Online psychiatrists in California

Psychiatry in California by the numbers

California has 14,229 psychiatric prescribers in the federal provider registry: 9,366 psychiatrists with an MD, 615 with a DO, and 4,248 psychiatric nurse practitioners. Nurse practitioners make up 29.9% of prescribers in the state. That works out to 36.1 per 100,000 residents, of whom 25.3 are physicians.

Subspecialties in California

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The 25 cities with the most psychiatrists in California

Largest psychiatry practices in California

Clinicians grouped by shared practice address. The registry holds no employer field for individuals, so where a name appears it comes from an organisation registered at the same address — a reasonable inference, not a stated fact. A large building can house several practices, and a clinician may list an address they do not belong to.

New psychiatric prescribers in California, year by year

Both charts are built from registration dates, so they show when the current workforce joined. The registry records no departures, which means the running total can only rise and neither chart should be read as net growth — a clinician who registered in 2019 and has since retired is simply absent from both. Nurse practitioners were 54% of new registrations in 2021 and 87% in 2025.

Who is practising, and for how long

2,680 of California's psychiatric prescribers (18.8%) registered with the federal system in the last five years, and 490 in the last twelve months. 1,988 have been registered for more than twenty years. The nurse practitioner side is newer: 49.2% of psychiatric NPs registered in the last five years, against 5.7% of MD psychiatrists.

Of those who record a gender with the registry, 53% are women, split 72.6% among nurse practitioners and 44.8% among MD psychiatrists.

Source: CMS National Plan and Provider Enumeration System, refreshed weekly. Registration with the federal registry is not the same as actively practising, and does not indicate whether a clinician offers telehealth or is accepting new patients. Population figures are US Census Bureau estimates.