Medical License Lookup



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Northwest PEI Territories Nunavut Yukon Territory

UK flag England

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.

USA Alabama

Alabama Board of Medical Examiners

USA Alaska

Alaska Occupational Licensing

Canada Alberta

The College of Physicians & Surgeons of Alberta

USA Arizona

Arizona Medical Board

USA Arkansas

Edited Mar-08-2010

Arkansas State Medical Board [ www.armedicalboard.org ]

The good: The bad:

Canada 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."

USA California

DoctorScorecard rating: 5 out of 10

www.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 Site tells you which doctors have revoked licenses but doesn't tell you specifically why the license was revoked.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

USA Colorado

Colorado Division of Registrations

USA Connecticut

Connecticut State DPH
Connecticut-doctor-license-lookup

USA District of Columbia - Washington DC

DC-medical-board-doctor-license-lookup
Health Professional Licensing Administration

USA Delaware

Delaware Division of Professional Regulation online license verification service

USA England

General Medical Council

List of Registered Medical Practitioners

us (1K) Florida

DoctorScorecard rating: 5 out of 10
(We don't trust this state's board)

  1. 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.


  2. 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.)

    Sommers (61K)

    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.


  3. Another search tool: Check status of medical license for a doctor.
Sites do not allow easy, open access to data. Links are designed so they are difficult to share elsewhere on the web. Must visit their site to access their database. On the plus side, there are interesting details provided, as shown above.

USA Georgia

Composite State Board of Medical Examiners - Georgia

USA Illinois

State of Illinois | Division of Professional Regulation License Look Up

www.idfpr.com

Illinois' website does not show the doctor's business address.

USA Indiana

Indiana Online Licensing

us (1K) 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.

US flag 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



US flag Louisiana

Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners

Licensee Verifications

Canada Manitoba

The College of Physicians & Surgeons of Manitoba

us (1K) Maryland

Maryland Board of Physicians: www.mbp.state.md.us

DoctorScorecard 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.

us (1K) 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.

us Michigan

www.cis.state.mi.us

us (1K) Minnesota

DoctorScorecard rating: 8 out of 10

Easy 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.us

Only complaint: Data is hard to link to. It's hard to share any information by sending a link to friends.

USA flag Missouri

DoctorScorecard rating: 4 out of 10

Website: Missouri Division of Professional Registration

Good:

Bad: You might want to watch this movie that shows you an example of how to use their site:
Movie
Movie recorded May-05-2007
showing how to use Missouri's website to find a physician's license status.

USA flag 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.

USA Nebraska

Nebraska Department of Health & Human Services

USA Nevada

NEVADA STATE BOARD OF MEDICAL EXAMINERS

Canada New Brunswick

The College of Physicians & Surgeons of New Brunswick

English Search Form

En Français

us (1K) 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.

us (1K) 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

us (1K) New York

DoctorScorecard rating: 5 out of 10

Check if doctor has a current medical license

Select Profession (Typical choice: Physician):


Enter Name
(Example: Corbin Jeffrey Last name first. Separate last name and first name with a space, not a comma. First name optional.)

(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.



Direct link to NY's website

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:

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 see screenshot of their website
(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.

Canada Newfoundland

Sample of what you can find:

College of Physicians and Surgeons of Newfoundland and Labrador

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

USA flag North Carolina

North Carolina Medical Board

Canada 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

USA Ohio

Ohio License Center: license.ohio.gov

USA Oklahoma

Oklahoma Board of Medical Licensure & Supervision

DoctorScorecard rating: 10 out of 10

as of 12/3/2007

Pros: Easy to use and understand!

Canada Ontario

DoctorScorecard rating: 9 out of 10

Updated December 2008

Source: The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario

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.

Google still has a cache of the page.

Ontario_Summary_of_Discipline_Committee_Decisions (53K)

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

USA Oregon

DoctorScorecard rating: not rated yet

Oregon License Verification Search

USA Pennsylvania

DoctorScorecard rating: not rated yet

Pennsylvania Department of State Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs (link found by trucken39)

USA Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico appears to have no online services to look up doctors. (As of Aug-3-2007)

Canada Quebec

Collège des Médecins du Québec: www.cmq.org

Canada 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

us (1K) 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

us flag South Carolina

https://verify.llronline.com/LicLookup/Med/Med.aspx?div=16

South_Carolina-medical-board-website (62K)

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.

us (1K) Tennessee

DoctorScorecard rating: not rated yet

Tennessee Department of Health

us (1K) Texas

Texas Medical Board

Sample of what you can find:

Texas Medical Board Dr. William A Boothe (109K)

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
First name:
(Leave blank if using partial last name)
Last name:
(Or enter first few letters to see multiple matches)


- or -

Search by License Number
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

Texas State Board of Medical Examiners broken

Please fix your site. Thank you.

Let's see if anyone responds this time.

US Flag Utah

Utah Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing

US Flag Virginia

DoctorScorecard rating: 5 out of 10

Virginia Board of Medicine
virginia-medical-board-doctor-license-lookup
www.vahealthprovider.com


The good: The bad:

US Flag Washington

Updated Mar-22-2008

Link changed.

Washington State Department of Health

Example video showing how to use the form

(Movie recorded for old form, but they function basically the same.)

Movie

US Flag 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)

citizen.org


ama-assn.org

Links to state medical boards

BRB Occupational Licensing

Links to all licensed occupations in each state of the US.





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