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, including reports and analyses based on NPDB data.

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: 2015–2016
  • Next release: 2016–2017 (March 2019)
  • Historical data: 1989–1990 to 2014–2015

For data from 1989 to 2015, please complete a data request form.

Classification

NPDB data is submitted from provincial and territorial medical health care insurance plans using a standardized set of data elements.

The National Grouping System is used to group together fee codes from billings data into 121 standardized categories.

Data elements

This database 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

Download NPDB data elements 4.0 (PDF)

Data quality

CIHI ensures that 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 Methodological Notes section of the annual reports: