Important Information About How to Use This Site
state-medical-board.org/ is an independent informational directory. We are not a state medical board, the FSMB, NPDB, a healthcare provider, an attorney, a CRA under the FCRA, or any government agency. Read the points below before relying on anything published here — particularly the FCRA notice, the NPDB-credentialing notice, and the medical-emergency notice that follow.
state-medical-board.org/ is not a consumer reporting agency as defined in the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq. Public-record information accessed through state board portals or DocInfo we link to may not be used for employment, tenant screening, credit eligibility, insurance underwriting, educational admissions, or any other "permissible purpose" under FCRA. For those purposes you must use a licensed FCRA-compliant CRA. Misuse may expose you to civil liability under federal law.
For hospital credentialing, medical-staff privileging, and other regulated healthcare-entity uses, the federal Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986 makes the National Practitioner Data Bank the mandatory query channel. state-medical-board.org/ cannot substitute for an NPDB query. Authorised entities must query NPDB directly at npdb.hrsa.gov. Practitioners can self-query the NPDB for their own report.
state-medical-board.org/ is editorial only. We do not respond, dispatch, or treat. For medical emergencies and patient-safety crises, contact the right authority directly:
- 911 — for any active medical emergency or threat to life
- Poison Control — 1-800-222-1222 (24/7)
- 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — call or text 988
- National Domestic Violence Hotline — 1-800-799-7233
- Hospital Patient Safety Officer or Risk Manager — for incidents in a hospital setting
- State Department of Health — for facility-level patient-safety reporting (e.g. CMS-2567 deficiency reporting)
- FDA MedWatch — fda.gov/safety/medwatch for adverse drug or device events
What’s on this page
- We are independent
- What we are not
- FCRA non-CRA position
- NPDB carve-out
- Not medical advice
- Not legal advice
- Information timeliness
- Malpractice — state court, not the board
- Telehealth and out-of-state practice
- Disciplinary records
- External links
- Advertising disclosure
- Limitation of liability
- Prohibited uses
- Names and trademarks
- If something is wrong
1. We Are Independent
state-medical-board.org/ is an editorial reference site run independently. We are not commissioned by, endorsed by, partnered with, or accountable to any state medical board, the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB), DocInfo.org, the American Medical Association (AMA), the American Osteopathic Association (AOA), the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB), the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA), the HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG), the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact Commission (IMLC), or any commercial credentialing vendor. The information we publish is gathered from public sources and presented in a consistent, practical format.
2. What We Are Not
If you arrived expecting a state medical board, a credentialing service, NPDB, a federal agency, or a healthcare provider — you’re in the wrong place. We point you to the right place; we are not it.
- A state medical board, osteopathic board, or any state regulatory body
- The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) or DocInfo.org
- The National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) or HRSA
- A credentialing verification organisation (CVO)
- A consumer reporting agency under the Fair Credit Reporting Act
- A licensed background-check company or licensed pre-employment screener
- The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), HHS-OIG, or CMS
- The American Medical Association, American Osteopathic Association, or American Board of Medical Specialties
- A healthcare provider, hospital, clinic, or medical practice
- A licensed physician, nurse, or other healthcare professional
- A licensed attorney, paralegal, or legal-services provider
- A medical malpractice insurer or risk-management consultant
- An insurance panel, network, or payer organisation
- A “disciplinary record removal” service or any pay-to-remove service
For anything that requires action by an official body, you must use the official channel. Every state page on this site links straight to those official channels.
3. FCRA Non-CRA Position — Detailed
The Fair Credit Reporting Act restricts the use of “consumer reports” for specific “permissible purposes” — primarily employment, credit, insurance, tenant screening, and certain government-licensing purposes. Information accessed through public-record portals linked from this site is not a “consumer report” within the meaning of FCRA, but if you compile, package, or sell that information for any of the listed permissible purposes you may be acting as a CRA and must comply with FCRA in full — including providing notice to the subject, allowing dispute under § 1681i, and following adverse-action procedures under § 1681m. The FTC and CFPB enforce FCRA and have brought actions against operations that publish public-record information without CRA compliance. If you are using this site for any of those purposes, stop and use a licensed FCRA-compliant CRA.
4. NPDB — The Mandatory Federal Channel for Credentialing
The National Practitioner Data Bank, established by the Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986 and operated by HRSA, is the federally mandated query channel for hospital credentialing, medical-staff privileging, and certain other healthcare-entity uses. NPDB collects mandatory reports of medical malpractice payments, adverse licensure actions, adverse clinical-privileges actions, exclusions from federal healthcare programs, and certain other adverse actions. Access is restricted by federal regulation (45 C.F.R. Part 60) to authorised entities and self-queries by the practitioner. state-medical-board.org/ is not a substitute for an NPDB query in any credentialing process. Authorised entities must query NPDB directly at npdb.hrsa.gov.
5. Not Medical Advice
state-medical-board.org/ publishes information about the regulatory framework around medical licensing. It does not provide medical advice, does not diagnose conditions, does not recommend treatments, and does not create a physician-patient relationship. For any medical question — symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, medications, second opinions — see a licensed physician, your state's poison control line for poisoning, or in an emergency, 911. Information about what a state medical board does or does not regulate cannot be used as a substitute for clinical judgment.
6. Not Legal Advice
Content on this site is general informational material. It is not legal advice. State Medical Practice Acts, board rules, administrative-hearing procedures, and disciplinary frameworks vary substantially by state. For any legal question — physician licensing application, response to a board investigation, defence of a disciplinary action, malpractice claim, peer-review immunity, telehealth licensure, federal exclusion appeal, or any other matter — consult a licensed healthcare-regulatory attorney in the relevant state. State bar associations maintain lawyer-referral services and many states have specialty-certification systems for healthcare law.
7. Information Timeliness
U.S. medical regulation systems change continually:
- Board executive directors, administrators, and chairpersons turn over with state political cycles
- State boards are reorganised — Pennsylvania moved its boards under the Department of State; New York’s structure under the State Education Department is unique
- Phone systems, voicemail menus, and main-line numbers are reorganised
- License-verification portals migrate (FSMB DocInfo coverage expands; new state portals replace legacy systems)
- State Medical Practice Acts are amended — opioid-prescribing CME mandates, implicit-bias training requirements, telehealth registration framework, IMLC participation, scope-of-practice changes for advanced practice providers
- Vendor contracts (online renewal, CME tracking, complaint-management) are re-bid periodically
- Federal frameworks shift — NPDB regulation amendments, OIG-LEIE expansion, DEA registration changes, telehealth controlled-substance flexibilities
We review pages quarterly, but the official board’s own page is always the source of truth for the current state. Click through to the official portal from any page to confirm.
8. Medical Malpractice — State Court, Not the Board
State medical boards investigate whether a physician’s conduct violates the state’s Medical Practice Act and whether disciplinary action against the licence is warranted (reprimand, probation, suspension, revocation, voluntary surrender). Boards typically do not award damages, order refunds, or compel medical-record correction beyond their licensing remit. A medical malpractice claim — for negligence causing injury — is a civil tort action filed in state court, governed by state malpractice statutes (statutes of limitations, certificate of merit, expert affidavit, damages caps where applicable). The same conduct can give rise to both a board complaint and a malpractice action. For malpractice, retain a plaintiff’s medical malpractice attorney; many state bars have referral panels.
9. Telehealth and Out-of-State Practice
The general U.S. rule is that the physician must be licensed in the state where the patient is located at the time of the encounter. The Interstate Medical Licensure Compact (IMLC) at imlcc.org provides an expedited multi-state pathway across 40+ participating states; it is not a single license. Many COVID-era cross-state telehealth flexibilities expired with the federal Public Health Emergency in 2023; ongoing flexibilities vary by state and by payer (Medicare, Medicaid, commercial). State boards differ on what constitutes a covered “telehealth encounter” and on registration or notification requirements. Always confirm with the state board where the patient sits at the time of service.
10. Disciplinary Records — Editorial Position
State boards publish disciplinary actions consistent with state public-records / sunshine laws and the federal Health Care Quality Improvement Act reporting framework. Categories typically include reprimand, citation, fine, probation, restriction of practice, suspension, revocation, and voluntary surrender. Some states permit expungement or sealing of certain board actions after a period; others retain disciplinary records permanently. state-medical-board.org/ does not host disciplinary records — we link to the official board portal where they are published. We do not accept advertising or commercial relationships with “disciplinary record removal” services that demand payment for record takedowns; those operations may themselves violate state consumer-protection law. An expungement question goes to the originating state board.
11. External Links
We link extensively to U.S. state medical boards, FSMB, DocInfo, NPDB, OIG-LEIE, DEA, CMS NPI registry, USMLE, NBOME, ECFMG, ACGME, IMLC, AMA, AOA, ABMS, and state Medical Practice Act citations. We have no control over those sites and cannot guarantee:
- That they will remain online or at the same URL
- That their content is current at the moment you click through
- That their security and privacy practices match ours
- That their accessibility meets the standard we apply to our own pages
12. Advertising Disclosure
state-medical-board.org/ is funded by display advertising. Advertisements are served by recognised ad networks and labelled where required. We do not accept advertising from “disciplinary record removal” services that demand payment for record takedowns, from operations marketing physician data for FCRA-prohibited purposes, from unlicensed credentialing operations, or from any business model that conflicts with the public-information mission of the site. The official state board contact always comes first on every page, before any commercial reference. Where any commercial relationship exists, it is disclosed in context per the FTC Endorsement Guides at 16 C.F.R. Part 255.
13. Limitation of Liability
To the fullest extent permitted by law:
- The site and all content on it are provided “as is” and “as available.” We make no warranty that content is complete, accurate, current, fit for any particular purpose, or free from error.
- We are not liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, or special loss or damage arising from your use of, or reliance on, this site — including any harm flowing from delay in reaching the right channel, an outdated phone number, or any other consequence.
- Nothing in this disclaimer excludes or limits liability for fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation, or any other liability that cannot be excluded under applicable law.
The full liability framework is set out in our Terms of Service.
14. Prohibited Uses
Do not use this site or the official sources we link to for any of the following — these are crimes or serious civil violations under federal and state law:
- FCRA-permissible-purpose use without operating as a CRA
- Hospital credentialing or medical-staff privileging without the federally mandated NPDB query
- Stalking, harassment, or threats against a physician — federal stalking statute 18 U.S.C. § 2261A and state analogues
- Doxing — publishing personal information to enable harassment of physicians or board staff
- Identity theft — federal 18 U.S.C. § 1028, including impersonating a licensed physician
- Practising medicine without a licence — felony under all state Medical Practice Acts
- Fraudulent submission of complaints intended to harass or extort — false reporting may itself be a state offence
- Pay-to-remove disciplinary-record extortion
- Submitting false information on a licensure application — felony under most state statutes
- Unlawful access to NPDB, state board, or federal computer systems — federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act 18 U.S.C. § 1030
- Misrepresenting your identity or status to gain access to NPDB or restricted databases
15. Names and Trademarks
The names of every state medical board, FSMB, DocInfo, NPDB, OIG, DEA, CMS, NPI Registry, USMLE, COMLEX, NBOME, ECFMG, ACGME, AMA, AOA, ABMS, IMLC, and member specialty boards (e.g., ABIM, ABFM, ABS) mentioned on this site are the property of the relevant body. We use those names to identify the agency or organisation each page covers. We do not claim sponsorship, endorsement, or affiliation, and we do not reproduce official seals or logos.
If a state board, federal agency, or professional body believes our use of its name on a page is misleading or improper, please contact us and we will respond promptly.
16. If Something on This Site Is Wrong
We treat reader corrections as a priority. If you’ve called a number on our site and it didn’t work, you found an outdated complaint procedure, a wrong board URL, or a wrong executive director name — please email us with the page URL and what you believe is incorrect.
state-medical-board.org/ cannot investigate or escalate complaints. Complaints about a physician go to the state medical board (we link to all of them). Complaints about a board's handling of a complaint go to the state's executive branch oversight body, the state legislature's relevant committee, or the state inspector general or auditor. Allegations of federal Medicare/Medicaid fraud go to HHS-OIG. Civil rights claims regarding board action go to federal court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 with healthcare-regulatory counsel.
Always Verify With the Official Source
This site is a starting point. The state medical board, FSMB, NPDB, OIG, DEA, or CMS that operates the system is the source of truth. Click through to their portal — or call them directly — from any page to confirm current information.
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