Art Therapist: how many are there, and how many are in private practice?

National totals

What this specialty covers

(1) An individual who uses art to achieve the therapeutic goals of symptom relief, emotional integration, and recovery from or adjustment to illness or disability. (2) An art therapist uses a form of treatment that enables patients with mental or physical disabilities to use art as a way of expressing and dealing with feelings and inner conflicts. (3) An individual who uses arts modalities and creative processes during intentional intervention in therapeutic, rehabilitative, community, or educational settings to foster health, communication, and expression; promote the integration of physical, emotional, cognitive, and social functioning; enhance self-awareness; and facilitate change.

Reading the sole-proprietor share

For this specialty, 51.5% of active records are flagged as sole proprietors, based on a self-reported NPPES field. That share can describe how records are classified, but it is an imperfect proxy for private practice and does not by itself show ownership, employment arrangement, service availability, or clinical 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.
• - NPI records and taxonomy assignments can be updated, corrected, or retired, so these figures are not a census of practicing clinicians.
• - A primary taxonomy identifies the classification on an NPI record but does not establish current clinical activity, specialty focus, or patient volume.
• - First-enumeration year measures NPI timing and may reflect registration or record activity rather than entry into 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