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Case Study · B2B API · Healthcare Data

ClearNPI

A developer API that normalizes healthcare provider verification into a single call — NPI registry lookup, state license status, and OIG exclusion screening — for credentialing teams, healthtech platforms, and staffing/insurance companies that need to verify a provider is real, licensed, and not excluded from billing federal healthcare programs.

ClearNPI replaces stitching together CMS's raw NPPES files, individual state medical board sites, and the HHS exclusion list by hand. I built the FastAPI backend, the data ingestion pipeline, and the Next.js marketing site with a live interactive API demo.

8.4M+
Providers indexed (NPPES)
100/day
Free tier, no card required
7
Versioned API endpoints
Weekly
NPPES + OIG data sync

Request & Data-Sync Architecture

clearnpi.io (Next.js) X-API-Key auth FastAPI (Railway) Redis cache / rate limit Postgres + PostGIS (Supabase)
CMS NPPES · OIG LEIE · state boards GitHub Actions (weekly/monthly sync) Playwright/Scrapy ingest Postgres upsert

Tech Stack

Backend & Data
FastAPIPythonSQLAlchemy 2.0 async AlembicPostgreSQLPostGIS pg_trgmRedisPlaywrightScrapy
Frontend
Next.js 15TypeScriptTailwind CSS Framer MotionAuth.js
Platform, Billing & Ops
RailwayVercelDocker StripeGitHub Actionspytest

Business Angle

Solves a compliance-mandated problem, not a nice-to-have
OIG exclusion screening is legally required before billing federal healthcare programs — this creates a recurring, non-discretionary reason for customers to keep calling the API rather than a one-time lookup.
Product-led growth funnel with a self-serve free tier
100 free requests/day with no credit card required lets developers integrate and validate the API before any sales conversation, converting into usage-based Basic/Pro/Enterprise tiers as call volume grows.
Low-COGS data moat from free public sources
Aggregates and normalizes CMS NPPES, OIG LEIE, and NUCC taxonomy data — each free to acquire — into one clean schema, so the product's value is the integration and uptime, not the raw data cost.
Scope sequencing to protect runway
50-state license scraping and PostGIS geo-radius search were deliberately deferred past initial launch (CA-only license coverage shipped first), with the buy-vs-build tradeoff for bulk license data documented for when call volume justifies the engineering spend.
Margin protection via caching and rate limits
Redis-backed caching and per-tier rate limiting (free/basic/pro/enterprise) keep infrastructure cost predictable against a per-call pricing model.
Other project: AstroStar Insights — Personalized Astrology Journal →