Critical Care Medicine (Internal Medicine) Physician: how many are there, and how many are in private practice?

National totals

What this specialty covers

An internist who diagnoses, treats and supports patients with multiple organ dysfunction. This specialist may have administrative responsibilities for intensive care units and may also facilitate and coordinate patient care among the primary physician, the critical care staff and other specialists.

Reading the sole-proprietor share

For this specialty, 15.1% of active records are flagged as sole proprietors, which provides one view of its organizational footprint. The flag is a self-reported NPPES field and an imperfect proxy for private practice because it does not by itself show employment, ownership, independence, or how care is organized.

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 taxonomy describes the primary classification on the record, not every service provided or the clinician's full practice.
• First-enumeration year indicates when an NPI was first issued, not when a physician began practicing critical care or the number of new clinicians.
• 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