Ambulance: how many are there, and how many are in private practice?

National totals

What this specialty covers

An emergency vehicle used for transporting patients to a health care facility after injury or illness. Types of ambulances used in the United States include ground (surface) ambulance, rotor-wing (helicopter), and fixed-wing aircraft (airplane).

Reading the sole-proprietor share

For this specialty, NPPES flags 104 records, or 1.5%, as sole proprietors. Because the flag is self-reported, it is an imperfect proxy for private practice and does not fully describe ownership, organizational structure, employment, contracting, or how ambulance services are delivered.

By state

New NPI registrations by year

Counts reflect the year each NPI was first issued, among records still active today. The final year is partial: this data covers through 2026-01-11.

Data notes

• The sole-proprietor field is self-reported by the provider in NPPES and is an imperfect proxy for private practice.
• A sole-proprietor count shown as <11 is suppressed: the true value is below 11, which could include zero.
• - An active NPI record is not the same as an ambulance, station, organization, or transport.
• - State totals follow NPPES registration information and may not represent each provider's complete service area.
• Providers are counted once, by their primary taxonomy code only.

Source: CMS National Plan and Provider Enumeration System (NPPES) Data Dissemination file, FOIA-disclosable public data under CMS-6060-N. Aggregated by Hero EMR on 2026-08-03; deactivated NPIs excluded; specialty assigned from the primary taxonomy code (NUCC 25.1). Counts below 11 are suppressed. Individual providers are never published. All provider data pages.

Common questions