Medical License Lookup
Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
District of Columbia
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Puerto Rico
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Alberta
British Columbia
Manitoba
New Brunswick
Newfoundland
Nova Scotia
Ontario
Quebec
Saskatchewan
Licensed Naturopathic Doctor Directory: heartspring.net
A work in progress... Updated Oct-08-2012
Check your doctor's current medical license status. Free! Other websites charge money for this, which is strange, since the government provides the data using our tax dollars. Alabama
Alabama Board of Medical Examiners
Alaska
Alaska Occupational Licensing
Alberta
The College of Physicians & Surgeons of Alberta
Arizona
Arizona Medical Board
Arkansas
Edited May-18-2010
Arkansas State Medical Board [ www.armedicalboard.org ]The good:
- You can verify the current address, license number, and board specialty for Arkansas doctors online using a simple search by last name.
- There is no way to see online if the practitioner has disciplinary actions on record. To do so, be
prepared to do a little work. From their website on 2/7/2008:
There are two methods available to determine whether a practitioner has ever had disciplinary action taken against his license by the Arkansas State Medical Board.
1. You can send a written request to our office for a detailed verification of the practitioner's Arkansas license. You need to include the practitioner's full name in your request.
2. You can contact our office to schedule an appointment to view the practitioner's licensure file.
Our address and telephone number are:
Arkansas State Medical Board
2100 Riverfront Drive
Little Rock, AR 72202
(501) 296-1802
In our opinion, this requirement means either:
1. Arkansas is very slow to get into the modern, online information age.
OR
2. Arkansas is deliberately making it difficult to find information about its doctors.
Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency
British Columbia
DoctorScorecard rating: 8 out of 10
website: www.cpsbc.ca (College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia)
From the site: "If a physician has been the subject of disciplinary action by the College of Physicians & Surgeons of British Columbia since January 1998, that will be noted in the individual physician's profile." California
DoctorScorecard rating: 5 out of 10www.mbc.ca.gov - Medical Board of California - Site does not allow easy, open access to data. Their links are designed so they are difficult to access elsewhere on the web. Must visit their site to access their database. Site tells you which doctors have revoked licenses but doesn't tell you specifically why the license was revoked.
From their website on Jan-06-2007:
Under California law, the following information is confidential and NOT public and would NOT appear on a record if applicable to the physician: * Complaints made to the Medical Board of California * Investigations conducted by the Medical Board of California * Misdemeanor convictions reported to the Medical Board of California * Some medical malpractice information, e.g., pending or dismissed cases. This information may be available at the local county courthouse in the "Civil Index."
Is this policy good for Californians? How do patients know which doctors have a decent record?
Dental Board of California's website: www.dbc.ca.gov
Colorado
Colorado Division of Registrations
Connecticut
Connecticut State DPH
District of Columbia - Washington DC
Health Professional Licensing Administration
Delaware
Delaware Division of Professional Regulation online license verification service
England
General Medical Council
List of Registered Medical Practitioners Florida
DoctorScorecard rating: 5 out of 10 (We don't trust this state's board)
- Search by name, specialty, or license # .. Check physician profile
Don't get your hopes up that you will find acurate information. According to a Health News Florida story dated August, 2009, cases against doctors are being dropped with all records vanishing from the public eye. Why? Because of a "statute of limitations", meaning six whole years have passed and the doctors' cases missed the filing deadline. According to the Chief Prosecutor, some of these cases involved serious patient harm, including deaths. "There are going to be a lot of cases we didn’t protect the public on," he told the board.
- Check insurance liability claims in Florida.
Here is a sample report that you could find: (This is an actual report for one of the doctors reviewed at DoctorScorecard.)
Steps to check a doctor in Florida:- Go to insurance liability claims (opens in new window)
- Scroll down and click on a dark, blue button labeled "Search Now"
- Click on "Medical Professional Liability (MPL) Reporting Claims..."
- A very lengthy form comes up. Do not feel intimidated. All you have to enter is the doctor's last name in the middle of the form.
- Click the Search button at the bottom of the page.
- If you see no results, that's a good sign.
- Another search tool: Check status of medical license for a doctor.
Look for a doctor's criminal record in Florida: http://clerk-web.martin.fl.us/clerkweb/ccis_disclaimer.htm
Georgia
Updated Oct-8-2010
Georgia Composite Medical Board
Hawaii
Updated Feb-24-2011
Hawaii Professional and Vocational Licensing (PVL) Search
They also have a phone. RICO Consumer Resource Center(808) 587-3295 or (808) 587-3222
* Verify if a person is licensed
* Request prior complaints history on a licensee
* File a complaint on a licensee
Illinois
State of Illinois | Division of Professional Regulation License Look Up
www.idfpr.comIllinois' website does not show the doctor's business address.
Indiana
Indiana Online Licensing
Iowa
Iowa Board of Medicine
Ireland
Medical Council - Search for a registered doctor
Kansas
DoctorScorecard rating: 8 out of 10 (Good)Kansas Board of Healing Arts: www.docboard.org
The good: Their site allows you to search by doctor's name, town name, or license number.
The bad: Site does not allow easy, open access to data. Their links are designed so they are difficult to share elsewhere on the web. Must visit their site to access their database.
Kentucky
Updated Mar-10-2009
Search forms are easy to use.
Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure: Search by Physician's last name
Animal doctors: Kentucky Board of Veterinary Examiners
Louisiana
Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners
Manitoba
The College of Physicians & Surgeons of Manitoba
Maryland
Maryland Board of Physicians: www.mbp.state.md.usEasy-to-use search form. You can search now in the form above. Detailed information found, including education, address, Medicaid acceptance, medical license status.
Maryland Board of Nursing: license lookup
Massachusetts
DoctorScorecard rating: 10 out of 10 (Excellent)The Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine provides an excellent source of information on their doctors. Detailed profiles, including malpractice claims. Open and free data, easy to find and share. Enter a name to see if that doctor is in their database.
Michigan
Updated Oct-8-2010
Health License/Registration Search Minnesota
DoctorScorecard rating: 8 out of 10Easy to search for doctors, lots of detailed information about doctors in Minnesota: www.hlb.state.mn.us
Click on one of the radio buttons to start searching...
www.hlb.state.mn.usOnly complaint: Data is hard to link to. It's hard to share any information by sending a link to friends.
Missouri
Website: Missouri Division of Professional Registration
Good:
- Site shows if the doctor has a valid medical license.
- Site indicates the Current Discipline Status for some doctors.
- As a test, we searched for a dentist and received this message:
"Discipline information is not being listed for this profession. You may contact the board directly to obtain discipline information."
That's not very helpful. They don't appear to show discipline information for dentists.
- Website is not very intuitive to use. For example, you must type in the doctor's last name before the first name or else you might not get any results.
Movie recorded May-05-2007 showing how to use Missouri's website to find a physician's license status.
Montana
Licensee Lookup System - mt.gov
The good: It's relatively easy to search the database. We typed in the first name and last name of a doctor to retrieve records for that doctor. Website confirms if the person is licensed to practice.
The bad: Website has little if any information about disciplinary actions. Montana is another state that relies on the doctors to voluntarily supply the information. The website stated, as of Mar-11-2008:
"The Division relies upon information provided by licensees to be true and correct..." "Please note that some disciplinary actions against licensees may not appear immediately on the website. Appeals, effective dates of orders and other administrative processes may delay posting on the website. Please contact the specific licensing board directly if you require discipline information that occurred prior to July 1, 1996."
If a doctor committed crimes or accidentally killed a patient, leading to a malpractice lawsuit, why would they want to voluntarily provide that information? Don't expect to find any information warning you about which doctors may be less than ethical or incompetent.
Nebraska
Nebraska Department of Health & Human Services
Nevada
NEVADA STATE BOARD OF MEDICAL EXAMINERS
New Brunswick
The College of Physicians & Surgeons of New Brunswick
En Français New Hampshire
New Hampshire State Board of Medicine
The good: It's easy to search the database. Simply typing in a doctor's last name was enough for us to find the doctor we were looking for. Website confirms if the person is licensed to practice, what their specialty is, where they went to school and what year they graduated, etc.
The bad: Website does not appear to provide information about disciplinary actions. And why would it with the disclaimer that New Hampshire has...
"Information contained in this website was supplied voluntarily by the physicians and other sources." (As of Mar-11-2008)
If a doctor committed crimes already or accidentally killed a patient, why would they want to voluntarily provide that information? Don't expect to find any information warning you about which doctors may be less than ethical or incompetent.
New Jersey
For detailed information about doctors, including their education:
http://12.150.185.184/dca/simple_search.jsp
New Mexico
New York
DoctorScorecard rating: 7 out of 10 Updated Oct-5-2010
Professional Misconduct and Physician Discipline
Newfoundland
Sample of what you can find:
College of Physicians and Surgeons of Newfoundland & Labrador
The website shows if the doctor has an active license, shows the address and phone, college education, and specialty.
Physician Search North Carolina
North Dakota
North Dakota State Board of Medical Examiners
Nova Scotia
DoctorScorecard rating: 2 out of 10
Nova Scotia does not appear to show any disciplinary records for doctors. But, at least you can confirm that the doctor does have a license and you can find the correct address, phone number, and graduation year from college.
The College of Physicians & Surgeons of Nova Scotia: Search Form
Ohio
Ohio License Center: license.ohio.gov
Oklahoma
Oklahoma Board of Medical Licensure & Supervision
DoctorScorecard rating: 10 out of 10
as of 12/3/2007Pros: Easy to use and understand!
Ontario
Updated Jan-12-2013
Source: The College of Physicians and Surgeons of OntarioSite was offline last we checked.
Ontario's website changed their website and now many of their old links are broken. Ontario used to have an alphabetical list of doctors with disciplinary actions ranging from insurance fraud to sexual assault of patients, like this:
It looks like they took that page down and replaced it with a form, so we cannot link directly to the list of doctors any more. We can point you to the form, but you have to figure out how to use the form to see the information. If you want to see the list of physicians with disciplinary actions: Go to the bottom of their form, select the check box: "Show Only Records with Past Decisions"... then press the submit button.
Lookup veterinarians in Ontario
College of Veterinarians of Ontario Oregon
DoctorScorecard rating: not rated yetOregon License Verification Search
Pennsylvania
DoctorScorecard rating: not rated yetPennsylvania Department of State Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs (link found by trucken39)
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico appears to have no online services to look up doctors. (As of Aug-3-2007)
Quebec
Collège des Médecins du Québec: www.cmq.org
Saskatchewan
College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan
306.244.7355There is no physician search database online for physicians in Saskatchewan. To verify the licensure of a physician you must call or email them. Their email address is cpss@quadrant.net
Rhode Island
Information submitted by PainPatient
Go here for Disciplinary Actions against Physicians:
www.health.ri.gov
This is the general site for all information at the state health agency:
www.health.ri.gov
South Carolina
https://verify.llronline.com/LicLookup/Med/Med.aspx?div=16
When you visit the link above, you might think that you received an error. But the site does work. We ignored the red words and went along searching for a doctor and it worked.
Tennessee
Tennessee Department of Health
Texas
Dentists: Texas State Board of Dental Examiners
Utah
Utah Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing
Virginia
DoctorScorecard rating: 5 out of 10Virginia Board of Medicine
www.vahealthprovider.com
The good:
- Lots of details provided for Virginia doctors. For example, the site shows the doctor's education, number of years in practice, what days per week they work, etc. There is data for doctors in surrounding states, too.
- Site does not appear to show consumer complaints when they are filed. As an example, noako reported a complaint for a doctor in Virginia and has a pending lawsuit against that doctor. If you search for that doctor at the Virginia Board of Medicine, you will find an impeccable record. There is no hint of any consumer complaints against that doctor even though noako reported a potentially fatal surgery. (The patient states that the doctor told him he had kidney cancer, removed his kidney, mistakenly cut his intestines... and it turned out there was no cancer. Read the entire story here. [medicaldoctorratings.com])
- The data is trapped within that one website. The data is difficult to share elsewhere on the web. It's hard to link to the data.
Washington
Updated Mar-22-2008
Link changed.
Washington State Department of HealthExample video showing how to use the form
(Movie recorded for old form, but they function basically the same.)
West Virginia
Updated Oct-05-2010
West Virginia Board of Medicine Licensee Search Wisconsin
Wisconsin Professional License Lookup
Simple Case Search at wcca.wicourts.gov: Wisconsin Circuit Court Access (WCCA)
Put your location here
This site is trying to put together a comprehensive list of sites that offer helpful information about doctors. Send an email if you can help or have ideas to help this effort, especially in your home location. Information from any part of the world would be gladly accepted.Send information to us resembling the format for the above locations and if it's suitable, we'll post it here, giving credit to you. You can make a free profile and choose if you want credit given to your nickname or real name.
Here are some links we are looking at while making this page (US only):
Public Citizen
Public Citizen (Citizen.org)
- Ranking of State Medical Boards' Serious Disciplinary Actions 2006
- 2006 Survey of Doctor Disciplinary Information on State Web Sites
www.fsmb.org
Very clean, organized list of medical boards. (Thanks to Shiloh at citizen.org for the link)
ama-assn.org
Links to state medical boards Links to all licensed occupations in each state of the US.DoctorScorecard Main Page