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
Verified	works · 2026-07-20
Security	cleared · 2026-07-20 — first-party Anthropic hosted connector, read-only over public CMS NPPES API

How to install

Claude Code — plugin marketplace (recommended):
```
/plugin marketplace add anthropics/healthcare
/plugin install healthcare@healthcare
```
The NPI Registry MCP now ships as one of the connected MCP servers inside the consolidated healthcare plugin (the older standalone npi-registry@healthcare plugin is deprecated upstream). The server is a hosted HTTP endpoint at https://hcls.mcp.claude.com/npi_registry/mcp. Restart Claude Code, then /mcp to confirm the server is connected.

Claude Code — direct MCP add (without the plugin):

claude mcp add --transport http npi-registry https://hcls.mcp.claude.com/npi_registry/mcp

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

Claude Desktop — Desktop has no native HTTP transport; proxy the hosted endpoint via mcp-remote:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "npi-registry": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://hcls.mcp.claude.com/npi_registry/mcp"]
    }
  }
}

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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