Personal Care Attendant: how many are there, and how many are in private practice?

National totals

What this specialty covers

An individual who provides assistance with eating, bathing, dressing, personal hygiene, activities of daily living as specified in the plan of care. Services which are incidental to the care furnished, or essential to the health and welfare of the individual may also be provided. Personal care providers must meet state defined training and certification standards

Reading the sole-proprietor share

For this specialty, 18,859 records, or 22.7%, are flagged as sole proprietors in NPPES. This self-reported field can indicate an independently registered provider, but it is an imperfect proxy for private practice because it does not fully describe employment, ownership, staffing, or how services are delivered.

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.
• - NPPES fields, including taxonomy and sole-proprietor status, are provider-reported and may not reflect current practice arrangements.
• - An NPI count is not necessarily a count of unique workers, employers, service capacity, or currently delivered services.
• - State totals are based on NPPES reporting information and may not show where Personal Care Attendant services are actually delivered.
• 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