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

National totals

What this specialty covers

For the purposes of the Health Care Provider Taxonomy, a contractor is limited to individuals who do construction or mechanical work to modify a patient's environment to accommodate a health condition. Contractors perform projects including, but not limited to, building wheelchair ramps, widening doorways, modifying personal vehicles, and making other improvements for patient access and movement. This code has no relation to a provider's employment status.

Reading the sole-proprietor share

For this specialty, the sole-proprietor flag can indicate that a contractor reports operating as an individual rather than through an organization, but it does not identify employment status or prove private-practice ownership. The 56.4% share, based on 5,766 of 10,225 records, is a self-reported NPPES field and should be treated as an imperfect proxy for private practice, not a direct measure of independent work.

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 NPI record may represent an individual or an organization, so the count should not be read as a direct headcount.
• The primary taxonomy is the classification submitted in NPPES and may not capture every service a contractor provides.
• NPI records can change status, taxonomy, or other reported fields over time.
• 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