Using the national provider identifier for health care workforce evaluation

Abstract

The establishment in recent years of a National Provider Identifier (NPI) offers a new method for counting and categorizing physicians and other health care professionals involved in clinical care. In this paper, I describe how the NPI is assigned, the information collected in association with assigning the NPI, potential ways to enhance information on health professionals through data linkages using the NPI, and how the assessment of the health care workforce could be improved by requiring health care professionals to update their information as a part of maintaining their NPI.