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

National totals

What this specialty covers

An internist who treats diseases of the lungs and airways. The pulmonologist diagnoses and treats cancer, pneumonia, pleurisy, asthma, occupational and environmental diseases, bronchitis, sleep disorders, emphysema and other complex disorders of the lungs.

Reading the sole-proprietor share

For this specialty, 1,888 of 12,489 active records, or 15.1%, are flagged as sole proprietors. That field is self-reported in NPPES and is an imperfect proxy for private practice because it describes the record's reported ownership status, not necessarily how a pulmonologist practices, bills, or is employed. Use it as an indicator of reported sole-proprietor status, not as a direct count of independent pulmonary practices.

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.
• NPPES taxonomy and sole-proprietor information are reported fields and may be incomplete, outdated, or inconsistently updated.
• An active NPI is an identifier, not a direct measure of unique clinicians, clinical full-time equivalents, practices, or patient volume.
• Recent enumeration counts reflect new NPI records by year and should not be read as a measure of specialty growth.
• 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