The South Dakota Mental Health Workforce

Key findings

• South Dakota registers 313.1 active providers per 100,000 residents. That ranks 41 of 51 jurisdictions, below the national 433.5. #
• Fall River County has the state's highest registered density (741.6 per 100k); 32 of South Dakota's 66 counties have fewer than 3 registered providers. #
• Counselors are the largest group at 50.8% of South Dakota's registered workforce, compared with 43.9% nationally. #
• 177 providers with a South Dakota practice address first entered the NPI registry in 2025, versus 152 in 2019. These are registry entries, not licenses issued. #
• 59% of South Dakota 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 32 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 one county (Yankton), 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 South Dakota figure for comparison.

When South Dakota'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 South Dakotaproviders 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 South Dakota clinicians