Physician Assistant: how many are there, and how many are in private practice?

National totals

What this specialty covers

A physician assistant is a person who has successfully completed an accredited education program for physician assistant, is licensed by the state and is practicing within the scope of that license. Physician assistants are formally trained to perform many of the routine, time-consuming tasks a physician can do. In some states, they may prescribe medications. They take medical histories, perform physical exams, order lab tests and x-rays, and give inoculations. Most states require that they work under the supervision of a physician.

Reading the sole-proprietor share

For Physician Assistant records, 23,960, or 15.6%, are flagged as sole proprietors in NPPES. Because this is a self-reported NPPES field, it is an imperfect proxy for private practice and does not by itself establish ownership, employment structure, independence, or clinical activity.

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.
• - Active NPI records are administrative records and may not equal unique currently practicing physician assistants or clinical service volume.
• - State counts reflect NPI location information, which may not be the location where services are delivered.
• - First-enumeration counts reflect NPI issuance timing, not workforce growth, graduation counts, or changes in demand.
• 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