Medical-Surgical Registered Nurse: how many are there, and how many are in private practice?

National totals

Reading the sole-proprietor share

For this specialty, the 37.7% sole-proprietor share means that 1,351 of the 3,581 active records have the sole-proprietor field marked in NPPES. Because that field is self-reported, it is an imperfect proxy for private practice: it does not by itself show whether a nurse owns a practice, works independently, bills separately, or is employed by an organization.

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.
• These are active NPI records with this classification as the primary taxonomy, not a direct count of unique nurses, practices, or clinical positions.
• First-enumeration figures show when NPIs were first issued, not when a nurse entered the specialty or how many records were added after accounting for changes and closures.
• 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