Emergency Medicine Physician: how many are there, and how many are in private practice?

National totals

What this specialty covers

An emergency physician focuses on the immediate decision making and action necessary to prevent death or any further disability both in the pre-hospital setting by directing emergency medical technicians and in the emergency department. The emergency physician provides immediate recognition, evaluation, care, stabilization and disposition of a generally diversified population of adult and pediatric patients in response to acute illness and injury.

Reading the sole-proprietor share

For this specialty, the sole-proprietor share is an administrative description of NPI records, not a direct count of emergency physicians working in private practice. The flag is a self-reported NPPES field and an imperfect proxy because emergency physicians may practice through hospitals, physician groups, staffing organizations, or other arrangements.

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 an administrative identifier, so active-record totals are not necessarily a count of unique practicing physicians.
• - State and first-enumeration counts describe NPI records and administrative timing, not necessarily care location or workforce changes.
• 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