On September 28, 2026, Medical Boulevard, which is an operating system for independent medical practices, released its findings after analyzing every record in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) National Plan and Provider Enumeration System (NPPES).
According to the report — which tracked National Provider Identifier (NPI) registrations, not confirmed openings — the number of practices registered under a nurse practitioner (NP) specialty has soared despite fewer new NPs entering the federal provider registry.
Related: Top 3 Tips to Attract & Retain Qualified Talent at Your Aesthetic Practice [Survey Results]
Their data revealed that nurse practitioners registered 5,097 new practices between Jan 1 and Sep 26, 2026 — a 5.9× increase over the same window in 2019 (859).
The data not only shows a growing appetite for independent practice, but also has broader implications for medspa competition, ownership, staffing, and regulatory compliance.
The research also found that, along with registrations, practice names helped determine new NP business behavior. According to the data, in 2026, names that included aesthetics, medspa, skin, or injectables terms rose from 36 to 102, and 1,019 included wellness, weight, hormone, or IV terms, up from 227 in 2022.
Key findings
- Nurse practitioners registered 5,097 new practices between Jan 1 and Sep 26, 2026. That is 5.9× the same period of 2019 (859) and 40% more than the same period of 2025 (3,647).
- Fewer new NPs are registering: 20,312 in the 2026 window, down 19% from 25,115 in 2023. There are now 25.1 new NP practices for every 100 new NPs, up from 3.7 in 2019.
- Psychiatric and mental health NPs account for 2,734 of this year’s new practices, 54% of the total.
- It is not only a full-practice-authority story. Since 2022, NP practice registrations grew 2.58× in full-practice states, 3.25× in reduced-practice states and 2.86× in restricted-practice states.
Read the Medical Boulevard report here.
Resources:
- Medical Boulevard. (2026). The clinician-owner boom: nurse practitioners are registering new practices at 5.9 times the 2019 rate. Analysis of CMS NPPES data through Sep 26, 2026.
