NPI Lookup

An NPI (National Provider Identifier) is a unique 10-digit ID assigned to every healthcare provider in the United States who bills Medicare, Medicaid, or commercial insurance. NPIs are issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) through the National Plan and Provider Enumeration System (NPPES). Individual providers (physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, therapists, etc.) receive an NPI-1, and organizational providers (hospitals, group practices, suppliers) receive an NPI-2. There are over 7 million active NPIs in the registry.

You can find an NPI on the provider's prescription pad, claim forms, the back of an insurance Explanation of Benefits, or by searching the CMS NPI Registry at npiregistry.cms.hhs.gov. On Medistill, you can verify a provider by entering the 10-digit NPI directly, or by entering the provider's first name, last name, and (optionally) state of practice.

An NPI status of Active means the provider is currently enumerated in NPPES and the identifier is valid for use in HIPAA-standard transactions. An Inactive status typically indicates the provider has retired, deactivated their NPI, or merged with another organization. Inactive NPIs cannot be used to bill insurance.

No. An NPI lookup confirms that a provider is registered with CMS and shows their reported specialty, license states, and practice address. License verification is a separate process that confirms whether a provider currently holds an active license in good standing with a specific state medical board, including any disciplinary actions. Medistill cross-references both: NPPES identity plus all 50 state medical boards, OIG and SAM exclusions, NPDB records, and 130+ other compliance sources.

Individual providers should have only one NPI-1. However, a provider may have an NPI-1 for individual billing and be associated with one or more NPI-2 numbers for the organizations they work under. Multiple NPI-1 numbers for the same individual generally indicate a data error and should be reported to NPPES.

The free public profile from NPPES does not include disciplinary actions, malpractice payments, or enforcement history. NPPES contains only identity, specialty, address, and license-state metadata. To see compliance status across 130+ federal and state sources, court records, NPDB malpractice history, state board discipline, and predictive risk scoring, sign in for a free Medistill account.

Yes. Enter the provider's first name and last name (state is optional but recommended to narrow ambiguous results). Medistill operates in verification mode: if exactly one provider matches, the profile loads automatically; if a small number match, you can select the correct one; if too many providers match a common name, the tool asks you to refine the query. This is a verification tool, not a search-by-partial-name browse tool.