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

National totals

What this specialty covers

Hospitalists are physicians whose primary professional focus is the general medical care of hospitalized patients. Their activities include patient care, teaching, research, and leadership related to Hospital Medicine. The term 'hospitalist' refers to physicians whose practice emphasizes providing care for hospitalized patients.

Reading the sole-proprietor share

For Hospitalist Physician records, the 14.3% sole-proprietor share means 2,780 records have the sole-proprietor field marked in NPPES. This field is self-reported and is an imperfect proxy for private practice: a hospitalist may work through a hospital, group, staffing company, or another arrangement, and the NPI designation does not by itself describe employment or practice ownership.

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 are registry records, not a guaranteed count of unique physicians currently practicing hospital medicine.
• - A physician who practices hospital medicine may have a different primary taxonomy, so this classification may not capture every hospitalist.
• - NPPES status, taxonomy, and sole-proprietor fields can change, and the sole-proprietor field may not reflect employment, contracting, group affiliation, or ownership.
• 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