Pharmacy Term of the Day -- NPI

You hear the term NPI thrown around a lot lately in the pharmacy world and I am always floored with how many people, tech's included, who do not really know what it is. The NPI stands for the National Provider Identifier. Sounds mighty important doesn't it? Like it has a wang the size of the Eiffel Tower.

Anywho, prior to the NPI you would have to use one of several different doctor IDs in order to bill for services. There was the UPIN, and the DEA number, a separate Medicaid number and their astrology numbers. Ok I made that last part up, but you get the point. Basically it was a collective pain in the ass to make sure you had all of the doctors IDs in the proper order. The NPI was created to relieve this 'bag o' numbers' and put everything in one nice and neat package.

In our area we have been using solely NPI numbers for only about five months now. Granted NPIs were starting to be assigned in late 2006, but it was absolutely AMAZING to find out which doctors didn't even know what a NPI was at the turn of this year. Perhaps the most fun of the NPI, and by fun I mean having bulb catheter removed while its still inflated kind of fun, is searching for the number.

You see the government wasn't smart enough to create its own searchable website with everyone's NPI in it. Nah, that's just too damned easy. Instead you quite literally have to google "NPI search" and use one of the sites that shows up. Often you'll have to go to two or three sites just to find the number you need.

Then there is my absolute favorite part. You can search for a doctor on three thousand different websites and not be able to find him even though you know he has one. Whats the problem? Turns out that Dr Steve Johnson's first name is really his middle name. Yep, no where on his script will it say Dr A. Steve Johnson or Dr Asshole Steve Johnson or give you any hint whatsoever that it could be something different. Call the office you say? Why they're just as shocked as you that Steve isn't his first name. Its really a wonderful treat.

So in conclusion a NPI number is designed to simplify the pharmacy world, and I'm sure it will accomplish this job wonderfully. Until you have all of the numbers though its a royal ass fuck. And I mean that in the nicest way possible :)