Rehabilitation Counselor: how many are there, and how many are in private practice?

National totals

What this specialty covers

An individual trained and educated in a systematic process of assisting persons with physical, mental, developmental, cognitive, and emotional disabilities to achieve their personal, career, and independent living goals assessment and appraisal, diagnosis and treatment planning, career (vocational) counseling, individual and group counseling interventions for adjustments to the medical and psychosocial impact of disability, case management, program evaluation and research, job analysis and placement counseling, and consultation on rehabilitation resources and technology. Certification generally requires a Master's degree with specialized courses in rehabilitation processes and technology.

Reading the sole-proprietor share

For Rehabilitation Counselors, 39.9% of records, or 980 of 2,457, have the sole-proprietor flag in NPPES. Because this is a self-reported NPPES field, it is an imperfect proxy for private practice and does not establish whether a counselor works alone, owns a practice, or is currently accepting patients.

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 figures count active NPI records with this primary taxonomy, not a complete census of rehabilitation counselors or all services they provide.
• NPI enumeration year records when an NPI was first issued, not when a counselor entered the workforce or began practicing in this specialty.
• 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