Speech-Language Assistant: how many are there, and how many are in private practice?

National totals

Reading the sole-proprietor share

For this specialty, the sole-proprietor share describes how many records have the NPPES sole-proprietor field marked, not how many clinicians work in private practice. Because that field is self-reported and may not capture ownership, employment, billing, or organizational arrangements, it is an imperfect proxy and should not be read as a direct measure of private-practice 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.
• These are active NPI records, not necessarily unique individuals or a complete count of people providing services.
• NUCC has not published an official definition for this classification, so taxonomy use may not describe every provider's role in the same way.
• 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