{"main_topic":"health","sub_topic":"cms","topic":"medicare_clinicians","key":"health/cms/medicare_clinicians","version":"1.0.0","year_min":2026,"year_max":2026,"year_gaps":[],"update_frequency":"monthly (CMS); the latest snapshot of each year is used","detail_levels":["counties","states"],"default_detail":"counties","path_template":"health/medicare_clinicians/year={year}/{detail}.parquet","grain":["year","county_fips","tract_geoid","specialty_group"],"title":"Medicare-Enrolled Clinicians (CMS)","summary":"Clinicians enrolled in Medicare with a practice address in each Georgia county: all, primary care, OB-GYN, behavioral health, NP/PA.","description":"How many clinicians enrolled in Medicare list a practice address in each Georgia county and in the state, in all and in four specialty groups (primary care physicians, OB-GYNs, behavioral health clinicians, and nurse practitioners and physician assistants), from CMS's monthly Doctors and Clinicians file, one snapshot a year. Addresses are placed in counties by the U.S. Census Bureau's Geocoder, or by ZIP code where it finds no match.","explorer":true,"search_aliases":{"en":["medicare doctors","medicare providers","number of doctors","primary care doctors","OB-GYN providers","behavioral health providers","nurse practitioners","physician assistants","doctor supply","medical providers"],"es":["médicos de medicare","proveedores de medicare","número de médicos","médicos de atención primaria","ginecólogos obstetras","proveedores de salud mental","enfermeras practicantes","asistentes médicos","oferta de médicos","personal médico"]},"source":"Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Provider Data Catalog: Doctors and Clinicians National Downloadable File (mj5m-pzi6), snapshots 2026-10-24. County placement: U.S. Census Bureau Geocoder (benchmark Public_AR_Current, vintage Census2020_Current) and, where it finds no match, 2020 ZCTAs, the ZCTA-to-county relationship file and 2020 Census populations.","source_url":"https://data.cms.gov/provider-data/dataset/mj5m-pzi6","endpoint":"/api/v1/health/medicare_clinicians","columns":[{"name":"year","type":"integer","role":"year","nullable":false,"label":"Year","short_description":"","description":"Calendar year of the snapshot of CMS's National Downloadable File: 2026 = pulled 2026-10-24 (CMS release modified 2026-10-02). Clinicians enrolled on that date, not over the year. See year_meaning.","valid_values":null,"example":2026,"unit":null,"value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":null,"key_metric_grain_contributor":false,"metric_component":null},{"name":"county_fips","type":"string","role":"fk_county","nullable":true,"label":"County FIPS","short_description":"","description":"5-digit FIPS code of a county where the clinician lists a practice address: the 2020 county the Census Geocoder matched the street address to, or, with no match, a tie or no street, the Georgia county holding most of the ZIP's 2020 ZCTA residents. NULL on the Georgia (state) row. All 159 counties have rows, 0 where no clinician's address is placed. A clinician counts in every county with an address: not additive.","valid_values":null,"example":"13121","unit":null,"value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":null,"key_metric_grain_contributor":false,"metric_component":null},{"name":"tract_geoid","type":"string","role":"fk_tract","nullable":true,"label":"Tract GEOID","short_description":"","description":"Always NULL: clinicians are counted by county. Kept for the health domain's standard key shape.","valid_values":null,"example":null,"unit":null,"value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":null,"key_metric_grain_contributor":false,"metric_component":null},{"name":"specialty_group","type":"string","role":"categorical","nullable":false,"label":"Specialty Group","short_description":"All clinicians, or primary care, OB-GYN, behavioral health or NP/PA.","description":"The clinician's primary specialty group in CMS's file: all = every Medicare-enrolled clinician, whatever the specialty; primary_care = primary specialty family practice, internal medicine, general practice, pediatric medicine or geriatric medicine (physicians; hospitalists are not included); ob_gyn = primary specialty obstetrics/gynecology; behavioral_health = primary specialty psychiatry, geriatric psychiatry, neuropsychiatry, addiction medicine, clinical psychologist, clinical social worker, mental health counselor or marriage and family therapist; np_pa = primary specialty nurse practitioner or physician assistant, in any field (they are not also counted in primary_care). Not additive: the four groups are a selection (other specialties count only in all), and a clinician enrolled under primary specialties in two groups counts in both (1 clinician(s) statewide in 2026).","valid_values":["all","primary_care","ob_gyn","behavioral_health","np_pa"],"example":"all","unit":null,"value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":null,"key_metric_grain_contributor":true,"metric_component":null},{"name":"num_clinicians","type":"integer","role":"metric","nullable":true,"label":"Medicare-Enrolled Clinicians","short_description":"Clinicians enrolled in Medicare with a practice address in the county.","description":"Number of distinct clinicians (National Provider Identifiers) enrolled in Medicare who list at least one practice address in the county (on the Georgia row, anywhere in Georgia) under a primary specialty in the group, on the snapshot date: in 2026, Georgia 48,845 in all, 6,673 primary care, 1,101 OB-GYN, 3,552 behavioral health and 13,751 nurse practitioners and physician assistants. A clinician counts once per county however many addresses, groups or enrollments they list there.","valid_values":null,"example":120,"unit":"count","value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":"Never NULL: CMS suppresses nothing, so a county or group with no clinician is 0.","key_metric_grain_contributor":false,"metric_component":null}],"key_metric":"num_clinicians","numeric_filter_columns":["num_clinicians"],"usage":"Star-schema fact table at state and county grain, one snapshot per year. Join the counties dimension on county_fips (NULL on the Georgia row); tract_geoid is always NULL. Pin specialty_group to one value ('all' for every clinician) and never sum across its values: the groups are a selection of primary specialties and a clinician can be in two. Never sum across counties either: a clinician with practice addresses in several counties counts in each, and Georgia's row counts each clinician once, so use it for statewide figures. Every county has every group, 0 where no clinician's address is placed. No per-resident rate is published: clinicians are counted where they practice, in every county they practice in, not where patients live. Read directly with DuckDB over Parquet.","limitations":"Medicare-enrolled clinicians only: those who do not enroll in Medicare, as in many pediatric and Medicaid-only practices, are missing, so those practices are undercounted. 2026 is one snapshot of CMS's list, as pulled on 2026-10-24, not a count over the year. Addresses are the practice or billing addresses clinicians give CMS, not where or how much they work. A clinician counts once in every county where they list a practice address, so county rows do not add up to Georgia's row. Placement: a listing (one clinician's enrollment at one group practice address) is counted in the 2020 county the U.S. Census Bureau's Geocoder matched its street address to (86.9% of Georgia listings in 2026; 61.9% matched exactly). Where the Geocoder found no match or a tie, or the listing has no street (11.7%), it is placed by its ZIP code in the Georgia county holding most of the ZIP's 2020 ZIP Code Tabulation Area residents. 1,392 listings (1.4%), mostly Atlanta billing lockbox ZIPs, fit neither and count in Georgia's row but in no county: 1,139 clinicians are counted only there. Georgia's row counts each clinician once (48,845 in 2026, against 69,915 summed over counties, since 15,092 clinicians list addresses in two or more counties), so Georgia minus the sum of counties means nothing. 14 listings recorded as Georgia but matched to an address in another state, or with another state's ZIP code, are left out. The specialty groups are a selection by primary specialty: primary_care is family practice, internal medicine, general practice, pediatric medicine and geriatric medicine (hospitalists, preventive medicine and nurse practitioners are not in it); ob_gyn is obstetrics/gynecology (certified nurse midwives and gynecological oncologists are not); behavioral_health is psychiatry (with geriatric psychiatry, neuropsychiatry and addiction medicine), clinical psychologists, clinical social workers, mental health counselors and marriage and family therapists; np_pa is nurse practitioners and physician assistants in any field. Other specialties (physical therapists, nurse anesthetists, surgeons and so on) count only in all, and a clinician enrolled under primary specialties in two groups counts in both. The Georgia Board of Health Care Workforce's license counts are the fuller count of physicians; this is the better count of nurse practitioners, physician assistants and therapists. Counts are a stock on the snapshot date: never add them across years. CMS refreshes the file monthly and keeps no history, so the series starts with the first snapshot (2026-10-24) and each year uses its latest snapshot. Nothing is suppressed; tract_geoid is always NULL.","null_semantics":{"suppressed_to_null":false,"zero_is_real":true},"available_years":[2026],"schema_hash":"76cbfb0504b250d0cff4f0228714782573069613a1d83a232cca2bd8c12187ce","tags":["health","centers for medicare & medicaid services","medicare_clinicians"],"granularity_description":"One row per year, county_fips, tract_geoid, specialty_group (geography columns are NULL at higher aggregation levels).","example_queries":[{"description":"Latest year (2026), counties detail","query":"SELECT * FROM medicare_clinicians WHERE year = 2026 LIMIT 100"},{"description":"Filter by specialty_group = all","query":"SELECT * FROM medicare_clinicians WHERE specialty_group = 'all' AND year = 2026 LIMIT 100"}],"foreign_keys":[{"column":"county_fips","target_object":"counties","target_columns":["county_fips"],"attribute_columns_added":["county_name"],"scope":"global"},{"column":"tract_geoid","target_object":"tracts","target_columns":["tract_geoid"],"attribute_columns_added":["tract_name"],"scope":"global"}],"filters":[{"param":"year","kind":"year_exact","type":"integer","multi_value":false,"enum_enforced":false,"values":null},{"param":"year_min","kind":"year_range","type":"integer","multi_value":false,"enum_enforced":false,"values":null},{"param":"year_max","kind":"year_range","type":"integer","multi_value":false,"enum_enforced":false,"values":null},{"param":"detail","kind":"detail","type":"string","multi_value":false,"enum_enforced":true,"values":["counties","states"],"default":"counties"},{"param":"county_fips","kind":"foreign_key","column":"county_fips","type":"string","multi_value":true,"enum_enforced":false,"values":null},{"param":"tract_geoid","kind":"foreign_key","column":"tract_geoid","type":"string","multi_value":true,"enum_enforced":false,"values":null},{"param":"specialty_group","kind":"categorical","column":"specialty_group","type":"string","multi_value":true,"enum_enforced":true,"values":["all","primary_care","ob_gyn","behavioral_health","np_pa"],"has_total":true,"total_value":"all","requires_single_value":false,"nullable":false,"null_filter_token":null}],"filter_hints":[],"non_additive":[{"column":"county_fips","reason":"A clinician counts once in every county where they list a practice address (31.6% of the clinicians placed in a county in 2026 list addresses in two or more), so a sum across counties counts them more than once and is not Georgia's count; the Georgia row counts each clinician once."},{"column":"specialty_group","reason":"The groups are a selection of primary specialties, not a partition (other specialties count only in 'all'), and a clinician enrolled under primary specialties in two groups counts in both, so the groups never add up to 'all'."}],"partitions":[],"value_implications":[],"year_meaning":"year is the calendar year of the snapshot: each year's figures are the clinicians enrolled in Medicare with a Georgia practice address in CMS's Doctors and Clinicians National Downloadable File as pulled on one date (2026: pulled 2026-10-24, CMS release modified 2026-10-02 and released 2026-10-15). CMS replaces the file monthly and keeps no history, so the latest snapshot of each year is used. A count on that date, not of everyone enrolled during the year.","pooled_rates":[],"series_breaks":[],"year_window":null,"pooled_min_count":null,"values_endpoint":"/api/v1/health/medicare_clinicians/values"}