The Illinois Mental Health Workforce

Key findings

• Illinois registers 441.8 active providers per 100,000 residents. That ranks 25 of 51 jurisdictions, above the national 433.5. #
• Lee County has the state's highest registered density (1018.7 per 100k); 7 of Illinois's 102 counties have fewer than 3 registered providers. #
• Counselors are the largest group at 44.8% of Illinois's registered workforce, compared with 43.9% nationally. #
• 3,889 providers with a Illinois practice address first entered the NPI registry in 2025, versus 2,875 in 2019. These are registry entries, not licenses issued. #
• 63% of Illinois providers share a registered practice location with six or more in-scope providers. #

Providers per 100,000 by county

Providers are allocated to counties from their practice ZIP code. For 7 counties with under 3 allocated providers or under 1,000 residents, we show the count but no per-100k rate, because numbers that small don't make a reliable rate. We also withhold the rate for 3 counties (Coles, Franklin and Iroquois), where a single practice address holds at least half the providers registered there, typically a regional employer that enrols its whole clinical staff at one headquarters, which inflates that county and thins its neighbours. The same values appear in the table.

Provider-type mix vs the national picture

Each provider counts once under their primary taxonomy; the US share is printed beside each Illinois figure for comparison.

When Illinois's providers entered the registry

This chart shows active providers by the year they entered the NPI registry. Registry entry is not licensure. Clinicians typically register when they start billing, so this measures registrations, not the workforce itself. 2026 is a partial year.

Practice-location size

This shows the share of Illinoisproviders at single- and multi-provider practice locations, grouped by normalized practice address. It's only a proxy, so see the limitations below.

CE requirements for Illinois clinicians