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

National totals

What this specialty covers

A sports chiropractor is uniquely trained to provide care and treatment of injuries or illness resulting from sports and physical fitness activities. Doctors of Chiropractic with the Diplomate American Chiropractic Board of Sports Physicians (DACBSP) or the Certified Chiropractic Sports Physician (CCSP), sport specialty certifications from the American Chiropractic Board of Sports Physicians, have advanced training in the assessment, management and rehabilitation of sports related injuries. Extremity care, rehabilitation and soft tissue procedures are common skills utilized by these doctors. The specialty training covers a broad spectrum from the pediatric athlete to professional and Olympic athletes, and everything in between, using a variety of techniques and modalities.

Reading the sole-proprietor share

For this specialty, 1,183 records, or 36.5%, are flagged as sole proprietors in NPPES. Because the field is self-reported, it is an imperfect proxy for private practice and does not by itself establish ownership, independence, or how a Sports Physician Chiropractor delivers care.

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.
• NPI counts are administrative counts, not measures of visits, full-time clinical work, or patient volume.
• The primary taxonomy does not include every chiropractor who provides sports-related care, because a provider may use another taxonomy as the primary classification.
• An NPI first-enumeration year reflects when the NPI was issued, not when the provider began practicing sports chiropractic or entered private practice.
• 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