Medical Doctor Background Check

A patient seeking medical care may need some sort of physician background check to make sure they are going to entrust their health to good specialist's hands. Quite a deal of information, such as credentials, certification, education, hospital privileges, professional memberships, malpractice or professional misconduct history, references etc. can be obtained by simple Internet search of publicly available records and free online databases.

Another way to find free doctor information can be by calling your state medical board. Most state medical boards do not charge, but normally they offer only limited background information on doctors. Free places allowing to research your physician's professional background history also include your local library, American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), medical society according to the specialty, and American Medical Association - in case your doctor is a Member.

As you see, both Internet websites and offline sources offering FREE doctor credentials information are numerous, but you can hardly be sure such information to be comprehensive, detailed, and always up to date, though helpful.

From the other hand, fast screening of your doctor professional background history through continuously updated official centralized databases like the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) that contains all medical doctor malpractice judgments issued in the USA, is available only to licensed private investigators or PI agencies, and is not open for general public.

If not at once, then after running your own initial screening of your medical doctor background, it is advisable to order a comprehensive physician background report from a Private Investigations company possessing due expertise and specializing in the industry, asking them for a credible doctor background check that may include:

• License verification, current and historical medical licensing check


• Education, training and credentials verification


• Social Security number trace and criminal records check


• Board Certifications and Subspecialty Certifications


• Sanction data such as billing fraud, over prescribing incompetence or other


• Comprehensive report on sanctions from various federal and state agencies, such as DEA, FDA or Department of Health and Human Services


• MD Nationwide Doctor Rating


• Sexual abuse in the practice of medicine, drugs or alcohol abuse while on the job, being engaged in conduct capable to harm another person.


• Lawsuits that have bearing on workplace conduct or job performance


• Former employers and former patient references


• Screening against general sexual offender databases

Important: for the hired private investigations agency or information broker it is legal to conduct due diligence check and/or professional history background check on your doctor only after receiving the subject's written consent for doing so.