NPPES Provider Data Formatted for Laptop Use

Tulsa, OK, May 21, 2009 --(PR.com)-- The healthcare industry has long needed a way to get good healthcare provider data in a form that can be used on any ordinary office computer. The best information resource is the National Plan and Provider Enumeration System (NPPES) database, maintained by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), but the data file of more than 2.8 million entries is too large to be opened in Microsoft Excel, and has too many columns to import into Microsoft Access. This makes the NPPES essentially out of reach for all but the most technically savvy.

CarePrecise Technology http://www.careprecise.com has announced the release of pre-processed datasets that include all of the information in the NPPES, but without the “dead air” in the CMS release that drives the size of the file above 3 gigabytes. The data is normalized into separate tables for names, addresses, phones and faxes, taxonomy (provider specialty) codes, legacy identifiers and other data, and is released in a database application that runs under Microsoft Access 2000, 2003 or 2007 to produce reports and exports that can be used in virtually any database or spreadsheet software.

CarePrecise data is updated each month with new providers and changes made by providers to their NPI (National Provider Identifier) record in the NPPES system.

“We had worked for months to develop a process that would make the NPPES data accessible in the healthcare IT consulting practice of one of our partners,” stated Michael Christopher, developer of the CarePrecise products. “I can carry around the complete data file of all healthcare providers in the U.S. and internationally who are enumerated in the NPPES database, right on my laptop. And we can manipulate the data in any way we need to, for research or marketing purposes, or for improving claims crosswalks, or for updating payer and hospital provider files.”

CarePrecise Access offers the complete NPPES database; CarePrecise Select allows customers to specify geographic locations and specialties in the datasets they purchase, and also provides a data hygiene service for updating and enriching provider files. Soon to be released is the third block of products, CarePrecise Analytics, which adds market demographics and various consumer data to the healthcare provider data, permitting precise targeting for marketing and practice siting applications.

“Automation makes it possible for us to offer these products at a much lower price point than this data was available for just a few months ago,” said Christopher. “Starting at about $1,900 just last January, we have successfully brought the price down to about $250, while continuing to improve the products and support.”

CarePrecise healthcare provider data products can be found at http://www.careprecise.com and at http://www.npidentify.com/directory.

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