Medical License Lookup
Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
District of Columbia
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Illinois
Indiana
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New York
North Carolina
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Puerto Rico
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Virginia
Washington
Wisconsin
Alberta
British Columbia
Manitoba
New Brunswick
Newfoundland
Nova Scotia
Ontario
Quebec
Saskatchewan
A work in progress... Last edited on Jul-09-2010
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.Every location is different. So far, we rank Massachusetts, USA as having the best online resources. In our opinion, Saskatchewan, Canada and Arkansas, USA are the worst. (It should be noted that Puerto Rico appears to have no online resource.) Help put your location here. How would you rate your location? Let us know.
Alabama
Alabama Board of Medical Examiners
Alaska
Alaska Occupational Licensing
Alberta
The College of Physicians & Surgeons of Alberta
Arizona
Arizona Medical Board
Arkansas
Edited Mar-08-2010
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.
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 people seeking qualified medical professionals in California?
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.
Georgia
Composite State Board of Medical Examiners - Georgia
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
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.usDoctorScorecard rating: 8 out of 10
The good: Easy-to-use search form. You can search now in the form above. Detailed information found, including education, address, Medicaid acceptance, medical license status.
The bad: When auditing the site, we checked the record of a doctor that received a very negative score at DoctorScorecard and found no negative comments on file for this doctor at the Maryland Board of Physicians website for the past 10 years. Not even one? If you would like to help audit the site and verify they record the important details about doctors that the public should know about, please contact us with the information you found. You will receive credit for any tips you provide, if desired.
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
www.cis.state.mi.us
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
DoctorScorecard rating: 4 out of 10 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
DoctorScorecard rating: 5 out of 10 The Division of Consumer Affairs has an online physician lookup.
If you find a doctor with a "board action", their website will not tell you what that action is. If you want to know more you have to write an old-fashioned letter and ask permission to have access to that information. 1989 called and said it wants its mail back. One of these days maybe it will feel like the 21st century.
For more detailed information about doctors, like about their education:
http://12.150.185.184/dca/simple_search.jsp
New York
DoctorScorecard rating: 5 out of 10 Check if doctor has a current medical license
(Data from www.op.nysed.gov)
Check if doctor has a record of professional misconduct or professional discipline
The New York State Department of Health provides information on a small percentage of their doctors. Enter a name to see if that doctor is in their database.
Reason for our low rating for New York:
We performed some tests, searching for doctors with known misconduct, but found no information on New York's site.
From The Village Voice:"According to a 1999 report issued by the Institute of Medicine...between 44,000 and 98,000 people die in the United States every year as a result of medical errors...But in New York City, there have apparently been no criminal convictions for harm caused by bad medicine since 1995, when David Benjamin, a Queens physician, was convicted of manslaughter for the death of a woman in a botched abortion. And during 2000, the last year for which statistics are available, the New York State Department of Health Office of Professional Medical Conduct (OPMC), which is responsible for investigating physician misconduct, took only 411 actions of any kind. In 144 of those, the doctors lost their licenses."
Here are a few of the doctors we searched for, that did NOT appear on New York's website:
- Dr. Allan Zarkin, AKA Dr. Zorro, "the Manhattan obstetrician who carved his initials into his patient's belly" Source1 Source2
- Dr. Andrea Favara...sexually assaulted a female patient at Cabrini hospital. He lost his job for his actions. Source
- Dr. Alexander Braver..."A psychiatrist with a Bulls Head practice who was convicted of Medicaid fraud has been stripped of his license for three years." Source
- Dr. David Ostad..."Transgendered patient Gina Tilley filed a lawsuit late last year against New York City plastic surgeon David Ostad (who has been cited by state medical authorities 11 times and sued 14 times), complaining that her 2004 saline breast implants had shifted to her armpits. [New York Post, 12-24-06]" Source
None of these doctors show up in New York's database as having professional misconduct. It's hard for us to trust the New York site knowing this, hence our low rating.
Edit, 5/9/07: After additional testing, we were able to find all the doctors above by typing in only the first name or only the last name of the doctor. We could not find any doctors if we entered both the first name and last name. See example below...
(Click to enlarge.)
So it looks like there is an issue with their site searching for both first names and last names. If a visitor goes to the NY site and enters the first name and last name of a doctor, they will see "0 documents found" and could assume that this doctor has a clean record, when this may not be the case.
We sent an email to the OPCM [opmc@health.state.ny.us] on 5/7/2006 asking them about this issue. As of Nov-4-2008, there has been no response. We actually sent several emails.
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 Carolina Medical Board
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
DoctorScorecard rating: 9 out of 10
Updated December 2008
Source: The College of Physicians and Surgeons of OntarioOntario'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.
Google still has a cache of the page.
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 "Show Only Records with Past Decisions", then press the submit button.
We used to be able to search their site by the doctor's last name from DoctorScorecard. It looks like they took that ability away, too. You now have to go directly to their site to access their information.
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
DoctorScorecard rating: 1 out of 10
Where is the physician search form? We can't find it. If you find it, please tell us.
College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan 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
DoctorScorecard rating: not rated yetTennessee Department of Health
Texas
Sample of what you can find:
Doing a search for Dr. William A. Boothe provides the following details:
Primary Practice Address:3900 WEST 15TH,STE 102
PLANO , TX 75075
TMB Actions and License Restrictions
The Texas Medical Board has taken the following board actions against this physician. (Also included are any formal complaints filed by TMB that are currently pending before the State Office of Administrative Hearings).Action Date: 12/20/2007
Description: STATUS CLEARED 12/20/2007.
Action Date: 11/30/2007
Description: ON NOVEMBER 30, 2007, THE BOARD AND DR. BOOTHE ENTERED INTO AN ADMINISTRATIVE AGREED ORDER REQUIRING DR. BOOTHE TO PAY AN ADMINISTRATIVE PENALTY OF $1,000. THE ACTION WAS BASED ON DR. BOOTHE'S FAILURE TO RETAIN COPIES OF ALL ADVERTISEMENTS USED FOR A PERIOD OF TWO YEARS FROM THE LAST DATE OF BROADCAST OR PUBLICATION AND TO MAKE THEM AVAILABLE TO THE BOARD UPON REQUEST.
Action Date: 10/04/2005
Description: STATUS CLEARED 10/04/2005
Action Date: 08/26/2005
Description: ON AUGUST 26, 2005, THE BOARD AND DR. BOOTHE ENTERED INTO AN AGREED ORDER ASSESSING AN ADMINISTRATIVE PENALTY OF $500. THE ACTION WAS BASED ON ALLEGATIONS THAT DR. BOOTHE FAILED TO TIMELY RELEASE THE PROPERLY REQUESTED MEDICAL RECORDS OF ONE PATIENT WITHIN 15 BUSINESS DAYS OF RECEIPT OF THE WRITTEN REQUEST.
Investigations by TMB of Medical Malpractice
Section 164.201 of the Act requires that: the board review information relating to a physician against whom three or more malpractice claims have been reported within a five year period. Based on these reviews, the following investigations were conducted with the listed resolutions.
Action Taken: DISMISSED Date: 04/02/1998
Another site: www.docboard.org - AIM
Association of State Medical Board Executive Directors.Search by Name
- or -
Search by License Number
As a test of the second site, we looked up some doctors that have been rated in Texas. We found some that had this text:
"Board Actions: Contact Board"
However, when we contacted the board they did not respond. We sent an email to verifcic@tsbme.state.tx.us on May 8, 2007 and as of May-20-2008 (over a year later) we never received a response. We sent our email from a personal account, asking about one specific doctor. It looks like they do not respond to requests, even though they instruct us to "contact board".Another attempt on May-20-2008
When we searched for disciplinary documents for Dr. William Albert Boothe of Plano, Texas, we found that, unlike most doctors which states "none", Dr. Boothe had an entry of "Contact Board". Does this imply that he has Disciplinary Documents? It's only fair then to contact the board to see. We sent a request today. The email was immediately returned as an invalid email address. So, I emailed Nicholas Hayer (his email is on their site: docboards@docboard.org). I emailed him this explanation:
The email on your site is not working.
verifcic@tsbme.state.tx.us
Please fix your site. Thank you.
Let's see if anyone responds this time.
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.)
Wisconsin
Simple Case Search at wcca.wicourts.gov: Wisconsin Circuit Court Access (WCCA)
drl.wi.gov health professional lookup
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):
www.fsmb.org
Very clean, organized list of medical boards. (Thanks to Shiloh at citizen.org for the link)
- Ranking of State Medical Boards' Serious Disciplinary Actions 2006
- 2006 Survey of Doctor Disciplinary Information on State Web Sites
ama-assn.org
Links to state medical boards Links to all licensed occupations in each state of the US.DoctorScorecard Main Page