Physician Assistant
164,808 active US providers register Physician Assistant as their primary taxonomy. That is 1.8% of every provider in the registry, and the 12th largest of 584 specialties with a page here.
- Taxonomy code
- 363A00000X
- Grouping
- Physician Assistants & Advanced Practice Nursing Providers
- Classification
- Physician Assistant
- Active providers
- 164,808
- States covered
- 51 of 51
What the code means
A physician assistant is a person who has successfully completed an accredited education program for physician assistant, is licensed by the state and is practicing within the scope of that license. Physician assistants are formally trained to perform many of the routine, time-consuming tasks a physician can do. In some states, they may prescribe medications. They take medical histories, perform physical exams, order lab tests and x-rays, and give inoculations. Most states require that they work under the supervision of a physician.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| New York | 15,509 | |
| California | 14,443 | |
| Texas | 11,143 | |
| Florida | 10,336 | |
| North Carolina | 9,339 | |
| Pennsylvania | 8,008 | |
| Michigan | 7,046 | |
| Ohio | 5,320 | |
| Illinois | 4,938 | |
| Massachusetts | 4,709 | |
| Georgia | 4,694 | |
| Virginia | 4,393 | |
| Minnesota | 4,013 | |
| Colorado | 3,785 | |
| Washington | 3,741 |
Showing the 15 largest of 51 states with at least one.
Who registers under this code
Almost all of these are individual clinicians: 163,317 people against 1,491 organisations. Half of them had registered by 2017, and 52,781 registered in the last five years, 32% 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.
- NEW YORK, NY3,065
- HOUSTON, TX1,823
- BOSTON, MA1,645
- CHICAGO, IL1,439
- CHARLOTTE, NC1,319
- BROOKLYN, NY1,283
- ATLANTA, GA1,185
- DALLAS, TX1,178
- BALTIMORE, MD1,140
- BRONX, NY1,016
What else they list
Providers whose primary code is Physician 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Medical Physician Assistant | 10,178 | 6.2% |
| Surgical Physician Assistant | 5,884 | 3.6% |
| Student in an Organized Health Care Education/Training Program | 5,057 | 3.1% |
| Athletic Trainer | 712 | 0.4% |
| Family Medicine Physician | 559 | 0.3% |
| Emergency Medicine Physician | 467 | 0.3% |
| Registered Dietitian | 293 | 0.2% |
| Internal Medicine Physician | 249 | 0.2% |
Nearby specialties
Other taxonomies NUCC files under Physician Assistant.
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.