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

National totals

What this specialty covers

An occupational therapist is a person who has graduated from an entry-level occupational therapy program accredited by the Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education (ACOTE) or predecessor organizations, or approved by the World Federation of Occupational Therapists (WFOT), or an equivalent international occupational therapy education program; has successfully completed a period of supervised fieldwork experience required by the occupational therapy program; has passed a nationally recognized entry-level examination for occupational therapists, and fulfills state requirements for licensure, certification, or registration. An occupational therapist provides interventions based on evaluation and which emphasize the therapeutic use of everyday life activities (i.e., occupations) with individuals or groups for the purpose of facilitating participation in roles and situations an

Reading the sole-proprietor share

For this specialty, 40,341 records, or 29.0%, are flagged as sole proprietors. The flag is a self-reported NPPES field, so it is an imperfect proxy for private practice: it does not directly show ownership, employment arrangement, clinical independence, or whether a provider sees patients.

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 represent registry entries and may not equal unique occupational therapists or the full licensed workforce.
• 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