National Physician Database metadata

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.

Explore our Physicians web page, 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: 2022–2023
Next release: 2023–2024 (fall 2025)
Historical data: 1989–1990 to 2022–2023

For data from 1996 to 2022, see our NPDB data table release (ZIP). For additional data back to 1989, 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 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 (PDF) of the annual NPDB data table release.

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