Agencies / 253J00000X
Non-Individual · classification
253J00000X Foster Care Agency
253J00000X is the taxonomy code for Foster Care Agency, in the NUCC group “Agencies”. It is a code for organizations — the kind used on a Type 2 NPI. It has no entry in the CMS Medicare taxonomy crosswalk.
- 1Taxonomy code 253J00000X
- 2Level Classification
- 3Medicare specialty Not in the crosswalk
- 4Codes in this group 15
Definition
A Foster Care Agency is an agency that provides foster care as defined in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) as "24-hour substitute care for children outside their own homes." Foster care settings include, but are not limited to, nonrelative foster family homes, relative foster homes (whether payments are being made or not), group homes, emergency shelters, residential facilities, and pre-adoptive homes.
— NUCC Health Care Provider Taxonomy, version 26.1
Where 253J00000X sits
- Group: Agencies — code 5 of 15 in the group
- Classification: Foster Care Agency 253J00000X
Foster Care Agency has no specializations, so 253J00000X is the only code for it. A provider may report more than one taxonomy code on an NPI but marks one as primary.
Medicare
253J00000X has no entry in the CMS Medicare Provider and Supplier Taxonomy Crosswalk. That usually means Medicare does not enroll this kind of provider under its own specialty — organizations of this type enroll, if at all, under a facility or supplier type rather than a practitioner specialty.
Related codes
No other codes share the classification Foster Care Agency. The rest of Agencies is on the group page.
History of 253J00000X
253J00000X was added to the code set in 2008.
- 2008-01-01 — new
Find providers with 253J00000X
Using 253J00000X
The code goes in the taxonomy field of the NPI application in NPPES, and on claims where a payer asks for it — box 24J (shaded) or 33b on the CMS-1500 with the ZZ qualifier, or the PRV segment of an 837 electronic claim. Payers match it against the taxonomy on the NPI record and, for Medicare, against the specialty on the enrollment, so all three should agree. To see which code a provider uses, search their NPI in the lookup.
Sources: NUCC Health Care Provider Taxonomy code set, version 26.1 (CSV). Checked 2026-10-24. Methodology.