healthcare-providers-verify

name	healthcare-providers-verify
description	Validates practitioner credentials and license status against the NPI registry. Cross-references specialties, credentials, and practice addresses against official records. Returns Verified / Partially Verified / Unverified / Flagged per practitioner with mismatch details and source URLs. Triggers: "verify these doctors", "check provider credentials", "validate licenses", "verify NPI numbers", "cross-check credentials against NPI", "compliance audit on providers", "are these practitioners still licensed", "validate my provider list". Accepts CSV, Google Sheet URL, or pasted data. Do NOT use for extracting providers from practice URLs — use healthcare-providers-extract instead. Do NOT use for filling data gaps — use healthcare-providers-enrich instead. Do NOT use for discovering practices — use market-finder or local-places instead. Do NOT use for general extraction — use nimble-web-expert instead.
allowed-tools	["Bash(nimble:*)","Bash(date:*)","Bash(cat:*)","Bash(mkdir:*)","Bash(python3:*)","Bash(echo:*)","Bash(jq:*)","Bash(ls:*)","Bash(wc:*)","Read","Write","Edit","Glob","Grep","Agent","AskUserQuestion"]
metadata	{"author":"Nimbleway","version":"0.23.0"}

Healthcare Providers Verify

Validate practitioner credentials against the NPI registry and authoritative sources, powered by Nimble's web data APIs.

User request: $ARGUMENTS

Before running any commands, read references/nimble-playbook.md for Claude Code constraints (no shell state, no &/wait, sub-agent permissions, communication style).

---

Instructions

Step 0: Preflight + WSA Discovery

Sibling handoff check: Before running full preflight, check if healthcare-providers-extract or healthcare-providers-enrich ran earlier in this session by following the Sibling Handoff pattern from references/nimble-playbook.md. If same-day output exists, skip CLI check and profile load, and reuse WSA Layer 1/3 inventory. Only re-run Layer 2 if the verification focus changed.

Otherwise, run full preflight from references/nimble-playbook.md (5 simultaneous Bash calls: date calc, today, CLI check, profile load, index.md load).

Also simultaneously — run WSA discovery and setup:

• mkdir -p ~/.nimble/memory/{reports,healthcare-providers-verify/checkpoints}
• ls ~/.nimble/memory/healthcare-providers-verify/checkpoints/ 2>/dev/null
• Run Layer 1 (vertical) and Layer 3 (general tools) WSA discovery from references/wsa-reference.md. Layer 2 (session-specific) runs after Step 1 when you know the user's specialty and verification focus.

Classify discovered agents into verification categories and validate with nimble agent get per references/wsa-reference.md.

From the preflight results:

• CLI missing or API key unset -> references/profile-and-onboarding.md, stop
• Tag all nimble CLI calls: nimble --client-source skill-healthcare-providers-verify <subcommand>. MCP path: not yet supported — see references/nimble-playbook.md for status.
• Profile exists -> note it for context. Determine mode using smart date windowing from references/nimble-playbook.md:
  • Full mode: first run OR last run > 14 days ago
  • Quick refresh: last run < 14 days ago (re-verify only previously Unverified/Flagged practitioners)
  • Same-day repeat: if last_runs.healthcare-providers-verify is today, check for existing report at ~/.nimble/memory/reports/healthcare-providers-verify-*[today].md. If found, ask: "Already ran today. Run again for fresh data?"
• No profile -> that's fine. This skill doesn't require onboarding. Proceed to Step 1.

Step 1: Parse Input + Starting Questions

Chained-from-sibling shortcut: Check for same-day extract or enrich output:

ls ~/.nimble/memory/reports/healthcare-providers-extract-*$(date +%Y-%m-%d).md 2>/dev/null
ls ~/.nimble/memory/reports/healthcare-providers-enrich-*$(date +%Y-%m-%d).md 2>/dev/null

If a same-day report exists, parse the {slug} and load the provider data (providers.json or enriched.json). This gives you names, credentials, specialties, and locations — skip parsing and go directly to Step 2.

Parse $ARGUMENTS for input type using the Input Parsing Pattern from references/nimble-playbook.md. Key routing:

• Sibling output detected (providers.json/enriched.json) -> proceed to Step 2
• CSV/Sheet/pasted data detected -> proceed to Step 2
• Unclear -> ask (counts as 1 of max 2 prompts)

If input is clear, confirm and ask one shaping question (plain text, not AskUserQuestion):

"Found N practitioners to verify. Quick questions:

1. What should I verify? (credentials, specialty, active status, practice address — or all)
2. Healthcare vertical? (ophthalmology, dental, dermatology, general, or other)"

If input is ambiguous, use AskUserQuestion (counts as 1 of max 2 prompts):

What practitioner data should I verify?

• Paste provider data directly (name + credentials + location, one per line)
• Provide a CSV file path or Google Sheet URL
• Or describe what you have (e.g., "a list of 50 ophthalmologists I need to verify against the NPI registry")

Skip questions the user already answered in their initial message.

Step 2: Analyze Input Data

Parse the input into structured records. For each practitioner, identify:

• Claimed fields — name, credentials, specialty, state/city, practice name
• Verification targets — which claims to check based on user's focus

Minimum required fields: Name + at least one of (credentials, state, specialty). If a practitioner has only a name with no other identifiers, flag it: "Cannot verify [name] — need at least a state, credential, or specialty to search."

Build a verification plan summary:

"Analyzing N practitioners for verification:

• Names: N/N present
• Credentials claimed: N/N
• Specialty claimed: N/N
• State/location: N/N

Starting NPI verification..."

Run Layer 2 WSA discovery now that you know the specialty:

nimble agent list --limit 50 --search "[specialty]"
nimble agent list --limit 50 --search "[registry-user-mentioned]"

See references/wsa-reference.md for session-specific discovery.

Step 3: NPI Registry Lookup

Prefer the NPPES API — it returns structured JSON in one call instead of search + extract (two calls). Build the query URL from the practitioner's fields:

nimble extract --url "https://npiregistry.cms.hhs.gov/api/?version=2.1&first_name=[First]&last_name=[Last]&state=[ST]&limit=5" --format markdown

Add &taxonomy_description=[Specialty] if the specialty is known and specific enough. The API returns NPI number, status, credentials, taxonomy codes, addresses, and enumeration dates — everything needed for verification in a single call.

Fallback to web search if the NPPES API returns zero results or errors:

nimble search --query "[Name] [Credential] [State] NPI registry" --max-results 5 --search-depth lite

Then extract the top result from an NPI source (see source priority below).

Source priority (enforce in sub-agent prompts):

1. NPPES API (npiregistry.cms.hhs.gov/api/) — preferred, structured JSON
2. npidb.org/doctors/ — clean structured data, good fallback
3. nppes.cms.hhs.gov (provider-view pages) — official CMS source
4. Skip all others (healthline, hmedata, vitals, etc.) — inconsistent formatting

Tell sub-agents: "Only extract from NPPES API, npidb.org, or nppes.cms.hhs.gov. Ignore other NPI aggregator sites."

Search budget per provider: Max 3 search queries + 1 extraction per practitioner. If no NPI match after 3 attempts, mark as Unverified and move on. Tell sub-agents: "Do not run more than 4 nimble commands per provider. Mark as Unverified if no match by then."

For 10+ practitioners, use sub-agents (see Sub-Agent Strategy below).

Key fields from NPI records — see references/npi-verification-patterns.md for the full list: NPI number, status, credentials, taxonomy/specialty, enumeration date, last updated, practice address.

Checkpoint enforcement: After each sub-agent returns its batch results, the main context MUST write the checkpoint before spawning the next step or presenting results:

1. Receive sub-agent results
2. Write checkpoint: echo '[results]' > ~/.nimble/memory/healthcare-providers-verify/checkpoints/{slug}/batch-{n}.json
3. Continue to next step

Do NOT skip this — if the run fails between steps, the user loses all progress.

Step 4: Cross-Reference and Verify

For each practitioner, compare claimed data against extracted NPI data. Follow the verification logic in references/npi-verification-patterns.md:

1. Name matching — normalize both names and determine match level (Strong, Likely, Weak, No Match) per the name matching rules in the reference
2. Credential matching — compare claimed credentials against NPI record
3. Specialty matching — compare claimed specialty against NPI taxonomy using the taxonomy matching strategy in the reference
4. Address matching — compare claimed state/city against NPI practice address
5. Status check — verify NPI status is Active

Assign verification status per practitioner based on the totality of evidence:

• Verified — all claims match NPI record
• Partially Verified — NPI found, minor discrepancies
• Unverified — no NPI match found or unable to disambiguate
• Flagged — active mismatches requiring human review

See references/npi-verification-patterns.md for the detailed criteria for each status and the mismatch severity levels (Critical vs Warning).

Step 5: WSA Supplementary Verification (Optional)

If the user requested regulatory verification beyond NPI lookup, or if Step 5 left practitioners as Unverified that might benefit from additional sources:

Run verification-phase WSAs discovered in Step 0. See references/wsa-reference.md for the verification phase mapping, agent evaluation, and fallback chains.

Practice confirmation: For Unverified practitioners, try confirming their practice exists via practice-level WSAs or web search:

nimble search --query "[practice-name] [city] [state]" --max-results 5 --search-depth lite

Regulatory verification: For practitioners the user wants regulatory checks on:

nimble search --query "[name] [credentials] clinical trials OR FDA OR board certification" --max-results 5 --search-depth lite

Step 6: Deduplication & Confidence Scoring

Follow the Entity Deduplication pattern from references/nimble-playbook.md. Skill-specific dedup rules are in references/provider-extraction-patterns.md.

NPI dedup check: After all sub-agents return, scan for duplicate NPI numbers across batches. If two different providers mapped to the same NPI, flag both as "Flagged — possible NPI collision, requires human review." This catches data entry errors and name confusion in the source provider list.

Verification-specific scoring: The verification status (Verified / Partially Verified / Unverified / Flagged) replaces confidence scoring for this skill. Each status includes a confidence qualifier:

• High confidence — 2+ NPI sources corroborate, strong name match
• Medium confidence — single NPI source, likely name match
• Low confidence — weak name match, partial field matches

Step 7: Output

Present results as a verification report — showing status per practitioner with specific mismatch details. Group by verification status, include a "What This Means" section at the end.

# Provider Verification: [N] Practitioners Checked
*[Date] | [V] Verified, [PV] Partially Verified, [U] Unverified, [F] Flagged*

## TL;DR
Verified [V] of [T] practitioners against the NPI registry. [F] flagged for
review: [brief description of critical issues]. [U] could not be verified —
[common reason].

## Verification Results

| # | Name | Claimed | NPI Status | Verification | Issues | Source |
|---|------|---------|------------|-------------|--------|--------|
| 1 | Dr. Jane Smith | MD, Retinal Surgery, TX | Active (NPI 1234567890) | Verified | — | [NPI](url) |
| 2 | Dr. John Doe | OD, Ophthalmology, CA | Active (NPI 0987654321) | Partially Verified | Subspecialty differs | [NPI](url) |
| 3 | Dr. Alex Chen | MD, Dentistry, NY | Not Found | Unverified | No NPI match | [NPPES query](api-url) |
| 4 | Dr. Pat Lee | DO, Cardiology, FL | Deactivated | Flagged | NPI deactivated 2024-01 | [NPI](url) |

## Flagged Practitioners (Requires Human Review)

### Dr. Pat Lee
**Claimed:** DO, Cardiology, FL
**NPI Record:** NPI 1122334455 — **Deactivated** (01/15/2024)
**Issues:**
- CRITICAL: NPI status is Deactivated since January 2024
- Credential matches (DO confirmed)
- Specialty matches (Cardiovascular Disease taxonomy)
**Source:** [NPI Record](url)
**Action needed:** Confirm if provider has re-registered or if this is a
different individual.

[Repeat per flagged practitioner]

## Unverified Practitioners

[List practitioners where no NPI match was found, with search queries attempted]

## Verification Summary
- **Verified:** [V] practitioners — all claims confirmed
- **Partially Verified:** [PV] — minor discrepancies noted
- **Unverified:** [U] — no NPI match (common names, missing identifiers)
- **Flagged:** [F] — critical issues requiring review

## Sources
[Clickable URL for every NPI lookup page used, grouped by practitioner]

## What This Means
[Actionable interpretation: which practitioners are safe to include in your
directory, which need follow-up, what the verification rate tells you about
your data quality. Suggest next steps for unverified/flagged records.]

Source links are mandatory. Every verification finding must trace back to a source URL.

Step 8: Save to Memory

Make all Write calls simultaneously:

• Report -> ~/.nimble/memory/reports/healthcare-providers-verify-{slug}-{date}.md
• Verification data -> ~/.nimble/memory/healthcare-providers-verify/{slug}/verified.json
• Profile -> update last_runs.healthcare-providers-verify in ~/.nimble/business-profile.json (only if profile exists)
• Follow the wiki update pattern from references/memory-and-distribution.md: update index.md rows for all affected entity files, append a log.md entry for this run.
• Clean up checkpoint (complete run) or keep (partial run)

Update sibling artifacts: If providers.json or enriched.json exists for this slug under ~/.nimble/memory/, merge NPI numbers and verification status into those files. Generate a verified CSV export at ~/.nimble/memory/healthcare-providers-verify/{slug}/verified-{date}.csv with all verification columns (NPI, NPI Status, NPI Taxonomy, Verification Status). Offer this export path in Step 9 so the user can copy it where needed.

Step 9: Share, Distribute & Follow-ups

Always offer distribution — do not skip. Follow references/memory-and-distribution.md for connector detection and sharing flow.

Notion: full verification report as a dated subpage. Slack: TL;DR with verification counts and flagged items only.

Follow-ups:

• "Tell me more about Dr. X" -> show full verification detail
• "Export as CSV" -> generate CSV with verification statuses
• "Re-verify flagged only" -> re-run NPI search for Flagged/Unverified only
• "What should I do about the flagged ones?" -> actionable next steps per issue

Sibling skill suggestions:

Next steps:

• Run healthcare-providers-extract on unverified providers' practice URLs to get fresh data
• Run healthcare-providers-enrich to fill gaps in verified providers' records
• Run market-finder to find additional practices in this area

---

Sub-Agent Strategy

For batch verification (10+ practitioners), use nimble-researcher agents (agents/nimble-researcher.md) to parallelize NPI lookups and extraction.

Follow the sub-agent spawning rules from references/nimble-playbook.md (bypassPermissions, batch max 4, explicit Bash instruction, fallback on failure).

Spawn pattern: One agent per batch of 5 practitioners. Each agent runs Steps 3-4 for its assigned practitioners and returns verification records. Tell each agent to use nimble extract-batch for its NPI result URLs where possible — one batch call per agent is faster than sequential calls.

Small batch optimization: If fewer than 10 practitioners, run directly from the main context instead of spawning agents.

Fallback: If any agent fails, run those verifications directly from the main context. Never leave gaps in the output.

---

Error Handling

See references/nimble-playbook.md for the standard error table (missing API key, 429, 401, empty results, extraction garbage). Skill-specific errors:

• No NPI results for practitioner: "Couldn't find an NPI record for [name] in [state]. The name may be too common, or the provider may practice under a different name. Want me to try with additional context (practice name, NPI number)?"
• Multiple NPI matches: "Found multiple NPI records for [name] in [state]. Can you confirm which one? [list top 3 with NPI numbers and specialties]"
• NPI page extraction returned garbage: "The NPI lookup page appears to be JavaScript-rendered. Retrying with browser rendering..." (auto-retry with --render per the shared pattern)
• CSV/Sheet parse error: "Couldn't parse the input file. Expected columns with practitioner names and at least one identifier (state, specialty, or credentials). Can you paste the data directly instead?"
• Insufficient data for verification: "Cannot verify [N] practitioners — they have only a name with no state, credential, or specialty. Add identifiers or remove them from the list."