A unique physician identification number, or UPIN, was a six-character alpha-numeric identifier used by Medicare to identify doctors in the United States. They were discontinued in June, 2007 and replaced by National Provider Identifier, or NPI numbers.
The United States Congress authorized the creation of UPIN IDs through Section 9202 of the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (COBRA). The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) was responsible for creation of the UPINs for each doctor accepting Medicare insurance.
A directory of UPINs was formerly available from the UPIN Registry, as required by Section 4164 of COBRA, but this service was discontinued after May 23, 2008.
Famous quotes containing the words unique, physician and/or number:
“Pregnant women! They had that weird frisson, an aura of magic that combined awkwardly with an earthy sense of duty. Mundane, because they were nothing unique on the suburban streets; ethereal because their attention was ever somewhere else. Whatever you said was trivial. And they had that preciousness which they imposed wherever they went, compelling attention, constantly reminding you that they carried the future inside, its contours already drawn, but veiled, private, an inner secret.”
—Ruth Morgan (1920–1978)
“I knew a witty physician who found theology in the biliary duct, and used to affirm that if there was a disease in the liver, the man became a Calvinist, and if that organ was sound, he became a Unitarian.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Today, almost forty years later, I grow dizzy when I recall that the number of manufactured tanks seems to have been more important to me than the vanished victims of racism.”
—Albert Speer (1905–1981)