When you are using specialty filters for your search, it is useful to understand that physicians can be filtered based on either ‘specialty group’ or ‘primary or secondary specialty’. Every physician has at least a primary specialty which is 1 of 145 NPI specialty values. Some physicians also may have a secondary specialty. Specialty groups are an easier way of filtering and will yield a larger group of physicians when appropriate for you. A specialty group is comprised of each of the related primary or secondary specialties. For instance, the specialty group ‘Cardiology’ contains any specialty related to this such as Interventional Cardiology, Pediatric Cardiology, Cardiothoracic Surgery, etc. So in cases that you want to include all types of cardiologists in your search, specialty group provides a much easier way to do that.
