Comparison
NPI provider data, against CarePrecise field by field
Every US healthcare provider is in one free federal file. CMS publishes the National Plan and Provider Enumeration System monthly, and every vendor selling “NPI data” starts there. CarePrecise is the most direct comparison to what we sell: the same registry, the same monthly cadence, a published field dictionary, and a stated price. So this page is against them rather than against a vague field of “provider data vendors”.
Their words, from their own site: “with the exception of healthcare provider email addresses and cell phone numbers and some other ‘premium’ data, all data pertaining to individual or organization healthcare providers in CarePrecise LLC products is obtained from sources cleared for public use”. That is the whole thesis of this page, said by the incumbent.
Price, like for like
| Product | What you get | Price |
|---|---|---|
| CarePrecise Platinum, 1-year monthly updates | Their full file, refreshed monthly, plus their Windows app | $4,795 / year |
| CarePrecise Platinum, one-time download | Their full file once, plus their Windows app | $999 |
| CarePrecise Platinum, data only | Their full file once, no app | $879 |
| npidataservices.com, complete database | 9,360,727 records, one-time download | $600 |
| npidataservices.com, one state or one specialty | A single cut, e.g. California or Cardiology | $250 |
| LocationLists — full provider registry | All 9,369,042 records, one CSV, commercial licence | $119 |
| LocationLists — organizations only | 1,958,129 practices and facilities | $99 |
| LocationLists — one specialty or one state | Any of 254 pre-cut segments | from $49 |
Prices read from each vendor’s own site on 9 September 2026. There are two different competitors here and it is worth being precise about which is which. npidataservices.com sets the market price — they rank first for “npi database” and sell 9,360,727 records for $600, so that is what we price against, at 20% of it. CarePrecise sets the field bar — they publish a full data dictionary and we match 180 of their 209 fields — but they rank for almost nothing and cost $879 to $4,795. The widest gap is the segment cuts: they both charge $250 for one state or one specialty, and we ship 254 of them from $49.
Field by field
Compared against the CarePrecise Platinum data dictionary revised 7 August 2026, which they publish as a PDF. Of 209 published fields we match 180.
| Field | LocationLists | CarePrecise Platinum |
|---|---|---|
| Identity & registration | ||
| NPI, entity type, legal business name | ||
| Provider first / middle / last, prefix, suffix, credential | ||
| Practice location address, city, state, ZIP | ||
| Mailing address, kept in its own columns | ||
| Enumeration date, last update, certification date | ||
| EIN, replacement NPI, sole-proprietor flag | ||
| Parent organization, subpart flag | ||
| Additional / other organization names | ||
| Specialty & licensing | ||
| Primary taxonomy code, decoded to a specialty name | ||
| NUCC grouping / classification / specialization | ||
| Every taxonomy the provider declared | ||
| State license number and issuing state | ||
| CMS Medicare specialty, independent of self-declared taxonomy | ||
| All four secondary Medicare specialties | ||
| Contact | ||
| Practice telephone and fax | ||
| Named authorized official, title, phone | ||
| Direct secure-messaging address (NPPES endpoint file) | ||
| Secondary location phone, extension and fax | ||
| Marketing email addresses | premium | |
| Cell phone numbers | premium | |
| Practice intelligence | ||
| Count of NPIs sharing one practice address | ||
| Secondary practice locations | ||
| Other provider identifiers (Medicaid and payer ids) | ||
| Medical school and graduation year | ||
| Telehealth flag, accepts Medicare assignment | ||
| Group practice name, address, size, PAC id | ||
| Hospital affiliation: name, CCN, type, ownership, ER | ||
| Estimated years in practice | ||
| Compliance & program participation | ||
| OIG excluded-provider list (LEIE) match, type, date | ||
| Medicare enrolment flag and enrolment id | ||
| EHR / PQRS incentive participation (CMS retired both) | ||
| Deactivated NPIs as a separate historical table | ||
| Deactivated NPIs removed from the file entirely | ||
| Geography | ||
| County name and county FIPS | ||
| CBSA / MSA code and title | ||
| Time zone, ZIP population, rural-urban, wealth index | ||
| Latitude and longitude | ||
| Packaging | ||
| Plain UTF-8 CSV, one row per NPI, no software | also MDB | |
| Pre-cut segments by specialty, practice type and state | 257 | |
| Secondary practice locations, other names, in full | ||
| Relational tables rather than one flat row per NPI | ||
| Windows search application bundled | ||
| One-off purchase with no subscription | ||
What CarePrecise has that we do not
This section is why the rest of the page is worth reading. Of their 209 published fields we match 180. Of the 29 we do not, 12 are fields their own dictionary says are empty — three marked “Deprecated field”, two “RESERVED FOR LATER USE”, one “Not currently populated”, and their internal load keys. That leaves 11 real differences, and here they all are.
- Deactivated-provider history. Deactivation reason, reactivation date, and their separate historical tables. We delete deactivated NPIs — 351,911 of them — because a deactivated provider is not a provider. If you need the history, they have it.
- ZIP-level context. Time zone, ZIP population, a rural/urban indicator and their own wealth index. We ship county, county FIPS, CBSA, latitude and longitude; these four are the remainder.
- Two retired Medicare programs. EHR and PQRS incentive participation. CMS stopped publishing both; the fields persist in their dictionary.
- Secondary-location date and the NPPES taxonomy group flag. Two fields we could add and have not.
- Email addresses and cell phone numbers. Their premium add-on, and by their own description the one part of their file that is not public. We do not sell contact appends at all.
Everything else they had, we now have: the OIG excluded-provider list, hospital affiliation with CCN, ownership and emergency-service status, county and CBSA geography, latitude and longitude, secondary practice locations in full, other provider identifiers, group practice address, medical school, graduation year and all four secondary Medicare specialties.
Common questions
Is NPPES data free?
Yes. CMS publishes the National Plan and Provider Enumeration System every month at download.cms.gov/nppes, and anyone can download it. It arrives as a 1.15 GB zip that expands to an 11.6 GB CSV with 330 columns, 9.7 million rows including deactivated NPIs, and taxonomy codes instead of specialty names. What you pay us for is the parsing, the taxonomy decode, the deactivation cleanup, the Care Compare enrichment and the cut you actually wanted. Every vendor selling NPI data is working from this same free file, and CarePrecise says so on their own site.
How much is CarePrecise?
Their Platinum product is $999 for a one-time download, $879 for the data without their Windows search application, and $4,795 for a year of monthly updates. Those figures are from their own product page, read on 9 September 2026.
So why is your file cheaper?
It is priced at 20% of the market leader's $600 complete file, deliberately. Not because it carries less. We match 180 of the 209 fields in their published Platinum dictionary, and 12 of the 29 we do not are fields their own dictionary marks deprecated, reserved for later use, or not currently populated. We are cheaper because we sell a file rather than a file plus a Windows application plus an annual subscription, and because we merge the same free federal sources with less overhead. The one part of their product that is genuinely not public data is the appended email addresses and cell phone numbers, which they class as premium and which we do not sell at all.
What does CarePrecise have that you do not?
Of the 213 fields in their published Platinum dictionary we match 75. The rest is mostly four things: the OIG excluded-provider list, PECOS Medicare-enrolment and incentive-program flags, hospital affiliation with CCN and ownership, and geography — county, FIPS, CBSA, lat/long. They also ship relational tables so one NPI can carry several names and several practice locations, where we ship one flat row per NPI. If any of that is what you need, buy CarePrecise. We would rather tell you now than after the download.
What do you have that CarePrecise does not?
The Direct secure-messaging endpoints from the NPPES endpoint file, 257 pre-cut segments by specialty, practice type and state so you are not filtering 9 million rows yourself, and a published verification: we sample rows at random and round-trip them against the live CMS registry API. The most recent run was 25 of 25 found with zero field disagreements.
Do these files include email addresses?
No. NPPES has no email field. About 3% of rows carry a Direct secure-messaging address, which is for clinical data exchange rather than marketing, and it ships in its own labelled column. Vendors who sell physician email lists appended those addresses from another source; the match rate and the permission basis are theirs to prove.
Are these businesses or people?
Both, sold separately and never mixed. 1,958,129 rows are organization NPIs — practices, clinics, agencies and facilities at their business address. 7,410,913 are individual NPIs, a licensed person at the address where they practise. Products built on individuals are named as providers; products built on organizations are named as practices or facilities.