Will my NPI information be available to others?

CMS will be making National Plan and Provider Enumeration System (NPPES) health care provider data elements that are disclosable under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) available beginning Tuesday, September 4, 2007.

The FOIA-disclosable data will be made available in an initial file downloadable from the Internet, with monthly update files also downloadable from the Internet, and in a query-only database whereby users can query by NPI or name of the physician or provider.

The NPI Registry will become operational on September 4 and the downloadable file will be ready approximately one week later. The CMS web site has provided examples of how the data will be displayed.

Social Security Numbers (SSNs), Internal Revenue Service Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (IRS ITINs), and dates of birth (DOB) are not disclosable under FOIA and, therefore will not be released to the public.

Prior to CMS disclosure of NPPES health care provider data, we encourage family physicians who have been assigned NPIs to check the information in their NPPES records to ensure it is current. Some family physicians may wish to delete optional NPPES data that they furnished when applying for their NPIs, since the information provided in these optional fields is not required. For example, the data contained in the ‘‘Other Names’’ and ‘‘Other Provider Identifiers’’ data fields are optional. Further, a primary ‘‘Healthcare Provider Taxonomy Code’’ is required to be furnished when applying for an NPI; however, the reporting of additional ‘‘Healthcare Provider Taxonomy Codes’’ (a total of 15 may be reported) is optional.

For more information regarding the disclosure of NPI information, see the CMS NPI Dissemination Web page.