Social Worker
138,355 active US providers register Social Worker as their primary taxonomy. That is 1.5% of every provider in the registry, and the 18th largest of 584 specialties with a page here.
- Taxonomy code
- 104100000X
- Grouping
- Behavioral Health & Social Service Providers
- Classification
- Social Worker
- Active providers
- 138,355
- States covered
- 51 of 51
What the code means
A social worker is a person who is qualified by a Social Work degree, and licensed, certified or registered by the state as a social worker to practice within the scope of that license. A social worker provides assistance and counseling to clients and their families who are dealing with social, emotional and environmental problems. Social work services may be rendered to individuals, families, groups, and the public.
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 | 23,646 | |
| Ohio | 11,393 | |
| California | 10,322 | |
| Michigan | 9,637 | |
| Illinois | 5,889 | |
| Florida | 5,598 | |
| Massachusetts | 5,549 | |
| Pennsylvania | 5,166 | |
| New Jersey | 4,327 | |
| Maryland | 4,125 | |
| Texas | 3,695 | |
| Kansas | 2,674 | |
| Georgia | 2,160 | |
| Connecticut | 2,149 | |
| Washington | 2,130 |
Showing the 15 largest of 51 states with at least one.
Who registers under this code
135,384 of these are people and 2,971 are organisations, so 2% of the code is businesses rather than clinicians. Half of them had registered by 2019, and 57,060 registered in the last five years, 41% of the current population.
That is a fast-growing code. A population where a large share registered recently is either a genuinely expanding field or a category NPPES added late, and the taxonomy definition above usually tells you which.
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, NY4,346
- BROOKLYN, NY3,645
- BRONX, NY1,918
- COLUMBUS, OH1,508
- CHICAGO, IL1,281
- CINCINNATI, OH1,188
- GRAND RAPIDS, MI1,151
- LOS ANGELES, CA1,050
- CLEVELAND, OH1,016
- PORTLAND, OR966
What else they list
Providers whose primary code is Social Worker 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Clinical Social Worker | 4,561 | 3.3% |
| Case Manager/Care Coordinator | 3,448 | 2.5% |
| Mental Health Counselor | 2,687 | 1.9% |
| Addiction (Substance Use Disorder) Counselor | 1,971 | 1.4% |
| Counselor | 1,602 | 1.2% |
| Student in an Organized Health Care Education/Training Program | 1,324 | 1.0% |
| Community Health Worker | 660 | 0.5% |
| School Social Worker | 607 | 0.4% |
Nearby specialties
Other taxonomies NUCC files under Social Worker.
- School Social Worker6,442
- Clinical Social Worker348,763
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.