Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Physician: how many are there, and how many are in private practice?

National totals

What this specialty covers

Physical medicine and rehabilitation, also referred to as rehabilitation medicine, is the medical specialty concerned with diagnosing, evaluating, and treating patients with physical disabilities. These disabilities may arise from conditions affecting the musculoskeletal system such as neck and back pain, sports injuries, or other painful conditions affecting the limbs, such as carpal tunnel syndrome. Alternatively, the disabilities may result from neurological trauma or disease such as spinal cord injury, head injury or stroke. A physician certified in physical medicine and rehabilitation is often called a physiatrist. The primary goal of the physiatrist is to achieve maximal restoration of physical, psychological, social and vocational function through comprehensive rehabilitation. Pain management is often an important part of the role of the physiatrist. For diagnosis and evaluation,

Reading the sole-proprietor share

For Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Physician records, the 18.7% sole-proprietor share describes the portion marked that way in NPPES, not the portion known to be in private practice. The flag is a self-reported NPPES field and an imperfect proxy for private practice, so it does not by itself show whether a physician owns a practice, works independently, or is employed by a group.

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.
• - The count covers active NPI records with this taxonomy selected as the primary classification, so providers using another primary taxonomy are not included.
• - Enumeration-year totals show when NPIs were first issued, not how many providers are currently active or how many practice locations exist.
• 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