Endocrine Insider
June 28, 2007

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced this week that it will delay until August 1, 2007, the dissemination of health care provider data from the National Plan and Provider Enumeration System (NPPES), which houses information provided to CMS on applications for National Provider Identifiers (NPIs).

CMS originally planned to make individual provider information in the NPPES publicly available to other providers on June 28, 2007, using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) guidelines. The information that may be available includes name, address, phone and fax numbers, gender, license number, and state code. CMS chose to delay the dissemination to allow providers extra time to either update or delete their personal information.

Health care providers who have been assigned NPIs should review their NPPES data and make any necessary updates or corrections to their personal information. In addition, providers will have the choice of deleting optional information that may have been provided in the NPI application process such as alternate names, alternate provider identifiers, and taxonomy codes that are not the primary taxonomy code, among others.

To review and edit your NPPES data using the web, please go to https://nppes.cms.hhs.gov/NPPES and provide the user ID and password you have already established. Or, if you are a first time NPPES web user, use the link to create your login information. NPPES can also be contacted by phone at 1-800-465-3203 or e-mail at customerservice@npienumerator.com.

For more information on the NPI program, go to http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalProvIdentStand/01_Overview.asp.