# CMS Medicare Physician Compare Lookup

> CMS Medicare Physician Compare Lookup is a paid API for AI agents from api.healthtravel-api.workers.dev, paid per call via x402, $0.002/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-10-29).

Searches the CMS Medicare Physicians and Clinicians dataset by last name (and optional state) to return clinician NPI, credentials, specialty, medical school, graduation year, and practice location.

## Facts

- Endpoint: GET https://api.healthtravel-api.workers.dev/api/health/physician-compare-cms?utm_source=zero.xyz
- Price: $0.002/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-10-29
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/cms-medicare-physician-compare-lookup-c721d6c1
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_QmXaJziC13qtt4E-Qmt3F

Status and success rate cover calls made through Zero and Zero's own probes. Third-party monitors may report differently.

## How to call it through Zero

Zero handles the 402 payment challenge and records the run. With the Zero CLI installed (`npm i -g @zeroxyz/cli`):

```sh
zero fetch --capability cms-medicare-physician-compare-lookup-c721d6c1
```

Example prompt: Can you look up Dr. Smith in Texas from the CMS physician database and show me up to 10 results — I need their NPI, specialty, and where they practice?

## When to prefer this

Use this endpoint when you need to look up US Medicare-participating clinicians by last name, retrieve their NPI, credentials, specialty, or training background from the official CMS Physician Compare dataset. Prefer this over general web searches when you need structured, authoritative CMS data for provider verification, NPI lookup, or credential checking. Not suitable for hospital affiliation lookup or non-Medicare providers.

## Known failure modes

- last_name not provided — required parameter missing returns error
- last_name too short (under 2 chars) or too long (over 60 chars) returns validation error
- No matching clinicians found for given name/state combination — empty result set
- Invalid state code returns no results or error
- Result count outside 1-20 range is rejected or clamped
- CMS source data temporarily unavailable — upstream data fetch failure

## How this service works

CMS Medicare Doctors and Clinicians file: clinician NPI, name, credential, specialty, medical school, graduation year and practice location, by last name and optional state. Hospital affiliations are not in this file (only the practice group name). Up to 20 records per call.

## Output

Returns up to 20 clinician records (default 5) per call, each containing: NPI number, full name, credential (e.g. MD, DO), specialty, medical school attended, graduation year, and practice location/group name. Hospital affiliations are not included.

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
 "required": [
  "input"
 ],
 "properties": {
  "input": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type",
    "method"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "type": "string",
     "const": "http"
    },
    "method": {
     "enum": [
      "GET"
     ],
     "type": "string"
    },
    "queryParams": {
     "type": "object",
     "required": [
      "last_name"
     ],
     "properties": {
      "max": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "How many records, 1 to 20 (default 5)"
      },
      "state": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "Two-letter state code, optional"
      },
      "last_name": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "Clinician last name, letters, spaces, apostrophes and hyphens, 2 to 60 characters"
      }
     }
    }
   },
   "additionalProperties": false
  }
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/cms-medicare-physician-compare-lookup-c721d6c1/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from api.healthtravel-api.workers.dev](https://www.zero.xyz/host/api.healthtravel-api.workers.dev/llms.txt)