Addiction (Substance Use Disorder) Counselor: 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 indicates how many records have the NPPES sole-proprietor field flagged, not how many counselors practice independently or own a private practice. The field is self-reported and may not capture group affiliations, employment arrangements, or changes in practice status, so it is an imperfect proxy for private practice.

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.
• An NPI record is not a direct count of unique practitioners, clinical full-time equivalents, patient visits, or available treatment capacity.
• Taxonomy and sole-proprietor fields are based on NPPES reporting and may be incomplete, outdated, or interpreted differently by registrants.
• State counts reflect the address and primary taxonomy recorded in NPPES and should not be read as measures of local need, service volume, or access.
• 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