Physical Therapy Assistant
61,070 active US providers register Physical Therapy Assistant as their primary taxonomy. That is 0.7% of every provider in the registry, and the 41st largest of 584 specialties with a page here.
- Taxonomy code
- 225200000X
- Grouping
- Respiratory, Developmental, Rehabilitative and Restorative Service Providers
- Classification
- Physical Therapy Assistant
- Active providers
- 61,070
- States covered
- 51 of 51
What the code means
(1)Physical therapist assistants are skilled health care providers who are graduates of a physical therapist assistant associate degree program accredited by an agency recognized by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education or Council on Postsecondary Accreditation, who assists the physical therapist in providing physical therapy. The supervising physical therapist is directly responsible for the actions of the physical therapist assistant. The PTA performs physical therapy procedures and related tasks that have been selected and delegated by the supervising physical therapist. Duties of the PTA include assisting the physical therapist in implementing treatment programs, training patients in exercised and activities of daily living, conducting treatments, and reporting to the physical therapist on the patient's responses. In addition to direct patient care, the PTA may also perform such functions as patient transport, and clinic or equipment preparation and maintenance. Currently more than half of all states require PTAs to be licensed, registered or certified. (2) An individual who works under the supervision of a physical therapist to assist him or her in providing physical therapy services. A physical therapy assistant may, for instance, help patients follow an appropriate exercise program that will increase their strength, endurance, coordination, and range of motion and train patients to perform activities of daily life.
Definition quoted verbatim from the NUCC Health Care Provider Taxonomy code set, version 25.1. Not paraphrased.
Where they are
Counted by practice location, not by mailing address or by licence state. A provider practising across a state line is counted where they practise.
| State | Providers | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Florida | 5,926 | |
| Texas | 5,480 | |
| California | 3,533 | |
| Pennsylvania | 3,042 | |
| Ohio | 2,917 | |
| Illinois | 2,690 | |
| New York | 2,300 | |
| Wisconsin | 2,196 | |
| Michigan | 1,988 | |
| North Carolina | 1,964 | |
| Virginia | 1,778 | |
| Indiana | 1,710 | |
| Tennessee | 1,698 | |
| Kansas | 1,439 | |
| Washington | 1,386 |
Showing the 15 largest of 51 states with at least one.
Who registers under this code
Almost all of these are individual clinicians: 60,813 people against 257 organisations. Half of them had registered by 2016, and 17,454 registered in the last five years, 29% of the current population.
That is close to the pace of the registry as a whole.
Where the practices are
By practice-location city. City counts are noisier than state counts, because a large employer files one address for many providers.
- NORTH CANTON, OH560
- SAN ANTONIO, TX470
- HOUSTON, TX428
- LOUISVILLE, KY383
- MIAMI, FL371
- PHOENIX, AZ306
- ORLANDO, FL271
- CHICAGO, IL249
- OMAHA, NE238
- TOPEKA, KS213
What else they list
Providers whose primary code is Physical Therapy Assistant most often carry these secondary taxonomies as well. This is the closest thing the registry has to a map of which specialties overlap in practice, and it is not published anywhere else.
| Also listed | Providers | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Massage Therapist | 257 | 0.4% |
| Athletic Trainer | 247 | 0.4% |
| Physical Therapist | 144 | 0.2% |
| Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Physician | 70 | 0.1% |
| Occupational Therapy Assistant | 56 | 0.1% |
| Occupational Therapist | 39 | 0.1% |
| Student in an Organized Health Care Education/Training Program | 34 | 0.1% |
| Behavior Technician | 27 | 0.0% |
Looking up a specific provider
These counts come from the monthly NPPES file. To check one provider, use their NPI: the lookup reads the live registry and shows whether the identifier is still active, which the monthly file cannot tell you about the last few weeks.
Counts from npidata_pfile_20050523-20260712.csv, built 2026-08-09. Primary taxonomy only, deactivated identifiers excluded.