most common way to identify a clinician, but its address is one of the least reliable fields for finding them.
- The number never changes. The NPI stays the same when a provider moves, so an old record looks as valid as a new one.4
- Updates depend on the provider. Providers are required to report changes within 30 days, but they report them themselves.3
- The data is mostly unverified. In a 2013 review, HHS's Office of Inspector General found 48% of NPPES records inaccurate and said addresses caused most errors. The review is old, but the self-reporting it described has not changed.9
- One primary location. Clinicians who work at several sites list one primary practice location. Other locations sit in an optional reference file CMS added in 2018.10
- Home-based providers. Since April 2024, Type 1 providers who serve only from home, such as telehealth-only clinicians, may list a PO box or private mailbox.11
Watch out
A mailing address is not a site of care
The mailing address can be a billing office, a management company or a home. For outreach and territory planning, use the practice location, and check it against a current source.
How to link a Type 1 NPI to the group or hospital where the provider works
NPPES does not connect a person's Type 1 NPI to the Type 2 NPI of the organization they work for. There is no employer field.
Public data covers part of the gap. CMS publishes which group practice each physician reassigns their Medicare billing to, updated monthly, but it covers Medicare-enrolled providers only.12 Hospital privileges, part-time roles and clinicians who work at several sites need other sources.
That link, from each clinician to every site where they work and up to the group, hospital and health system above, is what Dmand AI's data is built around. It ties 7.4M+ HCPs by NPI to the sites where they practice, inside one tree of 997K+ sites of care, 181K+ medical groups and 1.6K+ health systems and IDNs.
How often the NPI Registry and NPPES files are updated
The NPI Registry is updated daily. CMS publishes a full replacement NPPES file each month and incremental update files each week, and providers with an active NPI cannot opt out of publication.10
The October 2026 monthly file is over a gigabyte zipped, and CMS retired the older V1 file format in March 2026.13 The files are current as of their date, but each record is only as current as the provider keeps it.
Find any HCP by NPI, specialty and the sites where they work
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Sources
- 45 CFR 162.406, Standard unique health identifier for health care providersElectronic Code of Federal Regulations
- The National Provider Identifier (NPI) fact sheetCenters for Medicare & Medicaid Services, December 2024
- 45 CFR 162.410, Implementation specifications: Health care providersElectronic Code of Federal Regulations
- 45 CFR 162.408, National Provider SystemElectronic Code of Federal Regulations
- HIPAA Administrative Simplification: NPPES Data Dissemination (CMS-6060-N)Federal Register, May 30, 2007
- Find your taxonomy codeCenters for Medicare & Medicaid Services
- Health Care Provider Taxonomy Code SetNational Uniform Claim Committee
- Medicare Provider and Supplier Taxonomy CrosswalkCenters for Medicare & Medicaid Services
- Improvements are needed to ensure provider enumeration and Medicare enrollment data are accurate, complete, and consistent (OEI-07-09-00440)HHS Office of Inspector General, May 28, 2013
- Data dissemination: announcing changes to NPPESU.S. Department of Health and Human Services, February 11, 2020
- NPPES data changes (CMS-0059-N)Federal Register, March 4, 2024
- Revalidation Clinic Group Practice ReassignmentCenters for Medicare & Medicaid Services
- NPPES downloadable fileCenters for Medicare & Medicaid Services
Written by
Supreet Gupta
Co-founder and Chief Product Officer, Dmand AI
Supreet is the co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Dmand AI. He leads the product and the healthcare data behind it, and writes Selling Into Healthcare, a newsletter on how US health systems buy.