PlainDoctor is a free government data directory that makes healthcare provider information accessible to the public. We compile data from official federal sources so you can search for providers by name, specialty, or location without paywalls or account requirements. According to the federal National Provider Identifier Registry (CMS NPPES), PlainDoctor compiles more than 7 million U.S. healthcare-provider records, a registry maintained since May 2007, adding Medicare Part D prescribing from 2023 and CMS MIPS quality scores from 2024 where reported, which you can search and compare; our methodology documents every federal source.

Our Mission and Philosophy

We believe healthcare provider information should be freely available to the public. The federal government collects detailed data on every licensed healthcare provider in the United States through the NPPES registry, but accessing that data through official portals requires navigating complex interfaces and understanding bureaucratic data formats. Our mission is to make this information simple to search and understand.

PlainDoctor exists because we believe patients deserve easy access to basic facts about their healthcare providers, credentials, specialty, practice location, and participation in government quality programs. Whether you are choosing a new physician, verifying a provider's credentials, or researching nursing home quality ratings for a family member, the information should be one search away.

We are not a review site and we do not editorialize. We present official government data in a clean, searchable format. Every listing on PlainDoctor is backed by a verifiable NPI number that links directly to the CMS registry, ensuring you can always trace our data back to its source.

Editorial Standards

PlainDoctor is a government data directory, not a review site. We adhere to strict editorial standards to ensure the information we present is accurate and unbiased:

• Government sources only - All data comes directly from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the National Uniform Claim Committee (NUCC). We do not use third-party data, user-submitted reviews, or proprietary algorithms.
• No editorial opinion - We present data exactly as published by federal agencies. We do not add quality ratings, provider rankings, or subjective assessments of any kind.
• No pay-for-placement - Provider listings are not influenced by advertising or paid partnerships. All providers appear based on government registry data alone.
• Transparent methodology - Our complete data methodology is publicly documented, including every data source, processing step, and known limitation.

Data Sources

PlainDoctor draws from nine federal (and federally-adjacent) data sources, each maintained by a different arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services or the Federation of State Medical Boards:

• CMS NPPES (National Plan and Provider Enumeration System) - The master registry of healthcare providers in the United States, maintained by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Contains 7M+ provider records with NPI, credentials, specialty taxonomy codes, and practice location. Updated monthly.
  download.cms.gov/nppes/NPI_Files.html
• CMS Five-Star Quality Rating System - The official nursing home quality rating system covering 14,710 Medicare-certified nursing homes nationwide. Includes inspection results, staffing levels, and quality measure scores. Published monthly.
  data.cms.gov/provider-data
• NUCC Health Care Provider Taxonomy - The National Uniform Claim Committee's taxonomy classifies 690+ medical specialties used in Medicare and Medicaid billing. This is the industry standard for healthcare provider classification in the United States.
  nucc.org
• CMS Medicare Part D Prescriber Public Use File - Annual dataset of Medicare Part D prescribing statistics including total claims counts, costs, beneficiary counts, and drug-level breakdowns per prescriber NPI. Published annually by CMS with approximately a two-year lag.
• CMS MIPS Performance Data - Merit-based Incentive Payment System quality scores sourced directly from CMS performance year data. Measures provider quality across multiple categories including quality, promoting interoperability, improvement activities, and cost.
• CMS Open Payments (Physician Payments Sunshine Act) - Federal database of payments and transfers of value from drug and medical-device manufacturers to physicians. Published annually by June 30 for the prior calendar year; current dataset covers program year 2024.
  openpaymentsdata.cms.gov
• State Medical Board Disciplinary Action Annual Reports + FSMB National Rollup - Aggregate, statewide disciplinary-action counts published by individual state medical boards (currently 10 states: CA, FL, IL, MA, MI, NY, OH, PA, TX, WA), plus a national comparison rollup from the Federation of State Medical Boards. Never individual-provider records.
• CMS Hospital General Information - Facility identity, ownership, hospital category, emergency-services availability, and the CMS Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating for 5,432 CMS-tracked hospitals.
  data.cms.gov/provider-data/dataset/xubh-q36u
• CMS Doctors and Clinicians National Downloadable File (DAC) - Links individual providers to the hospitals/facilities where they report a Medicare billing affiliation (1,760,594 records).

For complete details on how we process this data, see our Data Methodology page.

How We Process the Data

Our methodology follows a strict pipeline that preserves the integrity of the original CMS data. We download the full NPPES data dissemination file (7M+ records), parse NPI records, and map each provider's taxonomy code to the NUCC specialty hierarchy. Practice addresses are geocoded to enable location-based search by city and state. Nursing home data is matched by CMS Certification Number (CCN), and prescribing data is linked by NPI.

All joins between datasets are performed on official identifiers, we never use fuzzy matching or probabilistic linkage for provider records. This ensures that when you look up a provider on PlainDoctor, the prescribing statistics and quality scores shown belong to that specific provider, not a similarly named individual.

We do not modify, filter, or editorialize any provider records. If a provider exists in the NPPES registry with an active NPI, they appear on PlainDoctor exactly as reported to CMS. Quality scores, star ratings, and prescribing statistics are presented as published by the respective CMS programs without adjustment or reinterpretation.

Data Currency and Update Schedule

PlainDoctor's database reflects the following data vintages:

• NPPES provider data - Updated from the most recent monthly CMS data dissemination. Current data vintage: 2025. The NPPES registry is updated weekly by CMS, and we incorporate the latest monthly full replacement file.
• Nursing home ratings - Reflects the latest CMS Five-Star Quality Rating update. Ratings are refreshed monthly by CMS based on the three most recent annual inspection cycles.
• Medicare Part D prescribing - Annual release from CMS. Current data vintage: 2023 (most recent available). CMS typically publishes prescriber-level data with a two-year lag.
• MIPS quality scores - Annual CMS performance year data. Current data vintage: 2023. Performance scores are finalized and published approximately 18 months after the performance year.
• Open Payments - Annual CMS release, published by June 30 for the prior calendar year. Current data vintage: program year 2024.
• State disciplinary actions - Each state board's own publication schedule; FSMB's national rollup is published roughly every 2 years. Current data vintage: 2023 across the 10 states covered.
• Hospital profiles and provider-hospital affiliations - Sourced from the current CMS Hospital General Information and Doctors and Clinicians (DAC) releases.

We refresh our database periodically to incorporate the latest CMS releases. Provider information is self-reported to CMS and may not always reflect a provider's current practice location, active status, or specialty focus. Always verify critical details directly with the provider's office before making appointments or care decisions.

Data Verification

Every record on PlainDoctor is traceable to an official government source:

• NPI verification - Every provider's National Provider Identifier (NPI) is verified against the CMS NPPES registry. NPI numbers shown on PlainDoctor can be cross-checked at the official CMS NPI lookup tool.
• Specialty classification - Provider specialties are mapped using the official NUCC Health Care Provider Taxonomy code set, the industry standard used by all Medicare and Medicaid billing.
• Nursing home ratings - All nursing home star ratings are official CMS Five-Star Quality Rating System scores. We do not create or modify these ratings in any way.

What We Show and What We Do Not

PlainDoctor displays: provider name and credentials (MD, DO, NP, PA, etc.), medical specialty from NUCC taxonomy codes, practice address and phone number, NPI number, gender (as reported in NPPES), enumeration date, nursing home ratings (CMS Five-Star scores, staffing, deficiencies), Medicare Part D prescribing data, MIPS quality scores, CMS Open Payments industry-payment totals (where reported), aggregate statewide disciplinary-action context (10 states), hospital profiles (CMS Hospital General Information), and provider-hospital affiliations (CMS DAC file).

PlainDoctor does not display: custom quality ratings or proprietary scores, patient reviews or testimonials, individual physician malpractice history or personal disciplinary records (only aggregate, statewide counts -- see above), or insurance acceptance information. We deliberately limit our scope to official government data to maintain objectivity.

Editorial Independence

Content on PlainDoctor is compiled by our editorial team from official source data. Raw datasets from CMS and the NUCC are transformed into readable profiles by our continuous editorial pipeline, then validated against the source before publication. The PlainDoctor editorial team, is responsible for editorial standards, methodology, and corrections.

We do not accept payment, sponsorship, or promoted placement from providers, hospitals, manufacturers, or any healthcare entity. Our only revenue source is contextual display advertising served by Google AdSense, advertisers do not influence which entities we cover or how we present data, and they do not receive preferential placement.

Limitations and Caveats

• Self-reported data - Provider information is self-reported to CMS and may not be current. Addresses, phone numbers, and specialties may have changed since the last NPPES update.
• NPI requirement - Not all providers appear in NPPES. Only those with National Provider Identifiers are included, which excludes some practitioners who do not bill Medicare or Medicaid.
• Point-in-time ratings - Nursing home star ratings reflect a point-in-time assessment and may not capture recent improvements or declines in care quality.
• Medicare-only prescribing - Part D prescribing data is limited to Medicare patients and does not reflect a provider's full prescribing practice or private-pay patients.
• Not a recommendation engine - PlainDoctor does not recommend providers, rank them by quality, or suggest which provider is "best" for any condition or procedure.
• Always verify - Always confirm provider information directly before making healthcare decisions. Call the provider's office to verify current address, accepted insurance, and availability.

Coverage

PlainDoctor covers the full scope of the CMS provider registry:

• 7M+ active individual healthcare providers with verified NPI numbers
• 690+ medical specialties classified by NUCC taxonomy
• 14,710 Medicare-certified nursing homes with Five-Star ratings
• 5,432 CMS-tracked hospitals with 1,760,594 provider-hospital affiliation records
• 979,136 Open Payments provider-year payment records (program year 2024)
• Statewide disciplinary-action context for 10 states plus the FSMB national rollup
• All 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories
• City-level aggregation for metropolitan area provider density analysis
• State-level specialty distribution and provider concentration statistics

The breadth of coverage means you can find virtually any Medicare-enrolled provider in the country, from primary care physicians in rural communities to highly specialized surgeons at major academic medical centers.

Who Uses PlainDoctor

PlainDoctor serves a diverse audience. Patients use the site to look up provider credentials and verify NPI numbers before appointments. Caregivers research nursing home quality ratings when choosing care facilities for family members. Journalists and researchers use provider density data to study healthcare access disparities across regions. Health policy analysts compare provider availability by state and specialty to identify underserved areas.

We design PlainDoctor for speed and clarity. No login is required, no personal information is collected, and every page loads quickly with a focus on delivering the specific data you came for. Our search is designed to return relevant results even with partial names or alternative specialty terms.

Editorial Team

PlainDoctor is published by PlainDoctor Editorial, a small independent team that builds public-data portals so that government records remain accessible to the people they describe. Our editorial work on PlainDoctor is led by editors with backgrounds in healthcare data analysis, public-records journalism, and clinical informatics, disciplines that combine to vet what CMS publishes, surface its limitations, and translate technical taxonomies (NPPES, NUCC, the CMS Five-Star rating components, the Medicare Part D prescriber file) into language a patient or caregiver can actually use.

We do not employ practicing clinicians and do not publish original medical advice. Instead, our editorial standard is verification, citation, and transparency: every data field we surface is traceable to a CMS or NUCC publication, every caveat (lag time, scope exclusions, self-reported fields) is disclosed at the page level, and every methodology decision is documented at /methodology. When CMS data has known shortcomings, for example, NPPES taxonomy is self-reported and can be stale, we say so on the page where the data appears, not buried in a footer.

Editorial questions, fact corrections, and source-attribution issues should go to hello@plaindoctor.com. We are accountable for what we publish: every correction we make is reflected in the next data refresh, and our update schedule is documented at the top of this page so readers can see how recent the underlying figures are. PlainDoctor does not accept paid placement, sponsored listings, or any incentive that would compromise the neutrality of how facilities and providers appear on the site.

Contact

Questions, data corrections, or feedback? Reach us at hello@plaindoctor.com. We read every message and take data accuracy seriously, if you spot an error, let us know and we will investigate.

Important Disclaimer

PlainDoctor is for informational purposes only and does not provide medical advice. The data presented comes from government sources and is not a substitute for professional medical consultation. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider for medical decisions. Do not disregard or delay seeking medical advice based on information found on PlainDoctor.

PlainDoctor is an independent project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, or any healthcare organization. The information on PlainDoctor is derived from publicly available government data and should be independently verified before being relied upon for any purpose.