NPI Registry MCP

Anthropic-published MCP server distributed via the anthropics/healthcare plugin marketplace. Exposes the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) National Plan and Provider Enumeration System (NPPES) NPI Registry API v2.1 — Claude can validate a 10-digit National Provider Identifier, look up the full provider record, or search providers by name, organization, location, or specialty.

   
Type MCP server
Supplier Anthropic
Availability GA — shipped 2026-01 with the Claude for Healthcare launch
Pricing Free / OSS
Capabilities Read-only — provider validation, lookup, and search

How to install

  • Claude Code — plugin marketplace (recommended):

    /plugin marketplace add anthropics/healthcare
/plugin install npi-registry@healthcare

    Restart Claude Code, then /mcp to confirm the server is connected.

    Equivalent direct add (skips the marketplace install step):

    claude mcp add-from-marketplace anthropics/healthcare/npi-registry

  • Claude.ai — Settings → Connectors → NPI Registry → Connect.

  • Claude Desktop — proxy the marketplace MCP via mcp-remote if the upstream endpoint is HTTP; otherwise install the marketplace per the Anthropic Healthcare README and consult the per-server mcp.json for the literal stdio command.

    Registration form not exhaustively documented upstream — adapt the snippet to whatever the marketplace’s mcp.json ships for this server.

What it does

Wraps the NPPES NPI Registry API with MCP tools that let Claude:

  • npi_validate — confirm an NPI number has valid format and passes the Luhn check-digit algorithm before doing a registry lookup.
  • npi_lookup — retrieve the complete provider record for a specific NPI: legal name, credentials, taxonomy / specialty, practice locations, enumeration date, and entity type (individual vs. organization).
  • npi_search — find providers by combinations of first / last name, organization name, location (city / state / ZIP), and specialty / taxonomy description; supports wildcards and name-alias expansion.

Primary use cases: Provider-credential verification before onboarding, contracting, or referral; provider discovery by specialty / location for network construction; clinical-trial investigator validation; revenue-cycle and prior-authorization workflows that need to confirm a billing or rendering provider. Pair with cms-coverage, icd-10-codes, and prior-auth-review for end-to-end prior-auth review.

Notes

US-specific. The NPI is required under HIPAA for covered US healthcare providers; non-US clinicians and foreign trial sites are not in this registry. CMS publishes weekly NPPES updates — record currency depends on the upstream registry refresh cadence.

Sources

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