Overview

The National Physician Database (NPDB) was established in 1987 by the deputy ministers of health and transferred to CIHI in 1995.

The NPDB provides information on demographic characteristics of physicians, physician payments and physicians’ level of activity within Canada’s health care system.

Find out more about physicians, or explore our annual report and NPDB data table release , which contains the most up-to-date information on physicians in Canada.

Data source

The NPDB receives data from provincial and territorial medicare programs through a standardized set of data elements.

Data coverage

Billings by physicians in Canada for health care services are detailed at the individual physician level as well as for patient sex and age groupings.

Information on physicians’ non-billings payments is collected at both the individual physician level and an aggregate level.

Data availability

NPDB data is available for the following fiscal years:

  • Most recent year: 2017-2018
  • Next release: 2018-2019 (September 2020)
  • Historical data: 1989–1990 to 2017-2018

For data from 1989 to 2018, see our NPDB data table release. For additional data, please complete a data request form.

Classification

NPDB data is derived from physicians’ billings, including fee codes, which are submitted from provincial and territorial medical health care insurance plans.

The Physician Services Benefit Rate (PSBR) provides interprovincial comparisons of fees paid for physicians’ services. PSBR compares fees for 10 service groupings, comprising most fee-for-service payments made under Canadian medicare systems. Benefit indices are calculated for family medicine and each of 16 physician specialties. Explore the PSBR data tables.

The National Grouping System (NGS) organizes fee codes from billings data into homogenous categories for each province and territory, which allows for comparisons of physician services and activities across the country. View the NGS visualization (PDF).

Data elements

The NPDB contains

  • Socio-demographic, payment and service utilization data of physicians
  • Service utilization data, by age group and sex, of physicians’ patients
  • Physician payment information at the individual, specialty and aggregate level

Data quality

CIHI ensures that the quality of information in our data holdings is suited to its intended uses and that data users are provided with accurate information about data quality. Read more about our Data and Information Quality Program.

NPDB data quality documentation can be found in the Methodology Notes of the annual NPDB data table release.

For further information on the NPDB, email physicians@cihi.ca.