Checking care · An explainer
How can you check a licence?
A polished page can still leave you wondering who is doing the care. Begin with a full name and the state where the care will take place.
Check the people and pharmacy behind the offer.
State medical boards publish a doctor's current licence status. Their records also show public actions they have taken against that doctor.
Medical boards · What their public records showThe Federation of State Medical Boards maintains a directory of links to the boards' own websites. It is the organisation that brings these boards together.
Medical boards · Open the state-board directoryUse the board's lookup with the doctor's full name. Compare the state, current status, and any public action with the details the service gave you.
A clean public-action record gives you no rating of the care that doctor will provide. Some states have separate boards for different doctor qualifications.
Medical boards · Limits of a clean recordIf the prescriber belongs to another health profession, find out which state board keeps their licence record. Do not assume a doctor lookup covers every health profession.
Check the pharmacy on its own record.
Pharmacy licences come from state pharmacy boards, a separate system from doctor licences.
FDA · Find your state's pharmacy lookupTo reach state pharmacy licence lookups, follow the links collected by FDA, the Food and Drug Administration. Its federal role is to review medicines.
FDA · State pharmacy licence searchesAsk for the pharmacy's full name, then match it to the board record. If you cannot find it, ask the board to clarify the record before proceeding.
A licence record confirms the licence; it does not prove that a particular medicine was supplied correctly.
FDA · What the licence check establishesTreat a badge as the start of a question.
A seal or logo on a health website may look official and still be fake, warns the Federal Trade Commission.
FTC · Checking a health website's claimsAsk which body issued the badge and what it checked. Keep the licence lookup in the picture even when an offer looks familiar.