Who assigns NPIs to practitioners?
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) have developed the National Plan and Provider Enumeration System (NPPES) to assign these unique identifiers. All individual and organizational healthcare providers, who conduct electronic transactions covered by HIPAA, should begin using their NPI number by the compliance date of May 23, 2007. To learn more about the implementation of the National Provider Identifier standard, visit the dedicated NPI section of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Web site at: http://www.cms.hhs.gov/apps/npi/01_overview.asp.
